By Fred D’Ignazio — originally published in COMPUTE!’s Gazette Issue 2, August 1983
There is a computer revolution afoot. It is not a revolution in computer hardware or software. It is a revolution in computer learning. Like a classic revolution, it is starting at the grassroots, with the smallest kids. But it is percolating upward through our society like an erupting volcano. All of us will feel its impact: parents and teachers, of course, but also office workers, managers, professionals, and eventually, presidents of corporations and countries.
We are only just beginning to recognize the true power of the computer as a catalyst for learning in the home, classroom, and workplace. Current learning methods such as CAI (Computer-Aided Instruction), computer drills, simulations, and learning games are just the tip of the iceberg.
The computer will soon alter the way family members spend their time together. It will have a bigger impact on daily family life than the TV.
Wave Of Computer Kids
Kids who use computers almost from birth were nonexistent just a few years ago. Now there are thousands of them, scattered through our society. These kids are acquiring models of personal behavior, learning, and views of the world that are profoundly different from those of kids without an early, rich experience with computers.
These kids are now the privileged few, but in just a few years they will be the norm. What happens when this wave of kids hits the schools? Will kindergarten be ready for kids who have been working with numbers and words for years? Will first grade be ready for kids who have been conducting science experiments, programming robot “pets,” creating advanced geometric designs, and role-playing in advanced simulations? Will schools be able to offer the rich computer-learning environment the kids are accustomed to at home? Or will there be only one or two computers for 30 or 60 kids? And will the computers and the school curriculum be locked into pre-computer teaching philosophies and methods?
We are at the threshold of a riot of new learning. That’s what it will be, too: a riot – rampant, disjointed, and uncontrolled. Each kid will be different. No two kids will be at the same level when they enter the kindergarten. Many kids will have had a rich computer-learning environment since birth. Some will have had no computer experience.
Among those kids who have had exposure to computer learning, there will be a kaleidoscope of backgrounds. Some kids will have used only computer drills, others advanced simulations. Some kids will have had an array of computer tools – light pens, microphones and headsets, robots, musical keyboards, videodiscs, etc. Other kids will have used only a computer, a TV, and a cassette recorder.
The “home computer curriculum” will be completely hodgepodge, dictated by each family’s budget, interests, and informal educational philosophy. Computer kids will know a lot, but what they know may be thin and spotty. They may have skills of sixth- and seventh-graders, they may be accomplished readers and whizzes at figures, but there may be no structure, discipline, or order to what they know. They may know advanced concepts, but they may lack basic skills.
This revolution will come, no matter what we do. And it is coming fast. It will soon spread past the homes, past the schools, and into the workplace.
Kids Teaching Adults
“User-friendly” is a buzzword connected with office-automation software. But the real “user-friendly” programs now in use are not available in the office. They are in the classroom and, especially, in the home. They abandon traditional teaching methods, but they make learning rewarding, exciting, and fun. And they have universal appeal. The other night, my seven-year-old daughter was playing with Sesame Street program from Children’s Computer Workshop. I came in to watch her. Then her three-year-old brother arrived, then her mother. Pretty soon we were all working with the program, and cheering, squabbling, laughing, and crying. Our involvement with the program – and with each other was intense. I felt as if we were in front-row seats at an exciting basketball game. Only we weren’t spectators, we were all participants.
The Sesame Street program is unusual, but it will soon be typical of new generation of computer learning programs that involve the whole family. And the learning will be happening at all levels. The program will be teaching everyone. The adults will be teaching the kids. The kids will be teaching the adults. The kids will be teaching the kids, the adults teaching the adults, and everyone teaching the computer. That night was rare, exhilarating moment of family interaction, but believe it will become more and more commonplace as new and better software is introduced.
On The Front Line
This is wonderful time to be alive. It is wonderful time lo work with children – as teachers in the classroom, and as parents in the home. It is time that holds great dangers but also great promise. I’d like to be reporter on the front line of the revolution in computer learning. Each month, in this column, I’ll send you back dispatches from the front. One month I’ll be slogging through the mud, along with the peasants and foot soldiers of the revolution. The next month I’ll be in the trenches. The month after that, I’ll visit the headquarters of the revolution’s leaders and talk with the revolution’s grand visionaries and strategists.
As teachers and parents (and kids!), you are on the front line, too. So I’d like you to be my eyes and ears. I encourage you to write me and tell me what you see and hear. Most important, share your thoughts and ideas with me. You can reach me by writing:
Fred D’Ignazio
2117 Carter Road
Roanoke, VA 24015
It may take me some time, but will always try to write back. Also, I will publish your ideas and thoughts in this column and give you credit.
Taming The Revolution
I will cover lot of ground in this column, but will be returning to the two issues started with above. First, what are the new methods of learning that the computer is opening up to us? How do they compare with the old methods? Second, how can we coordinate computer learning in both the classroom and the home? How can we tame the revolution and exploit its full potential rather than let it become disruptive and go wild, as revolutions are prone to do?
Exploring New Frontiers
I will use this column as a forum for people interested in computer learning to air and debate their views. But will also use it as pipeline to bring you the latest resources in computer learning. I will review and evaluate the latest magazines, books, and software on computer learning especially materials that are useful to you as VIC-20 and Commodore 64 computer owners. I will try to get the inside scoop on the newest resources, then pass the information on to you. When some thing new comes out, I’d like to be able to brag that you read it here first.
You can help. If you come across lead, let me know. I’ll track it down and get back to you. Then I’ll share it with everyone. This way we can form computer-learning network, clearing house for new ideas and materials on educational computing.
Around The World In 80 Microseconds
A lot is happening in computer learning. But not all of it is happening in the United States. Much of it (most of it?) is happening overseas, especially in West Germany, Great Britain, Denmark, France, and Japan.
This May, I taught course on computers and robots in London, England. My students were teachers drawn from countries all over the world. Upon completion of the course, each student returned lo his or her country to start computer and robotics literacy programs there. London, in particular is hotbed of computer learning. And while was in London, I attended two international conferences one on robotics and one on computers in education. In future columns, I’ll pass on to you what I learned.
Who Am I?
Who am I? What gives me the right to become your correspondent at the computer-learning front?
Perhaps my best credentials are that I am a parent concerned parent. I have two little kids – Catie (7) and Eric (3). Catie has been working closely with computers since before she was two. Eric has been banging, sitting on, and dropping computers since he was less than year old. (For more on Eric and Catie’s adventures with computers, see my “World Inside The Computer” columns in COMPUTE! in July and August 1982, and in February 1983.)
I have been getting kids and computers together ever since carted briefcase-sized portable terminal into an elementary school classroom in Washington, D.C., early in 1974. The kids and plugged the terminal into telephone, dialed up huge mainframe computer in Chicago, and I spent most of the morning playing Hunt The Wumpus.
Since then I have written 15 books about kids and computers, including Katie and the Computer (Creative Computing Press, 1979), The Creative Kid’s Guide to Home Computers (Doubleday, 1981), Chip Mitchell: The Case of the Stolen Computer Brains (Dutton/Lodestar, Spring 1983), and The Star Wars Question Answer Book About Computers (Random House/Lucasfilm, June 1983).
I’ve done a lot of exploring on my own, and now I’d like to do some exploring with you. So, climb aboard. I can use all the help I can get.