The Pursuit of Tinkering

Today, Crayola and Core Learning released Crayola Art Studio, a digital art program for children. From the press release:

Crayola Art Studio has a wide range of drawing and painting tools including many realistic art tools that simulate the real effects of traditional art tools such as Crayola crayons, pencils, markers, watercolors, tempera paint and more.

I don’t want to be a downer, but why not just use real crayons? Seriously. How could simulated crayons possibly be any better than the real thing?

To be fair, I understand that Crayola must feel some pressure to be part of the digital world. After all, in the very near future there won’t be any paper. Right? Right. Well I think it’s just fine for Crayola to join the digital age. In fact, as a father of two children and a shameless computer/Internet addict, I’ve actually spent an afternoon or two thinking about this.

At our house, my kids are still creating art the old-fashioned way. With actual crayons and paper. And they are creating lots of it. Being a geeky dad (that’s me to the right), as soon as they finish a drawing, I scan it in. Just takes one-click with a cheap $50 scanner I bought from Amazon.com. Then, after they go to bed, I spend a few minutes emailing their drawings to the grandparents, posting them to Flickr and my Facebook page, then tagging them in iPhoto so I can use them to torture the kids at their weddings.

There are a million things to do with kid art on the computer. And none of them have to do with creating the art. We should be using our computers to share the art!  Crayola, let’s talk. I’ll get you excited about it.

Toys aren’t inherently bad. There are just lots of bad toys. WalMart is bad. I know that pretty much for certain. With that in mind, I deliver to you the following:

The American Specialty Toy Retailing Association just published a press release regarding holiday toy shopping on a budget. And while I usually avoid retail associations for shopping advice, I thought it was worth passing along. Here is one of several better-than-average tips:

If you have less to spend this year, make the most of it by buying toys that are a good fit with the child’s abilities and interests. If the toy is a good match, you can expect the child to spend more hours playing with it and you will need fewer toys. While big box stores generally do not have experts available, the staff at small locally-owned toy stores understand child development and specialize in helping customers choose safe, developmentally appropriate toys.

Read the full release: This Season, Depend on Your Creativity as Much as Your Credit Card

Have you heard about No Child Left Inside? Why am I always the last to know…

I’ve been told more than once that I’m not a “joiner,” but this is a movement that I think I could get behind. If for no other reason than I just attended the Minneapolis showing of the Banff Mountain Film Festival. I have to say, those skiers, mountain bikers, kayakers, rock climbers, etc… sure seemed a hell of a lot happier than most of the designers and programmers I hang out with. Think they know something we don’t? Perhaps it’s time to log-out of Twitter, power down the MacBook, and take the kids out for a walk. What do you think?

For my to-do list: Learn more about this Richard Louv guy and his book that appears to have started all this.

For your to-do list: click on that Banff link above and get all inspired.

Our last few attempts to take the kids to the art museum ended in disaster. No Monets were harmed, but tantrums were thrown. It just isn’t a kid-friendly place.

A story by Barbara F. Backer might help. It has a few good ideas for engaging kids during a visit to the art museum that I plan to try next time. The best bet, for my kids, is her suggestion to kick-off a game of I-Spy each time you enter a new gallery. Perfect.

Minneapolis Institute of Arts here we come. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Will the current economic turmoil help us rediscover our ability to imagine and create? Sure sounds like it could from this great write-up at The Simple Dollar blog: Christmas Inspiration from a Stick and a Cardboard Box.

The post analyzes the 41 toys inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame and recognizes that of the set:

1. Several are free.
2. All but a few cost less than $10.00 if purchased new.
3. Almost all of the toys are sturdy and can therefore be found second-hand.
4. Almost all of the toys are open-ended and therefore inspire imagination and creativity.

Right on. As the author states:

In short, give a little more imagination and spend a little less money. If you really feel obligated to spend that money, make a donation to the child’s 529 in addition to the gift.

Also, check out the Fifteen Ways to Have Cheap Fun With Your Kids Using a $1 End Roll of Paper post on the same blog. Brilliant.

No holding back for Harvard psychologist Dr. Susan Linn who, in this Edmonton Sun article, states that:

…the convergence of “technology and unfettered commercialism is a disaster for children” turning them into “passive observers.”

The article is worth reading. I’m not sure I buy the bit about iPods. Could you image a teen trying to cope with a breakup without music? Still, there are lot’s of great insights and no shortage of strong opinions, such as this:

“Dolls can now jump, dance and do back flips — the toys are actually having more fun than the kids.”

And this:

“There’s no time, space or silence to develop their innate capacity for hands-on self-generated creative play, to engage naturally and spontaneously.”

And this:

…a good toy is 90% child and 10% toy.

Check it out: The Case for Make Believe, written by Joanne Richard

Check out this article: MIT Media Lab Creates Center for Future Storytelling.

From Media Lab director Frank Moss:

“Storytelling is at the very root of what makes us uniquely human. It is how we share our experiences, learn from our past, and imagine our future”

So true. The article describes how MIT’s creation of a new Center for Future Storytelling will revolutionize the art:

“With the establishment of this Center–whose research program begins immediately–the Media Lab and Plymouth Rock Studios will collaborate to revolutionize how we tell our stories, from major motion pictures to peer-to-peer multimedia sharing. By applying leading-edge technologies to make stories more interactive, improvisational, and social, researchers will seek to transform audiences into active participants in the storytelling process, bridging the real and virtual worlds, and allowing everyone to make their own unique stories with user-generated content on the Web. Center research will also focus on ways to revolutionize imaging and display technologies, including developing next-generation cameras and programmable studios, making movie production more versatile and economic.”

Our kids are growing up in a pretty cool world… Efforts such as this help me feel optimistic about their future.

Wow. Check out this post on Rich Hoeg’s eContent blog: Innovation After Kindergarten. In it, he references some great info from IDEO General Manger and author Tom Kelley. Here’s a snippet:

“Tom Kelley reviewed the works of an artist named Gordon McKenzie. This artist visited a school and spent time with each class from grades K through six. When he asked the kindergartners how many of them were artists … almost every hand went up. By the time he got to the sixth grade and asked the same question, only two hands went up. Somewhere in the intervening six years the children had learned how not to be creative … but instead looked around the classroom and sought their peer’s approval.”

Rich adds to this with his own observation:

“As a coach of Lego Robotics for the pas six years, I learned the same lessons. While the designs from the Minnesota H.S. robotics teams are robust, when it comes to creativity every coach knows one must visit the elementary school competitions. The younger children have not yet been taught what does not yet work. They experiment.”

With a daughter currently in kindergarten, and another set to begin in fall 2010, this is powerful and scary stuff…

I’d classify that as a bold generalization, but my gut tells me there’s plenty of truth in it. That and more are covered in this worthwhile interview with Ginger Carlson, author of “Child of Wonder: Nurturing Creative and Naturally Curious Children.” Here is a quick sample:

“What it boils down to is that schools aren’t able to nurture real creative thinking skills,” Carlson says. “I hate to say that in such a public forum. There are a lot of things that schools do provide. It is difficult in a school setting for us to really allow kids, especially if we have up to 30 kids in a classroom, to allow them to explore things on a deep level. We are seeing art and theater and all these things slipping from our schools in a way we haven’t seen in a long time.”

One research finding that Carlson references states that children that play outside in natural surroundings are more creative than children that play outside on playgrounds. Interesting…

Is the lack of play time in early childhood education the next global warming? Perhaps, according to this article by AP writer David Crary.