A couple of days ago I read a
news story about how 90% of kids use computers and the
Internet nowadays. Something about it has been bugging me
since then: "One out of four 5-year-olds uses the
Internet. " I tracked down the story
on Excite and reread it to
make sure I read that right. Does this mean that one out
of four 5-year-olds can read? That's fantastic if it's
true.
Of course it goes on to
say:
"At Waston Lane Elementary
in Louisville, Ky., 5-year-olds spend 15 minutes a day
on the computer, listening to stories and
pronunciations of letters. They also practice computer
skills by coloring the electronic way - clicking on
colors to fill in shapes."
Maybe the teacher sets it up so
they just click on an icon for the story site, the letter
pronouncing site, and the coloring site so they don't
have to read anything. And pointing and clicking are
important computer skills that definitely needd to be
mastered before the kids turn into bifocal wearing adults
who can't find the cursor 'cause they've got the wrong
glasses on. But remember when programming was a computer
skill? It is kind of cool that you finally don't have to
know how to program to use a computer. I'm not sure
whether or not it's equally cool that you don't have to
know how a computer works in order to program it anymore,
but the 5-year-olds probably aren't doing too much of
that yet. Maybe when they hit first grade next
year.
My other favorite quote from that
article is:
"Children are often the
first adopters of a lot of technology," said John
Bailey, who oversees educational technology for the
department. "They grow up with it. They don't have to
adapt to it."
Had I known that a year ago I would
not have gone into such despair over the slow rollout of
InfiniBand technology. All we'd have had to do at the
starship would have been to get a bunch of
kindergarteners to build some IB clusters in their data
center/classroom. Who cares if the Colossus of Redmond
backed off on it? Who cares if that big blue thing from
the hinterlands of New York backed off on it? All
InfiniBand needs is some kindergarteners in
Kentucky!
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Today's Reading
Notes and Sketches from the Wild Coasts of Nipon
by Henry Craven St. John, End of the Earth by Peter
Matthiessen, Two Roads to Dodge City by Adam and
Nigel Nicolson
This Year's Reading
2003
Book List
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