Re: I used an Apple //e in the classroom today

[BLuRry <brendan.robert@gmail.com>]

Nice story!  I'm finding that the platform is still valuable for
education as much now as it was 20 years ago in my home.

My children have gotten quite a kick out of the classics (thanks to
virtualapple.org), and never once have they complained about the lack
of fancy graphics.  If a game is fun, it is fun.  Simply put.

My 4-year old daughter LOVES "Fishies".  The other kids like that you
can speed up the fish tank (changing the emulator speed) and that it
is way faster than the "Happy Aquarium" facebook game.  No complaints
on the graphics.  One time my daughter ran across the house and said,
"Pop!  The fish is looking at me!" so I told her "Well, you should
look right back at it."  She ran off back to the TV all excited.
**chuckle**  And I heard excited voices exclaim proudly that they
managed to conjure the mermaid again.

My 8-year old has used some of the MECC math tutor titles to help him
catch up on his addition, and likes the fact that he can make a clown
face and make a guy walk across a tightrope by getting problems right.

My 12-year and 10-year olds have enjoyed Zork (and one time I walked
away from my 10 year old and came back 30 minutes later to find him
tooling around the control room of the dam, apparently he'd started to
get the game mechanics...)  And we've had some good fun playing some
classics such as Spy vs Spy and the like.

Not to mention I'm teaching the kids programming basics using
"Scratch."  Though not retro, Scratch is basically an evolved drag-and-
drop version of Logo minus the annoying grammar, replaced with lego-
shaped command blocks that snap together -- and you can feel where
Logo inspired the language components of Scratch.

Dead platform my foot.  ;-)

][ Infinitum!!!

-B