
Computers at Home: Educational Hope vs. Teenage Reality - pg
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/business/11digi.html?src=me&ref=general
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seldo
Once again, a study proves the obvious: there's nothing you can give your
child that will magically make them smarter. As a parent, you have to be
involved.

On the other hand, the study keeps saying "only computer skills were improved"
as if these were not worth having. My self-taught "computer skills" are the
basis of my career. Practically everything the modern knowledge worker is
required to do could fall under the category of "computer skills": word
processing, spreadsheets, presentations, modelling, programming. These seem
like worthwhile skills.

~~~
watmough
I'd somewhat disagree, and say that a kid given books, versus a kid living in
a house without books, has _potentially_ a big advantage.

I remember two main books I used to read pre-10 years old, which were "Great
Men of Science" and "Encyclopedia of Wildlife". The second book especially was
huge and I'm sure I'd still learn something at every page, even today, 30
years later. Reading about dinosaurs, or mammals, or birds was always a great
escape from a somewhat crappy at times childhood.

Kids have a huge amount of energy, but it seems that it's far too often
directed towards collecting every single McDonalds Happy Meal toy, or getting
further into the latest video game.

Kids love collecting stuff, including facts, and should at least be given the
opportunity to read.

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ZachPruckowski
Locked in a house with an infinite variety of books, many kids would gravitate
to the pulp fiction, learning nothing. If you're stipulating that they're left
only with educational or good books, then that's the result of at least some
form of parental selection or guidance. Or it's the result of them already
being curious to learn and gravitating towards the "good" books, just as some
kids will use the internet for Wikipedia and others for flash games.

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jolan
One of the smartest things my parents did was never put a TV or computer in my
bedroom. That kept me from being up all hours of the night leaving me
exhausted for school the next day.

I don't think I'd be the person I am today without a computer growing up. I
used GEOS to type my papers on a Commodore 64 in elementary school. I was
"online" with Quantum Link (precursor to AOL) and BBSes when I was 6. Since
then every new technology has basically seemed like a twist on the same
concepts from the 80s.

~~~
nostrademons
And one of the smartest things my parents did was to put a computer in my
bedroom. They thought it was a big mistake at the time, because it kept me up
at all hours of the night and left me exhausted for school the next day. But
I've made far more money and derived more life satisfaction from those
computer skills than from anything I learned in school.

~~~
arghnoname
I personally wonder how the advance of usability has hurt the educational
aspects of a computer. We had a computer when I was a kid, and sure, all I
wanted to do was play video games. The problem is, at that time, this required
a lot of work. I spent hours trying to figure out how to free up enough memory
so the damn things would run. Before that it was messing with an Apple IIe

Computers were a real chore then, and I'm young enough that I was spared much
of the difficulties. My little brother, only six years younger, never had any
difficulties in doing what he wanted to do. Put the CD in and it automatically
fires up. He's never had to do anything about interrupts or whatever to get
sound to work, or anything like that, but his computer skills have never been
beyond your typical user.

I've often though if I were to have children I'd give them a computer, but I'd
intentionally leave it crippled so that some pain is needed to actually use
it.

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noonespecial
I can say with complete certainty that access to computers caused my grades to
be much lower. All of high-school was just an annoying blur that got in the
way of coding and building stuff.

~~~
Crossfire
The advantages of which would not be reflected in this study. They quite
clearly state that the children who received computers had increased computer
skills, how could one claim that is not of educational benefit?

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Qz
_How disappointing to read in the Texas study that "there was no evidence
linking technology immersion with student self-directed learning or their
general satisfaction with schoolwork."

When devising ways to beat school policing software, students showed an
exemplary capacity for self-directed learning._

Makes you wonder if, had the schools spent less effort attempting to block the
kids from non-educational activities, the kids might have directed that self-
directed learning impulse toward the education.

~~~
rick888
"Makes you wonder if, had the schools spent less effort attempting to block
the kids from non-educational activities, the kids might have directed that
self-directed learning impulse toward the education."

Somehow, I don't think so. Why were kids trying to get around the blocks? To
go to Myspace, Facebook, play Farmville, play World of Warcraft, and listen
to/download music. If they had no blocks, the kids would do one or all of the
above with ease.

Having no rules won't suddenly change a kid's mind about education. It will
just introduce chaos.

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lisperforlife
I would argue that this is the intended effect. Playing games is the first
thing that I did with my computer. This encouraged me to find out how to build
my own games. Thats when I learnt BASIC and then went on to C and I am fudging
around with Scala, Ruby and Clojure now. I learnt about architecture and
beauty from games. I learned about image sprites and how beautifully they were
used in Prince of Persia (Jordan Mechner's original) to create stunning
worlds.

My scores dropped as well. But I do not think that academic scores are a
measure of a person's intelligence. They are a measure of a person's
commitment on how doggedly he would pursue a goal. I would argue that letting
children play games explore ways of cheating and bending the rules of the
system helps them become far better individuals than what today's education
system can probably bring out. I guess most adults have gone sour to a point
where they are jealous of kids having fun. :-) I remember in my friends place
where my friend and his father would have fights about who would play the next
game on the computer. You parents have to try it out once. I am sure your will
have a better bond with your kid.

So my advice to parents is to ignore this article and be happy that your kid
is playing games. Just ensure that the grades do not drop that low that it
endangers his/her career altogether. Otherwise it is fine he/she would grow
out of it. Or probably not and he/she might create the next world of goo for
all you know. Either ways I do not see it as a bad thing.

BTW, I write from the perspective of India. My comments need to be considered
with loads of salt.

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jolan
Non-registration required link:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/business/11digi.html?src=b...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/business/11digi.html?src=busln)

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prewett
I've never understood idea that computers will help education. Great education
has been happening for thousands of years; obviously computers are unnecessary
for good education. Personally, I feel like the three R's is a much more
effective educational idea than the computers in the classroom idea. You will
ultimately have to teach the R's, it's never been clear to me how computers
would help teach them.

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rbanffy
Technology is an amplifier. It multiplies when people want it to add.

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Crossfire
See? The lack of games on Linux isn't a bug, its a feature!

~~~
arghnoname
Kids have more time than money, and most are bored. If they were stuck with a
Linux machine, I'm sure they'd go to pretty extensive lengths to get things to
work under WINE, and learn something in the process. I attribute my lack of
fear from a computer to the countless hours I had as a child just trying to
get some stupid game to run and after more pain and time than an adult would
be willing to spend, succeeding.

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rbanffy
I see games are a huge time drain. Perhaps if computers were made game-proof,
things would improve.

I am surprised with the decrease in language skills.

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prawn
"Perhaps if computers were made game-proof, things would improve."

That could explain Apple's growth in sales?

~~~
epochwolf
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