Is STEM and robotics education important for kids? (1 Viewer)

[ceciliacao]

Nowadays, STEM education is popular, to follow this trend, I bought an robotic toy for my son, mBlock is designed to help create this surge in new young STEM talent. Students are able to start with block-based programming for easy, intuitive coding. But mBlock is also developed to help kids transition into higher levels of coding as well. With the basic coding language, Python, fully integrated into the coding application as well.
Hope it will help, what do you think? is this necessary?

 

[Linda]

As a mother of grown children, as well as someone who interacts with young children regularly, I have mixed feelings about these kinds of toys. What I see on almost a daily basis are children who have limited interaction with the natural world. To my continued amazement, I'm around children who've never seen a chicken or fruit on tree. How in the world did we get to this point?

On the other hand, we live in an increasingly technological world, and I'm quite happy taking advantage of many of the innovations. Yet, I'm disheartened seeing so many people engrossed in their phones rather than the people around them.

IMO, it falls to the parents to make sure that there is a balance, that children have plenty of time away from technology (including TVs), and that they have opportunities to learn to value and care for this planet.

So my answer is a strong maybe.

 

[Snowmelt]

Here's one way you might look at it: make sure the child has a variety (which you would anyway if more than one child was playing with the same toy) and make sure one is a sphere, one a cube, and one a flat piece of paper with crayons. That way, some of the sacred geometry is still being encoded seamlessly, by touch and feel, and expressing themselves about it in interesting ways is easy. Then, if affordable, get a mathematically correct replica of a pyramid, where the playdates can happen inside it. That will speed up learning and cognition. IMO, if the toy is technological or not is not important. If technological, they will learn aspects of that, but if you have sacred geometry around, then basic building blocks are being laid as a foundation, it will go into their "known" universe, even if on the subconscious level. All that technology is subject to change, in their own lifetimes. It may or may not give them an edge. A lot of young kids have spiritual friends in the ethers they talk to. They actually see and hear these friends, which are invisible and silent to us. Kids don't need technology for that, and most kids will lose this ability after the age of 7, so perhaps leave the technology until they are 10 or 11, letting them get on with important spiritual matters first.

 

[Sinera]

1st and only post immediately after registering, no avatar, then asking to review a software.

No self-intro, no interest in or posts about anything else from this forum (spiritual topics, etc.).

HM, Linda, doesn't this raise a red flag? Sorry to the OP if I'm wrong but it looks like it's spam to me.

 

[Snowmelt]

It is selling the Internet of Things, if you click on her link and scroll to the bottom.

I got duped by a phishing incident today on my mobile phone. Now that one was real identity fraud. I recognised the tactics and knew I'd been had, but the trouble is my mind didn't work as fast as theirs, because they pull this off on unsuspecting older people all the time. It really pays to keep the antennae up, eh, Sinera?

With regards to the thread, I think it is an honest question that parents with young children are facing today - how much technology to introduce for if you believe the hype your child will be a loser and come from the wrong side of the tracks if he/she is not programmed by age 3 into the world of electronic playback machines.

 

[June]

Although I have googled to find out more about STEM, I’m still not in a position to comment too much, other than to say.
No child should be programmed by age three with anymore stuff, they are already subtly programmed practically from birth by the tptb as it is.
Let them first explore nature and use their imagination to make up games. Do some of the old fashioned things from way back. A bit of balance is needed.

If STEM is being applauded by TPTB . If it’s supposed to make kids more creative, blah blah, it’s rather at odds with the dumbing down that appears to be going on.
Unless of course, it is to eventually turn them into good little robots.

Just my thoughts roaming around again, trying to make sense of it all

I will keep an open mind for now.

 

[Linda]

HM, Linda, doesn't this raise a red flag? Sorry to the OP if I'm wrong but it looks like it's spam to me.

The best way to handle is in a report or private message rather than on the post because then I would have been able to tell you that I had seen the post, checked out out the member, and found no issues. This is one of the reasons I commented.

If STEM is being applauded by TPTB . If it’s supposed to make kids more creative, blah blah, it’s rather at odds with the dumbing down that appears to be going on.
Unless of course, it is to eventually turn them into good little robots.

Science, technology, engineering, and math - STEM is not a government program. It is an acronym used by many educators. The basic idea is that students in the US have lagged behind the rest of the world in these areas and now there are initiatives from many sectors, non-profits, etc. to add curriculum that our pitiful education system does not have.

 

[ceciliacao]

Thanks for all your answers.
Saw the concept of STEM education, so google it, I found it is an interesting topic for parents.
The search volume of this topic shows the popularity. I just come up with one product I found, so list it as example.

 

[ceciliacao]

1st and only post immediately after registering, no avatar, then asking to review a software.

No self-intro, no interest in or posts about anything else from this forum (spiritual topics, etc.).

HM, Linda, doesn't this raise a red flag? Sorry to the OP if I'm wrong but it looks like it's spam to me.

Thanks for all your answers.
Saw the concept of STEM education, so google it, I found it is an interesting topic for parents.
The search volume of this topic shows the popularity. I just come up with one product I found, so list it as example.

 

[Linda]

Thanks for all your answers.
Saw the concept of STEM education, so google it, I found it is an interesting topic for parents.
The search volume of this topic shows the popularity. I just come up with one product I found, so list it as example.

This is an interesting topic. Clearly we, as a species, can accomplish much in many areas - some new and some ancient.

 

[Kevin C]

ceceliacao, this is the wrong forum for a STEM education question, lol.

Perhaps I can be of help.

Yes, unfortunately in this technology-based market, no matter what field you are in, to move up in the corporate ladder, there is a requirement for STEM education.

As an example, farmers and especially corporate farms/wine vineyards/etc. are using drones to monitor their crops!

Even in a non-technology company, management needs to be well-versed in programming, internet security, networking, email systems, etc. Top managers use Excel spreadsheets to build eye-pleasing graphics and crunch numbers for their data analysis, and to do this requires Excel programming skills.
What this means is a minimum requirement for job skills contains mathematics and programming. Robotics just gives kids a heads up on algebra and geometry before they get exposed to them. Does not matter whether they remember the concepts or not, just like foreign languages.

So yes, at an early age, a minimum amount of robotics and programming exposure is a start.

As a plus, some enterprising kids are able to build their own smartphone app businesses at age 12, so that is something to keep in the back of your mind.

Hopefully that eases your mind.

 

[therium]

(I have a 4 year STEM degree, and I'm a computer programmer.)

I think it's important to expose kids to a variety of toys to see what they have an aptitude in. This is especially important right in early middle school at the latest. If they show an aptitude I think it's important to get them more devices to help develop this aptitude. Potential is nothing if it's not developed and honed.

Is learning how to use a computer required? Yes. So many people do not know how to use a computer even still, even the young people! Using Facebook is not the same as being able to construct a spreadsheet with a list of expenses with the date for each, and crosstab to show a summary of expenses by month. The latter has more use in business, any business. People without developed computer skills usually end up in minimum wage jobs for much of their life.

Is learning to program required? I don't think it's required but it sure helps to get and retain a job. If you're the only person who can do X, they are not going to lay you off unless the company completely collapses, which you can't do much about anyway. Whether you can make Excel or Word macros, or use a full-blown programming language, that will give the person more value to the company.

So I don't make as much money as people might think as I work for a small company, but I do have job security as I'm the only one who can do X because X is fairly difficult. I made myself indispensable.