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Minecraft EDU
Kids love Minecraft! My kids love Minecraft!
Microsoft has now come up with an educational version of Minecraft just for schools to link learning to the game kids love. Minecraft: Education Edition is available for purchase by schools, libraries, museums, and participants in nationally recognized homeschool organizations. Teachers have to use their school accounts to verify their status, but then can sign up for information. There are lesson plans, environments and tons of other resources. I found it especially interesting that they have a set of lesson plans for ‘learning’ empathy. As a parent of an ASD kid, this seems like a useful skill for kids to learn. There are boolean logic, urban planning and more as other plans.
What a great way to get kids excited about learning, but playing a game that they enjoy!
Eclipse Coming Up
August 21st there will be an eclipse! This one is pretty rare. The moon will pass between the Earth and the Sun. (The sun is a lot larger than the moon, but the moon is a lot closer). The eclipse is only visible from a certain path and in the US that happens to include where I am located! (If not cloudy that day) Many of the locations are having special events. If you are interested check the universities near you – if you are in the path. The path will go through Yellowstone National Park, and many others – including parts of Kentucky where I live.
To view the sun, even during an eclipse you need special glasses. During an eclipse looking at the sun or taking pictures of it can ruin your eyes or camera. There are special filters for cameras and special glasses available for your eyes. If you search Amazon, you can find a whole list of glasses available. We have ours already!
You can also make a pinhole camera to see the eclipse. = http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Pinhole-Camera The eclipse seems a long way away, but the hotels in all the locations in the path are already all booked up.
Alexa in our House?
Personally I love Alexa – I ask her what the forecast is, what temperature it is, to set the temperature in rooms, and to turn off and on lights! It works great for lights that are in the corners of the room behind the chairs and impossible to reach. The Alexa has a large speaker and will read a book from audible, play music, and you can get her to tell a joke too!
I happened to leave my son and husband at home the other day alone with Alexa, in the past this has en a problem, but she has been on the news lately. My son hasn’t really shown an interest in her (and neither has my husband), so I didn’t think anything of it. I came home to find Alexa unplugged. My son told me they did it, and said that she just kept interrupting them. I’m still not sure how it happened, but the response they gave me was that we don’t need computers in every part of our life…. a step back for my smart home plan! I have moved Alexa into our bedroom in the hope that it fixes this.
This morning though my son showed his true love for everything literal. Everything started out innocently when I asked if today was music day? Nope it’s not. Oh I thought you had music today. He said he did, but not all day. We went on to our quandary of what to wear! It’s 55 according to the temperature in our window. I, of course turned to Alexa for the forecast – 56 with a high of 65…. Needless to say this didn’t go over well. Alexa gave a different temperature than our thermometer on the window. As I tried to explain that Alexa used a different place and couldn’t walk to the window, I realized that Alexa is mine… and it’s my toy. In our house I’m not sure it will ever be more than a toy, and I’m not sure anyone but me will use it. I do like it though! For what I’m using it for, I could have gotten the cheaper Echo Dot, but for me this works and we have it now.
After the story in the news I did add a special code for ordering. The code is one that everyone knows, including the 8 year old. I just want to be sure no one orders by mistake!
Lumi Drone
One of the items we decided our youngest would love to try was the Lumi drone! It’s by Wowee, a great kid friendly, easy to use company.
We gave it a try and right after charging it was simple to fly. We actually have only flown it in the house even. The only thing it’s lacking that I would love is a camera. The drone though comes with a beacon that can be set for the drone to follow. It also is set up so that after hitting the button to cause the drone to lift off, it will hover in spot. The drone then can be flown with little movements similar to a joystick. -Additional buttons allow the drone to be flipped and move up and down. Personally I hadn’t given a try to our other drones, but was able to fly this one with no problem!
Besides all these options, the drone includes some games to play. My favorite reminded me of a simon says, but just involved the drone blinking colors and the user having to choose those colors quickly on your mobile device to match and follow along.
Lumi was easy to hook up to and does include an option to record from your mobile device, but no camera – being my one thing that detracts from all the great points. Our next drone will need to have a camera and allow flight through a VR headset similar to the drones on the Drone Racing League, but this one is a GREAT Start!
Cozmo the robot!
The robot Cozmo showed up for Christmas at our house! Cozmo is set up to learn as you play with him. I did find that I have to hook my phone to the Cozmo wireless network each time we want to play with Cozmo – which is not the easiest and not really something my youngest will set up for himself. He’s using my phone though so I’m usually involved in him playing with Cozmo anyway.
One of the first things Cozmo did was learned to say my son’s name. Giving him a personality. My son was then excited to play the game of tap with him. The interested though seemed to wane when Cozmo lost a couple times and acted sad. I saw my son trying to console Cozmo over the loss.
Yesterday I ended up completing the goals for the day. My youngest did get a little involved with showing me what I was doing wrong, but didn’t seem to want to do any of the training himself. I’m hoping that as time goes on he will gain interest again as Cozmo develops more personality.
Only time will tell how this robot will go with my son. For most kids I think the personality and daily goals will interest them and give them something new to interest them.
We are just getting ready to start day 3, so far we have learned:
- Cozmo learned our name
- Playing Tap
- Stacking Blocks
- Knocking Over Blocks
- Play Cozmo Says
- Keep Away
- Doing a Wheelie
- and more!
Playing the game of keep away, involves bringing the block close to Cozmo and the robot trying to grab it while the child tries to pull it away right at the last second. I could hear my son laughing, and trying it again while playing. – I’d take a video, but he uses my phone! Every so often the robot gets the cube, and when it misses the robot says ‘awwwww’.
The emotion part of the robot is hard for my little one to process. He can’t handle making the robot sad, so I’m not sure how it will work for him. He tends to avoid things like this. We didn’t even make it through the whole movie The Secret Life of Pets, because the pets were too mean. So if your child is ASD it’s something to keep in mind. I do hope that the robot will interest him and help him, so we will keep trying… as emotions from others are tough to manage.
I’m waiting for my older two to find out about the Cozmo SDK Beta that is available at developer.anki.com. It will be interesting to see what happens when everyone wants the robot!
Robots for Christmas
There are a million types of robots available for the holidays! My son has decided robots are fun! Last year we got the Meccanoid robot. It took us two days to put it together. – Ours is the one that is the same size as my eight year old. Now there are a lot of other meccanoids, but also a lot of other type of robots.
My son has decided he wants the Cozmo for this year. I usually like the Wow wee robots, so I can’t wait to see how the Cozmo does. Shopping at Target recently I did see the Mebo robot with the manipulating arm. It looked really cool! The robots and drones are now getting more and more features and really cool to play with!
About Me
I am a SAHM/WAHM of three boys ranging in age from 16 to 32. We are working on saving enough for college at the same time as dealing with school and our older independent kids. I author a few blogs, including http://teched4kids.com. I have in the past taught computer information technology classes for the local university and taught workshops for kid's in technology education besides being the Kentucky State FIRST LEGO League Championship Coordinator from 2005 to 2008. I now work as a computer consultant, run a handmade home business, and am available for workshops. Life here is always an adventure!
