Advices for teaching kids
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Hi all,
As a sketchup Trainer, I want to organize some free training sessions for kids, in schools of my neighborhood, in order to learn them SketchUp and 3d modeling.
As I have no kids, I was wondering which ages would be better to aim for those sessions. Did one of you already make this kind of things with kids, or for those that have kids at home, which age would be the better one to start learning and playing with SU ?
Thanks for any advice !
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Seems 6 to 8 will be possible!
That is a wonderful toy!
Don't forget to show the possibility to paint object with color or material!
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Du moment que le(a) gamin(e) maitrise la souris, c'est possible.
Je dessine parfois avec ma gamine de 3 ans et elle trouve ça naturel, je dois me battre pour conserver mon trackball.
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Kids these days are wired in early, so I say the younger the better. Remember kids have a very short attention span so try not over talk your explanations. Let them play, challenge them and have them compete with simple tasks like first to build a box, then an extruded sphere, until they have all shapes and skills needed to build their own car.
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Bonnie's blog may help.
She has a teaching site for SU.
http://3dvinci.blogspot.com/ -
Hi again, and thanks a lot for your answers !
And as you said, I'll definitly try to make kids play with SU ! When I was young, I was playing Meccano (construction game with metal parts) and I see SU like a virtual Meccano where Kids can build what they want, express their imagination...and hopefully I'll have fun doing it ! -
Iv being teaching my step son SU for the past few months as he wanted to learn, he's 7yrs old and picked it up quick, he has managed to build postman pats van and a few other models from the Cartoon Network, he picked it up fast and is always eager to learn more, to be honest he is catching up with me at a rapid pase.
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Great idea, Panga - this kind of thing can be so much fun, I love it when my brother's kids visit - I enjoy my "Uncle Steve" training sessions every bit as much as they do.
I would add to the other advice...@panga said:
virtual Meccano
Yes, examples from the real world will make the principles of SU much simpler to understand. Creating a folder of basic components that are simple to fit together would be useful (e.g. the parts to build a simple car) - that gives a chance to raise interest by building interesting things very quickly; and good practice for navigating the model, inferencing etc. - the skills they will need to use the modelling tools effectively.
If the children are already familiar with Legos, Fischer-Technic etc., maybe model some of those as components to build with. I would not rely on using models from the warehouse etc. as they may be too complex - better to use components that they can easily learn to build for themselves when the 'geometry' tools are introduced.@solo said:
Let them play
Yes!! To keep their interest, let them guide the learning as much as possible, and give them time to experiment. Encouraging sharing and teamwork may help to keep projects fun - try and have a shared components folder somewhere if possible, so that they can share their models with each other, or each work on a small component used to build a group project.
On a practical note - before you start any lessons, visit the schools and check out SU on their PC's, to make sure there are no technical problems (e.g. OpenGL graphics glitches), and that you are able to set up the required shared folders etc. without access permission problems. Solving technical issues is not easy when you are surrounded by a room full of children all wanting your attention!!
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Thanks Trogluddite for those observations ! Nice idea to build something from premodeled parts !
Concerning 3D warehouse...I'll definitly not rely on it, too messy for me and most of time bad models...Concerning practical things, I'm aware of SU requisities and I'll not propose any training sessions if PCs are not good for SU.
Anyway, thanks again for your thoughts, they're very usefull !!
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