Quote:
Originally Posted by alex_d
Your main point is that kids need some sort of reason to use a computer is very valid. But, that shouldn't turn into an argument that all a kid should have is a device that only caters to that end reason.
I feel that my most precious argument, the one that is most likely to push the buttons of many people here, is that adults shouldn't try to project their feelings about computers on children. Many adults feel frustrated and intimidated by computers. Figuring out how to do something may feel like worse than a chore, like pure stress. They enjoy the simplicity of the macintosh.
And they feel that giving a kid a computer with that push-button, appliance-like simplicity will do them a service. Will relieve their stress. Make them happy. Maybe I am saying this too emphatically, but I think you know what I'm talking about.
However, kids fundamentally do not feel this way. They don't mind, they just soak it all in. It's because of their brains, their emotions, their curiosity, whatever, etc, it doesn't matter. In fact, don't even try to understand, just take it on faith.
This is the little bit of perspective that I want to get across to all the old adults who shouldn't try to make the OLPC to be like the computer they'd like to have.
And I'm sorry if this argument makes some people here confront their own selves. (And look, I know that's not the only issue people have with my posts, but it was what was in mogui's head after I replied to nekomai's "most people i teach never go beyond the basics" with "it's because they're old.")
The OLPC is not a computer. It is an appliance. The word 'computer' is very powerful, perhaps even deserving of its hype. So we must apply it carefully. The Eee, though, is a real computer. And that's why I think it has immeasurably more merit than the OLPC. It has the potential of changing these kids' lives, same as the computer (and windows and all the applications that are run on it) has forged my own.
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I agree with the fact that the computer definition is kind of fudged and leads to confusion. The computer today is mainly used as a data gathering and storing device; a library. It is called so only because that in this storing device there is a computer. Point clear.
The reasons for offering simplicity are numerous but the main ones turn around 'ease of access', giving the possibility to process data to everyone. Let me make the analogy of a transportation machine. Most everyone can use a car but does everyone have to know how to service it? To design one? To repair one? In 99% of education needs, a powerful computer is useless.
Today's use of computers in education turns around bringing knowledge and a battery of choices to young minds not necessarily to better their skills in computing. One chooses a career based on personnal aptitudes, instincts, capacity, tastes and... limits. Lets say a kid is interested in again, cars, he will lookup all he can find and then when there is no more to be found on his own he'll want to look for more and ask. There is the sign of maturation that tells his educator that he is in line with a path. Further studies in this field are possible and warrants this kid to go on a specific destination. But I realize that things in life are not so clear cut.
A kid that is destined for programming or computer and electronics design will give the hints I previously grossly exemplified. Then it is time to give him the tools you say are needed. And you are right, those have to be adequate for that task. But there is a specific time for that part of development that must be done in a frame. This frame is very important to respect, otherwise this young mind will not have time to develop all the other required skills necessary to function maturely in society. The word 'Nerd' pops up to mind.
There are other kinds of intelligences that are worthy of development. I call them intelligent because they rely on brain functions. For example sports. I'm always amazed at the quickness with which a soccer player can decide where to go and what to do next. Agreed some of it is learned, but this is a sport made for improvisation. That brings me directly to music and arts, all these skills as we call them require intelligence. What is the quickest way to teach and help find out information about all this... data gathering and storage computers, and the graphics capacities only a computer can give.
I'm very happy that some kids will take to a saw quicker than to a keyboard, and the inverse too. "Variety is the Spice of Life"
I agree that the eee is a much better tool than the OLPC. It is normal, The OLPC is more than five years old!!!?!!! Isn't it sad that education is thwarted by the planned obsolescence computer mongers set on us? I'm all for their planned richness but why has society have to pay for it? because it is society as a whole that is affected, not only part of it but the Whole!... I'm off topic...
Now to the point you judge 'sensible' It is not. I am a Mac... and a PC... and a Unix lover. My first computer was a MacIntosh because at that time there was no Windows and that I couldn't spend months learning DOS. Do you know French? Why bother to learn it? Same reasons for DOS.
I am an artist, a sculptor. I'm very good at it but not brilliant. Only the brilliant survive at it. Being a family man and having to earn a keep I took to furniture because it was the only way to design without expensive studies at that time. The Mac, because of its graphic functions, was the only computer for me. It gave me a quick way to REdraw and REwork my designs to an acceptable refinement. It was also the only computer that didn't require tutorship. Windows joined it, it was ok only when someone brought graphics to it. How many people rely on graphics for a living today? I still have no talent for programming puzzles because I don't have time for it, but I can create and build the most complex and intricate furniture with the best of them. Most programmers wouldn't know where to start, even less how to repair their own car!
This rant is only to make a point that computers as they are today are not restricted to sciences and mathematics. But why should I feel that I'd be pushed to repeat this point? Because it is felt that only one, the best, latest universal machine is needed. False, no more than I'd use a Swiss Army knife to buid furniture. In its simplicity, the learning computer is an activator, a mover of minds that multiplies and then reduces the amount of choices an individual requires to set a path. Making him set in his life more quickly. The learning computer helps one to learn how to learn and then we can move the learner towards the other computer that will be his career limb.
Back to the thread. I just wish I'd had this nifty little thing when I grew up.
