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Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
Obviously you’ll want to start with absolute basics like mouse and keyboard navigation.
Beyond that? Maybe something involving a ‘treasure hunt’ to learn about navigating files and folders, renaming files, and copying vs. moving them.
Anecdotally, I’ve heard lots of kids coming up now really struggle with the concept of file systems, so it’s definitely something worth teaching early.
if they have shown any interest at all in programming, regular expressions is another topic that would be worthwhile to start learning 'early'.
Damn. I love this community. Lemmy goes hard.
"My kid can read now."
"It's never too early to teach them regular expressions."
Edit: To be clear, I agree. It's just great to be among like minded folks, here.
Is there a good place to start learning regular expressions as if I'm a young kiddo who just learned to finally read? Lol
...I have a wee one on the way so I'd like to get ahead of this knowledge myself lol. 😅
I love the treasure hunt idea.
Hey dad, Thinkercad is 100% online and has one of those building blocks coding. It has courses for young kids and he can even learn how to model in 3d. Very simple and fun
Really depends on what they're into in general, but if they show interest in coding, I'd recommend Scratch. It's a coding platform made (primarily) for kids, I got really into it once, and still tinker with it sometimes. I'd say that Scratch is easy to learn, hard to master, and fun.
They have done the code.org basic course which is in scratch.. ish.
That was a few years ago though, they might be ready for freeform coding with the full environment.
Honestly give them Minecraft and let them loose on that. For a 7yo that's a great challenge.
And when they get a handle on the base game, you can build up all kind of skills with texture packs and mods.
Its also easy to make a self hosted server. Which has its own set of challenges, but would be great if they get a few friends to play.
They already build cities in minecraft but on the playstation. Good idea to include that on the PC.
Maybe get them to use keyboard and mouse instead of a controller? Still teaches computer literacy and it's a good control schema to get used to as a child
You could do what my dad did and accidently delete some of the system files, leaving it for your kid to fix.
The reason I want my children to have access to a computer specifically, is that while TVs and phones are used to consume, computers are used to create.
Joking aside, that's an interesting perspective. I hadnt really thought of it that way before, despite using a computer to create things almost every day.
You could do what my dad did and accidently delete some of the system files, leaving it for your kid to fix.
Now I assume this thread is full of folks trying to figure out if we found our siblings Lemmy account...
Maybe something creative, like making a poster in libre office?
I remember when i was 10-ish ms Word 97 was the shit. I liked to use word art to create and print my name and other texts. Children this age like to be creative if you show him a program and let him loose exploring it, he'll learn a lot.
You could install something like LMMS and let them experiment with making their own music (without needing recording equipment or learning real instruments yet).
Oh hey I didn't know about LMMS, this is definitely going on the list!
Scratch (programming suite) or ScratchJR to start
Tobbie2 robot (STEM focus, build the robot and then program the BBC micro:bit board inside)
GCompris - educational games
Anki - flashcard based learning, of many downloadable topics(whatever their interests are)
Ktuberling - Mr Potatohead, scene creator
Powdertoy - Falling sand sandbox physics program. Can be fun(TNT) or serious, plenty of downloadable creations like: nuclear reactor, steam turbine, car(ICE) etc
Does your kid like minecraft? Make a game with them on the minetest/luanti engine. For a base game you can use Minetest Game or a minecraft clone like Mineclonia and follow this modding book. Have the kid make 16x16px textures in gimp and you can rtegister some modded blocks Its as easy as this:
minetest.register_node("default:stone", { description = S("Stone"), tiles = {"default_stone.png"}, groups = {cracky = 3, stone = 1}, drop = "default:cobble", legacy_mineral = true, sounds = default.node_sound_stone_defaults(), })
What a great idea, I have been looking for ways to get them into programming in a fun way.
Editing a text file (I guess writing a story has that covered?)
Deleting a program (I did not know how to remove programs for the longest time as a kid… this was on windows, mind you. I figured just deleting the desktop icon was all it took. Oops.)
Changing display resolution and scale (Really just poking around the accessibility menu in general is valuable, lots of useful stuff even for someone with good vision etc.)
Have him open it up, clean the dust, and put it back together again.
I was actually considering a desktop PC for this reason...
Some laptops are ok, my old clevo was 9 screws and the entire back slides off.
Some laptops are terrible, my current MSI is like 14 screws and 20 clips. For some reason the MSI just doesn't get cleaned as often.
Adding to this, to have them learn about static build up and how to ground themselves before touching anything in an electronic device. PC/laptop in particular.
