Sunday, August 11, 2013

Kids can't (don't know) use computers [Article]

Teacher Marc Scott finds, from his experience, that the accepted norm of teenagers being "tech-savvy" is not true. It's a fairly long article, and Scott makes quite a few propositions, some practical, others not. I agree with him whole-heartedly on this point:
Tomorrow’s politicians, civil servants, police officers, teachers, journalists and CEOs are being created today. These people don’t know how to use computers, yet they are going to be creating laws regarding computers, enforcing laws regarding computers, educating the youth about computers, reporting in the media about computers and lobbying politicians about computers. Do you thinks this is an acceptable state of affairs? 
It's not an unique phenomenon: history is replete with these examples whenever new technology has gone mainstream (cars, printing, etc). But will we learn from history?