New training aid

[John Fairbairn]

I've just seen a new idea for training very young kids in Japan.

They find it hard to play over a game on a real board while holding a book. So, get a whiteboard, mark the moves on this, place a sheet of transparent plastic over this and let the youngster literally play over the moves.

The reason for the plastic overlay is that this has the gridlines on it, which are obscured by the stones on the whiteboard by the game record. But a slightly opaque plastic also dims the game record, which may be a plus.

The whiteboard is slightly bigger than an actual board as space is added to allow the ko moves to be recorded down the side.

Obviously it would be possible to use paper instead of a white board, and to print the game record there from a good database (dare I mention GoGoD?), using more than one sheet to break the game up into chunks (a sort of box could be designed so that sheets can be slid in and out easily).

I have no idea how effective this is, although the version I saw was for a six-year-old girl, and clearly the idea of a game within a game - a sort of jigsaw - has promise for such young children. But it may be useful also for us big kids as you get to see the future effect of each move as you play it.

[Mef]

Perhaps my mental image is a bit off, but I am picturing what is essentially a game record sheet printed on a transparency? I feel like that would be easy enough to use as long as a book has uniform diagram size.

[msgreg]

Perhaps my mental image is a bit off, but I am picturing what is essentially a game record sheet printed on a transparency? I feel like that would be easy enough to use as long as a book has uniform diagram size.

You have it backwards:
The game record is on the whiteboard. The transparency has the grid printed on it. The game record shows through the transparency/grid while the grid can easily be seen on the transparency.

The reason for the plastic overlay is that this has the gridlines on it, which are obscured by the stones on the whiteboard by the game record. But a slightly opaque plastic also dims the game record, which may be a plus.

[Mef]

Perhaps my mental image is a bit off, but I am picturing what is essentially a game record sheet printed on a transparency? I feel like that would be easy enough to use as long as a book has uniform diagram size.

You have it backwards:
The game record is on the whiteboard. The transparency has the grid printed on it. The game record shows through the transparency/grid while the grid can easily be seen on the transparency.

The reason for the plastic overlay is that this has the gridlines on it, which are obscured by the stones on the whiteboard by the game record. But a slightly opaque plastic also dims the game record, which may be a plus.

I think I didn't communicate what I was picturing well -- I meant a blank game record sheet on the transparency, that way when you put it on top of the diagram you could write on it / mark in moves / etc.