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How to Set Up a Cheap Kid’s Computer
How to Set Up a Cheap Kid’s Computer
When your child has started to learn to read, write, and speak, the second best gift that you can give your child, next so spending time with them, is to prepare them for life in our new high tech world. Giving your child a computer, even a very basic, inexpensive system, will help them immensely in their learning and will help them to develop technical aptitude very early in life.
A Cheap Computer for Your Child
One of the advantages of getting a computer for your child is that acquiring the system can be downright cheap. Most educational software and learning programs that you will want your child to be using are inexpensive and do not require a powerful system to run them.
If cost really is the most important aspect of your computer search for your child, you should begin in a thrift store. Chances are that you will be able to find a computer that was donated from two to three years ago. These systems will contain a motherboard that will function with all of the recent accessories and peripherals that are on the market, and often will come with working memory, a video card, a sound card, and sometimes even a small hard drive. This sort of system could be acquired for anywhere between $50 and $100 and may even function as you found it at the thrift store. You should always check to see if the computer has an operating system installed before you commit to purchasing it. Simply connect it to a monitor and power it on. If it boots up to Windows or another operating system, then the computer will run as is. If there is no operating system present then you will have to invest a small amount in acquiring the latest version of Windows or installing another operating system.
You will also need a monitor for the computer. An older CRT monitor can be acquired for roughly $25 these days and it is worth looking for one as you peruse the computers. While you are at the thrift store you can probably find a working mouse and keyboard for your child’s computer as well. A mousepad and an inexpensive speaker set would be next in the order of priority and can also be acquired at low prices within the thrift store.
After Setup Consider a Few Upgrades
When you have set up your child’s computer, you will have spent any where between $100 and $200 and might have a few dollars left that you can spend upgrading the system so your child will be able to do more with it. The most pertinent upgrade would be in the processor. Any cheap computer is bound to have a low-power processor which will slow down your child’s computer and limit the sorts of programs that they will be able to run on it. For a meager $50 you can upgrade whatever your computer may have come with to a 1 GHz process which will be capable of running everything your child wants except advanced games.
The Software that your Child Will be Using
Any responsible parent will want their child to begin using educational software as they gain experience with the computer; this will teach them how to use computer systems and will also teach them other life skills and essentials such as reading and writing techniques. You can find a lot of older software on the internet available for free download, and this pertains to educational software too. In fact, you can probably find games that you cut your teeth on as a child that you could pass on to your child free of charge. The best part of using this older software is that it does not require a high end graphics card, as some newer educational software might, and will not require upgrades for your system. You will also know that it is quality software if you used it yourself when you were younger.
One of the best ways to teach your child problem solving and other skills is to teach them computer programming techniques. If you are not well versed in programming you can give your child some basic lessons from a computer language website such as Java or Python to reason out on their own. These lessons will build basic programming, math, spelling, and computer use skills as well as providing the foundation for very useful, and potentially lucrative talents, in computer programming. The compilers and language packs do not require much to run and will easily function on even the most basic of systems.
As your child ages and grows, they will eventually outgrow the capabilities that the computer you gave them provides. You can use this to teach your child about the value of objects through upgrading their older computer to take advantage of newer software and hardware and perhaps even play some of the games that they want to play.
Even a basic computer can open up a myriad of possibilities for your child and will provide an almost unlimited source of learning for your child. On top of that, your child will actually want to use and learn from their computer, and this will prepare them for life and work in the modern world.
This entry was posted on Sunday, June 20th, 2010 at 11:47 am and is filed under Computers, Kids. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.