“The Digital Delusion” connects the collapse in standardized test scores to the rise of education technology in public schools. It’s driving a heated debate.
Software has gotten worse for curious children though, i was on my apple II for several hours a day as a little kid, but if i was on an ipad instead I don’t think i would have learned a single thing about how computers worked before high school. I was forced to learn how to use a command line to get the computer to do entertaining things, nowadays they speak the name of the game they want to play to the microphone and just tap the install button. There’s no struggle with understanding the data structures and hardware layers of the device. If you want to mod the amount of in game curtency you have, there’s no hexadecimal file to edit, it’s actually a DLC you can pay for instead. There’s no learning happening, besides maybe how to sneakily grab your parents credit card.
Apple used to promote Hypercard both as teaching aid and intro to object oriented programming, but that was a different company from the last 20 years. Now they are pushing corporate agendas in classrooms teaching kids how to be consumers, not computer users. They are fighting hard to get kids into their ecosystem because they know people hate changing platforms.
Software has gotten worse for curious children though, i was on my apple II for several hours a day as a little kid, but if i was on an ipad instead I don’t think i would have learned a single thing about how computers worked before high school. I was forced to learn how to use a command line to get the computer to do entertaining things, nowadays they speak the name of the game they want to play to the microphone and just tap the install button. There’s no struggle with understanding the data structures and hardware layers of the device. If you want to mod the amount of in game curtency you have, there’s no hexadecimal file to edit, it’s actually a DLC you can pay for instead. There’s no learning happening, besides maybe how to sneakily grab your parents credit card.
Apple used to promote Hypercard both as teaching aid and intro to object oriented programming, but that was a different company from the last 20 years. Now they are pushing corporate agendas in classrooms teaching kids how to be consumers, not computer users. They are fighting hard to get kids into their ecosystem because they know people hate changing platforms.