So at one point in parenting or another, you kid starts asking you for a dog. Its bound to happen, kids love animals and dogs are the quintessential pet for kids. They like playing, enjoy lots of exercise and share some of the same irrational exuberance that defines childhood.
Of course, they also require a lot of care and and someone who is going to be able to give them a lot of ongoing attention. As a parent, one hopes that you can use the adoption of a dog as an opportunity to expand your child’s level of responsibility, but the old cliche is that eventually it is the parents who end up taking care of the dog, taking it for walks, etc.
I’ve recently had this experience with my son’s virtual dog, Daniel. We gave our older son a Nintendo DS Lite for Christmas, and given that he is a big fan of “Webkins,” stuffed animals with virtual avatars in an online world for kids, I thought that he would get a big kick out the game “Nintendogs.” In Nintendogs, the player interacts with and trains a virtual dog and can compete in various obedience, disk and agility competitions. There is also the capability to interact with other dogs and owners through the built-in WiFi connectivity. I also thought that this might be a healthier alternative to the Webkins World, where the point of the game seems to be rampant consumerism. Does a dog really need a flat-panel television?
Anyway, fast forward a couple of weeks and I find myself picking up my son’s Nintendo DS for the first time (it had been a pretty busy holiday season). I boot up Nintendogs to find that my son’s virtual dog has been virtually neglected. He was hungry, thirsty and worst of all was scratching virtual fleas off his body. So I went about training his dog to sit (for some reason this is a prerequisite to being able to buy dog food) and meeting its various needs. The funniest part was scrubbing and shampooing its virtual coat with the touch screen/stylus. In the end, I had a happy, well fed and clean dog. I then spent some more time figuring out how the game worked and am in the process of teaching my son the in and outs of caring and training his virtual dog.
Its an funny commentary on the intersection of virtual with reality, but also a lesson to me on the issue of teaching kids with how to interact with technology and potential pitfalls in usability design. First, while I grew up teaching myself about technology, my kids are being exposed to technology and gadgetry at a much earlier age. This means that I can’t assume that they are going to intuitively interact with technology, rather that I will need to invest some time teaching them the ropes. Second, that virtual worlds and virtual reality simulations are going to be highly prevalent in my kids lives and that I am going to need to have a better understanding of this phenomenon in order to be able to guide and protect them. As I mentioned, I already have issues with consumerism in Webkins, and I need to talk to my kids about this and other issues/values that counter what we are trying to teach them.
Which brings me to the third point, which sum up these and other lessons to conclude that games and interactive educational tools aren’t something that are going to give us a time-out in parenting responsibilities, rather they are something that are going to be another ongoing challenge in parenting, namely how to teach our kids to interact with technology and evaluate the imagery and values that the receive through it. Read the rest of this entry »
My workstation has the typical, small 3.5 mm (1/8″, mini) connectors, which is fine because I’m not looking for super-duper professional grade audio equipment, just something that will record voices well without too much distortion and buzz. So far, It looks like the