Growing up in the age of technology presents one with interesting questions. How soon should children be introduced to computers? What about TV? Cell phones? The internet? The approach that I'm trying to take is one of moderation. Essentially, exposure is OK as long as it is in limited, well-defined doses.

To help keep Aila occupied on our trip to Blue Skies this year, we bought her a VTech InnoTab 2 tablet, along with several different cartridges. She is a little young for it, but she does enjoy listening to the stories, dragging icons onto the calendar, and painting in the art studio app. In order to limit use, we keep it in the car and that is the only place she is able to use it.

My quick review: This is a great little tablet, and the user interface is pretty easy for a little kid to figure out. My main complaint is the extremely narrow viewing angle. When we are sitting in the car and she needs help navigating the UI, I almost have to take my seatbelt off and put my face in front of hers just to see what is on the screen. Also, boot times (for both the tablet and the cartridges) are quite long, leading to the often heard phrase: "It's not working!" It is also quite easy to turn off by accident.

This is a photo I took one day as we were coming home after work. I stopped at the end of the driveway to get the mail, and this is what I saw from the mailbox.

Technical Details: This photo was taken with my LG Pop.

Comments

This mobile display is working very well on my Blackberry. When I zoom in to
enlarge the print I appreciate the way it adjusts to the screen size. Helgard
Hyman once told me that having a physical distinction made a big difference to
learning. Her examples were for language: if dad is french and mum is english,
or one language upstairs the other down or always dinner in the other language.
We used to have no tech toys and no TV in Ompah. Same thing I think to cause
less confusion and allow a time for immersion in a particular activity. 
Also,
I love this picture!