Semi-OT: Why Kids Can't use Computers

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: James Knott <james.knott-bJEeYj9oJeDQT0dZR+AlfA at public.gmane.org>

| Colin McGregor wrote:

| > http://www.coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/

| My first computer was an IMSAI 8080.  It came as a bag of parts and bare
| circuit boards.

Sure.  And folks who assembled their own kit computers were a tiny
minority, even smaller than the percentage of today's cohort who are
technically competent according to the article.

- putting the bars higher (as they were originally) eliminates a lot
  of casual users and many potentially good ones.

- things in the Good Old Days were a lot simpler and could be
  mastered.  Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguisahble
  from magic.  So users are essentially prevented from deep
  understanding.

- we cannot go back (globally).  There are attempts (locally):
  hacklabs, the maker movement, Raspberry Pi.  But those seem a bit
  like toys to most folks.  "Real" stuff comes from corporations and
  pros.

It is progress, but I don't like all the side-effects (dis-empowerment
and ignorance).

I guess that the wild west must be somewhere else.  Perhaps 3d printing.  
Or mobile phone apps.  Some technology that is new enough that it hasn't 
been saturated and yet has got down to a scale where an individual has a 
chance of contributing.

I do agree that programming is a fundamental kind of knowledge, like 
arithmetic.  Citizens ought to understand it.
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