Anachronistic Mom Blog

Too much adulthood can harm you

In the interest of enabling the inner child, may I introduce a pretty darn good toy site that I just found?

Baron Bob.com looks as though it's chock full of absolutely ridiculous things.  

Take the wacky yodeling electronic pickle.  Ever wondered who designs this stuff?

Website tips from Bill Gates

I just read the interview between Arianna Huffington and Bill Gates from the Ted conference.  In it, Gates lets drop some of the websites that he references.

I was very pleased to see him mentioning watching lectures from The Teaching Company at www.teach12.com.  Some of my favorite lectures have been from the Teaching Company and I had no idea that you could get them in DVD format and watch them. One of my favorite lecture series from them was about the making of the New Testament!

Gates, on the other hand, was touting a lecture series on Modern Economic Issues, by Robert Whaples.

If you haven't experienced them, these lectures are given by wonderful University professors. People who are steeped in their knowledge, and so passionate, so erudidite that it's a joy to listen to them.  Next time you need to take a break, check them out. They're not cheap, but you can swap 'em with friends, and I bet you can get them at the library as well.

Cozi family scheduler

I'm looking through Web 2.0 apps tonight. (WOW.  Some of them really *are* just a feature!) and found one called Cozi.  Have you heard of it? Check it out. It's sofware made to support home life.  Like - your schedule, shopping list, pictures, and so forth. I find it vaguely intriguing...

Psst - Hey! Want to play in a contest?

While going through some web 2.0 apps today I ran into a company called Adooga. Check it out. It apparently lists hundreds and hundreds of contests!  

crayon physics and itsa bitsa

It's late, so this is just a little nugget of information for later on. Games are finally working!

I guess we had to wait until technology supported creativity, but two new games make me ecstatic as the parent of a young (not so young now, but my interest continues.)

The first game, Itsa Bitsa, is a lovely game. It was spun off from Microsoft, and the founder has two young children herself. She wanted a game that really DID encourage them to read.

The child interacts with the game by drawing items (e.g. a house). They are then asked where the door is, and when the draw the door, it opens.  The main character has a list of actions that it can do (all geared for easy reading), and the game is very well-done. Made for the younger set, it's probably great for 4,5, 6, perhaps even 7 year olds.  My 8 year old zipped into it and had fun for about two hours, but I think he's exhausted the game now.

Check it out, though. It's a lovely approach.

The second game is something that I cannot wait to buy. I hear that it comes on the iphone or on your desktop (although I would think that, for sheer visibility, the desktop version is better.).  It's called Crayon Physics.  You draw items that then interact.  I have plans in my engineering folder for something like this, so I'm pleased as pie that someone finally did it.

I cannot wait to see where the "just draw it" technology takes us.

Thought of volunteering? Read Sundays with Matthew

Here's another story about a wonderful volunteer who has gotten immense value (and given it) from volunteering.  Sundays with Matthew is a book that Jeanette, an art therapist, has written in tandem with Matthew, the 12 year old autistic boy that she volunteers with.

The most fun site - vintage ads!

These are fun. Check 'em out. You can scroll backwards by increments of 20 to look at vintage ads submitted by viewers.

Found in my bookmarks: Write like and Egyptian

Check it out. Your name in hieroglyphs!  Why isn't this on my iphone?

Schwab Learning Case Study - neat stuff

I just stumbled onto this really impressive case study of the Schwab Learning foundation.  If you have anything to do with setting up community, info-usage sites, check it out.

best educational video games

This is a cool website. It looks at educational video games!  And here's their article about educational video games from the 80's.  Remember Carmen San whatever it was?

Here's their Top sites for finding free educational video games

I'll have to make a page on this topic because I disagree with a lot of these suggestions.  Here's a wonderful game that **I** recommend. It's called Fantastic Contraption, you probably have to play it with your kid because it's so complicated, but it's a fun game about ... physics!

There used to be some games that would let children "build" things with gears and such to see how they worked. These seem to have falled by the wayside, but in my humble opinion, learning about physics and how gears work is waaaay better for you than the pap most video games provide.