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Software 101: Teaching Your Kids Some Application Basics
BrittG | | 
0
pointing & clicking before walking?
By Dave Banks Email
September 10, 2008 | 9:00:00 AM
Wired Magazine
My kids have been pointing and clicking since before they were walking. When they were very little, they would sit on my lap and I'd fire up a little piece of OS X freeware called Baby Banger that creates colored shapes and sounds every time the mouse is clicked. As they got a little older, they moved into game playing on an old computer. Didi & Ditto, Groovy Music and, of course, Kid Pix became instant favorites. But now that they're in first-grade, I want to kick it up a notch and begin working with them on building some basic skills in real-life applications.
First, I decided which apps to concentrate on. Recently, my kids have shown interest in writing e-mails to their grandparents, so our e-mail client, Apple Mail, will be on the list. They see mom & dad browsing all the time, therefore Firefox will be included. And then, in order for them to understand some of the productivity tasks a computer can help with, we'll take a look at Photoshop and InDesign, the tools that this GeekDad can be seen using most often at home.