A great skill to have in life regsthing computers is typing fast, so give him the challenge to reach a certain wpm
I'm not exactly young anymore and things have sure changed a lot since I learned my way around a computer. But here are the things I remember being fun for me back then:
Drawing around in paint (you already have that covered)
Creating presentations. Maybe like: Make a presentation about your favourite topic. This might involve collecting pictures either from the internet or getting them from a camera / phone on the laptop.
Playing some games (in my case pinball, but that's definitely not very up to date). You can learn quite a bit about clicking through menus etc from playing games.
Something else that would be important to learn early is created folders and keeping some sort of system with your files. I struggle to come up with a fun way to teach that though. Maybe someone else has a good idea?
You can make an image of the / drive so it's easier to restore if they break the system.
I you can slowly teach them to use the command line, if they can read fluently using the cli shouldn't be that hard. You can teach them the basic commands, and teach them to install a program with apt.
Also, you said write a short story? The teach them vim (or emacs if you prefer that).
You can install vmpk (or some other music keyboard emulation program) so they can play some music. And if they get more interested get them LMMS and later ardour + advanced stuff.
Krita is a super nice program to draw, and colour (tho no fun without a drawing tablet), maybe you can teach them vectorial drawing on inkscape. And if they like it then install Blender and go 3D.
Teach them to launch Vim, and they can spend their remaining computer use time using Vim.
Unless they figure out how to exit vim, then please have them come teach me how.
Sorry. I will see myself out.
My kids have Raspberry Pi 400s (which I ought to upgrade to 500s, as they complain about them being too slow).
I think those specifically are a good choice for this use-case because they come with a big (physical, paper!) book that teaches kids all sorts of stuff that can be done with them.
The first thing I did in Linux was to change my wallpaper/ UI and Icon themes.
Maybe these would be really easy first challenges that a child would look into anyways, to make the system feel like theirs. I remember constantly changing wallpapers when I was a kid. I wonder what I'd had done with the options Linux offered.
Further down the line I'd explain sudo apt update/ upgrade (or equivalent) to them, so they can do some basic maintenance.
Maybe coming up with coded messages? With a code language.
(they don't need to be difficult)
Those tasks sound simple enough :3
Could also throw in things like take a screenshot, or file navigation. If they've not used a computer knowing where to find things will come in handy
Give them the gentoo install guide.
I'm trying to be a good parent, not traumatize them.
take a look at endless os.
https://www.endlessglobal.com/foundation/access/operating-system
specifically, the 'full' install with all the goodies and content 'preinstalled'.
notes from personal experience (i use endless at home): don't be tempted by the ability to install alongside windows and dual boot. it's not optimal by any stretch. that configuration uses windows as the boot manager (windows has to basically boot to get to that menu), and endless and its data is then stored in a loop device (slow, especially with old hdd). do a normal install (use the 'advanced' option in the windows installer to make an 'endless usb stick' then choose the 'full' image). you will need a 64gb flash drive for an english language 'full' installer of the current (6.0.8) version.
If you can figure out how to get it all running, there used to be a lot of really good edu-tainment software in the 90s.
I learnt as a 5 year old typing stuff into DOS because I wanted to play games on it.
What do your kids want to do at the computer? That drive will make them motivated learners.
From cmd line, run a game
This is a wonderful idea.
Off hand, I would agree with understanding file navigation. I would suggest you make a sort of capture the flag treasure hunt. First round, find the file. Second round, move the file. Third round, rename the file.
Installing and uninstalling apps, including looking at reviews online to see what app is best for drawing, for example. Say the challenge is you can only install 2 apps and can only keep one.
Hour to add and delete bookmarks from the browser.
Good luck with this!
An arduino would pair well and do some pretty cool stuff, maybe motivate them towards coding. They make some Lego compatible projects too. Maybe also typing challenge games or offline only minecraft
Let them play colobot. It's very cool game (it has a rocket, alien spiders, and robots), and it lets you program your robots. Besides programming, they can also learn reading documentation.
Break the system so hard that you need to reinstall the system.
Blender is cool but without a lot of guidance it is impossible to use. Blockbench is easier, and they could figure out how to put their creation inside Minecraft.
Pivot animator but it would need to run under wine/proton
Make a song, I would look into bosca ceoil blue and audacity.
Make a short movie
For real this time:
Drag and drop
Copy paste
Select multiple things
Compress and decompress archive
Google something
Find home on the map
Listen to a song.
Send email.
Take a photo with built-in camera and screenshot.
Take a backup
Share a file over the network.
Make terminal go brrrrrr du / (cowsay, lolcat and cmatrix are also fun)
Input an emoji
Change wallpaper, enable wobbly windows and THE CUBE
Covers:
The challenge sets itself. I recommend starting there - my kids love it.