Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion

Awesome software for kids

<< < (3/3)

ayryq:
I started looking for shops marketing to schools - found this site, for example: http://www.childrenssoftwareonline.com
Looks like a good way to see how old a software is is to see what Windows versions it supports. They sell a lot of Dorling Kindersley titles which purport to support Vista, for example. (DK made The Way Things Work that I mentioned earlier.) Of course, http://www.dorlingkindersleysoftware.com/ is a parked domain now. There's a lot of stuff by Arc Media which look cool but explicitly say they do not work on 64-bit Windows.

Renegade:
And the number of programs for Windows PCs is much (much) smaller, and also harder to find.
-ayryq (June 04, 2015, 09:01 AM)
--- End quote ---

That and...

Of course, http://www.dorlingkindersleysoftware.com/ is a parked domain now.
-ayryq (June 04, 2015, 10:21 AM)
--- End quote ---

...that go hand in hand.

What is really needed now is an Android (or other mobile OS) emulator for Windows/PickSomeDesktopOS.

The desktop is near dead for "users" -- they are all on smart phones and tablets now.

If you do continue to search, try looking for "abandonware" to see if there's much in the kids' department there.

But I wouldn't expect much in the way of variety to emerge on a desktop OS. The desktop is now only a productivity tool, and not for casual computing. I'm speaking from a developer's perspective there and looking at where the real market is and where a developer can make a living.


We have a truckload of different apps on my wife's tablet for our daughter, and she picks what she wants to do. She particularly likes ones with nice music and vocabulary apps.

But a vocabulary app is drop dead simple to make. Like, stupid simple. There are quite a few out there.

What would be nice is some kind of an app designer for vocab (or similar) where you can customise the content. That's a bit of work, but not much beyond the basic app.

ayryq:
The desktop is near dead for "users" -- they are all on smart phones and tablets now.


But I wouldn't expect much in the way of variety to emerge on a desktop OS. The desktop is now only a productivity tool, and not for casual computing.
-Renegade (June 04, 2015, 12:10 PM)
--- End quote ---

I don't know what to say to that. I guess,

* You're probably right, and
* that sucks.
The capabilities of a desktop (or laptop) computer will always exceed those of a tablet (until those two categories finally merge...) and the only thing making use of it is games (for grown-ups). What I'm looking for here are not games.


We have a truckload of different apps on my wife's tablet for our daughter, and she picks what she wants to do. She particularly likes ones with nice music and vocabulary apps.

But a vocabulary app is drop dead simple to make. Like, stupid simple. There are quite a few out there.
-Renegade (June 04, 2015, 12:10 PM)
--- End quote ---

I think the categories I'd be most interested in would be Science/STEM, History and Geography. Categories that lend themselves to higher-budget, deeper, more immersive treatment. My kids like the "apps" (aside: This is "short" for application not only in name but in fact) but they mostly look like they were made "drop dead simple" in some successor to Macromedia Flash. I wonder what Science centers are buying for their kiosks?

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[*] Previous page