Is there any software out there to help the little ankle biters with there mouse skills?
I've sat in on a couple of lesson and its painful! I know they're only babies and their motor skills aren't perfect but is there something out there that will get them on the right track, a game or something?
I suppose i could turn the double click speed down...or am i expecting to much from them...as you can guess i dont yet have kids lol!!
Get them on drawing packages
Tuxpaint is great and free, I have put a download link from the school site for parents to install this at home.
Agreed...Originally Posted by cooper
Things like 2Paint, etc... are great for this sort of thing...
Try getting hold of the one of the big tracker balls as some children find that very useful to use as their first pointing device.
And then just show them how the ball controls the pointer on the screen.
It gets them over the barrier of controlling a pointer on the screen with a mouse that is too easily moved away from where they want it to go.
Once they get used to moving a pointer on a screen, they then tend to naturally move to using the mouse as it gets the job (playing games) done quicker and becomes self-motivating to use properly
And IMHO nothing beats 2Paint as an introductory drawing program.
Its the IPhone of Foundation drawing
regards
Simon
Another great painting program is ArtRage. Also try using the smaller laptop mice. Can be better for smaller hands.
Well the thing i find they struggle the most with is the double click!!
Thought about enabling single click?
Check out this link http://www.rsc-ne-scotland.ac.uk/accessapps/compare.php This is a list of all sorts of software which are designed for use with people with learning difficulties. There may be some that you could use with younger children who are learning to use a computer for the first time.
The app you may be interested in is MouseTool. It is a program which allows users to use a single, double or right click when you stop mopving the mouse. You select the option you want and then when the mouse is still the selected action will take place. It also runs from a USB stick so there is no need to round and install it on all computers.
Leaps and Bounds - if the music doesn't send you doolally
Look at Albert's House from Resource Education. (Albert is a mouse) You can download it and try it free for 14 days. Lots of fun and not too many irritating noises.
Our tinies start using the ICT Suite in their pre-reception year. While it's painful at first, they master logging on with their 'top secret password' and mouse skills very fast with regular practice. In Reception they're in the ICT Suite 3 days a week... only half an hour at a time. At first it seems like they'll never do anything more than logon and logoff, but it's amazing how quickly they advance.
They use TextEase (especially the paint part) a lot at first and go on from there.
Slow down the Double click rate until they get used to it
In reception we use 2Paint and 2Publish. As a reward and if there is time Simple City always goes down well.
There's a game called Shooting Ducks on the Woodlands Junior School. You shoot the ducks, fairground style, with mouse clicks. Only single clicks, but you have to move the mouse to get the duck. May be of some use.
Kids Internet Games - Shooting Ducks and more
After watching them closely i found that most weren't holding the mice in the right place to allow them to reach the buttons properly. But this was maybe due to the size of their hands compared to the mice. I purchased some smaller sized (laptop-sized) mice. This did seem to help a little as they could reach their little fingers to the end of the buttons.
Maybe something to look at.
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