My kids love Kidpix, and I love Kidpix (especially the MacKiev version that has a firehose instead of dynamite), but there are 2 elements in every version of Kidpix that are just plain mean: Undo Guy, and the big eraser.
Every other program we use allows multiple undos, but Kidpix, designed for small people who make a lot of mistakes that need a lot of undoing, only allows one. It's very difficult for a 5 year-old to grasp that Undo Guy only works if you click him right away. Why limit the undos to one?
It's nice to have a function to erase the whole page at once, but the "new" button and hose both serve that purpose. I teach my students that the big eraser is evil and they should not use it, but they forget, and they erase all of their hard work. Then on their way to click Undo Guy they click something else, and can't undo the erasing. Then they cry. The peril of data loss is too harsh a lesson for a kindergartner to have to learn.
For a kid-friendly program, Kidpix sure can be mean.
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I agree. Many a tear has been shed in my lab over lost work... Some of my students have realized that if they are able to get the teacher to come over right away and help them she can "save" it and bring it back after they have erased it. This makes some students very impatient since they have not connected that it is not my immediate help that solves the problem, but rather them not clicking on anything else after they have made the huge mistake... they really should improve this software.
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