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Tips regarding buying presents for children from Kathy Walker a private educational consultant (The Age - 27th Nov 2004):
1. Be sceptical about presents that promote themselves as enhancing a child's development. Sometimes it's just a guilt trip for parents.
2. Avoid violent games. If that's what children are exposed to, that's what they will end up doing.
3. Stick to simple toys that require children to use their imagination rather than something that performs with just a click of a button.
4. Make a present fun to unwrap. Children often like the anticipation as much as the item itself.
Teach your children well - Peter Spinks (The Age - 29th Jan 2005):
Children come wired for informal learning in every conceivable situation. As child psychologists know, playing is about learning - and one of the most valuable forms of instruction known. Home educators, those relying on distance or correspondence education, and more and more school-teachers too, realise the power of play...
What fischerwerke the makers of fischertechnik say:
The Fischertechnik collection of kits actively supports the development of skills and conceptual understanding in virtually every area of an academic educational program. Science, math, and technology education are of course the most prominent areas, but these kits also actively support intellectual development in language and applied arts, group work, and understanding of societal implications. Students are assisted in becoming educated citizens, voters, consumers, home owners, and family members.
The materials supplied with these kits allow users to develop deep understanding of not only how devices and mechanisms work but also how they may be improved and modified for human applications. Technology is not viewed as a collection of ‘black boxes’ whose contents are unknown to a user; rather technology is to be used and adapted for the betterment of human society.
Because of the far ranging nature of the kits and the educational processes they support, it would be difficult for us to specify all of them. Some of the kits are particularly suited for emphasis in specific areas but may be used across the curriculum. Because of the multi-lingual aspect of these kits, they can provide increased appreciation of world languages and the development for international comrnunications.
Some of the skills that these kits help promote:
With almost 30,000 fan club members world-wide, exhibitions in the Deutsche Museum in Munich, in Haifa and in Moscow, Vienna and Shanghai - what better proof is there of the international success of fischertechnik? Invented in 1964 as a Christmas present for the children of fischer customers, this construction toy perfectly reflects state-of-the-art engineering. Children love to live out their fantasies and "quite by chance" this toy promotes logical thinking and conveys basic technical knowledge. Playing with the building elements helps stimulate motor responses, a factor which can help physically handicapped children. The fischertechnik construction sets are not just confined to children's playrooms - today, they are also found in schools, universities and in the workshops and board rooms of major companies! Many an engineer's career began with a fischertechnik construction kit - the building blocks of life!
Ultimately, it is only the MIND which makes every technology come to life.
Finally, an interesting article appeared recently which mentions that; 'Sir Harry Kroto says that playing with Meccano, with its nuts, bolts and perforated metal strips, helped him to win his 1996 Nobel prize for chemistry.' Sir Harry goes on to suggest that the demise of Meccano (the Liverpool factory closed in 1979) is directly linked to the decline in the number and quality of science and engineering students going to university. To see the full article Click here.
Quote from a teacher:
'You will be happy to know that your equipment combined with my teaching have inspired many students to study Mechatronics... The highlight of my robotics teaching was when I had one girl in a class of 23 boys. Through my convincing, she stayed in the class and completed the unit. She then went on to study electronics at TAFE.'
Quote from Project Lead The Way:
PLTW’s curriculum makes math and science relevant for students. By engaging in
hands-on, real-world projects, students understand how the skills they are learning in
the classroom can be applied in everyday life. This approach is called activities-based
learning, project-based learning, and problem-based learning or APPB-learning.
Research shows that schools practicing APPB-learning experience an increase in
student motivation, an increase in cooperative learning skills and higher-order
thinking, and an improvement in student achievement.
Presently Fischertechnik products are used in three of the PLTW ‘hands-on’ courses, Principles of Engineering, Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) and Gateways to Technology. See: www.pltw.org.
Postscript (a personal perspective):
I introduced my daughter from the age of two to fischertechnik (controlling a robot arm on the computer) and since then she has learnt to follow the step-by-step instructions and can now, as a teenager, build the Industry Robot Arm with little assistance.
I have found that this has spilt over into other things such as following science laboratory procedures at school or following cooking instructions at home. In fact, she's become a better cook than her mum and dad just by reading books and following the instructions!
Peter King
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In Australia Phone: 03-98306288 FAX: 03-98306481.
International Phone: +61-3-98306288 FAX: +61-3-98306481. Created by: Peter E. King.
