To teach SU and computer skills from an early age or not?
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I don't think there's any doubt in anyone's minds that the earlier we learn a skill, be it physical, intellectual or lingual, the easier we find it in the long run and the more advanced our skills will be in later life. Languages are a perfect example: I am Scots while my girlfriend is Swedish and we are in total agreement on this subject. Although we will bring our kids up in Sweden, I intend to speak English to them at home while Kristina will speak Swedish and she and I will speak Swedish or English. We already speak a very weird mix of the two languages with each other (Swenglish or Svengelska) with sentences half one and half the other. When our kids come to learn English formally in school, they will find it a breeze (I hope!) and be able to dedicate extra time to other studies.
Anyway, I digress. What I'm getting at is that your native language is one of those skills that you start learning almost from birth and you almost stop having to think about it by the time you're 5. You just keep improving as you go along without having to study particularly hard. Vitally, being multilingual is a key skill in later life and can create employment opportunities in other countries as well as making you more employable in our own.
The same undoubtedly applies to computer knowledge- the majority of this forum's users are between 20 and 60 and I (at 31) am one of the youngest age groups for whom computers weren't a big part of my childhood. In other words I had to learn almost everything I know about software and hardware as an adult, by sitting and studying or asking questions on forums like this. Although this has undoubtedly made me more employable it has meant I have had to curtail my social life considerably to achieve my educational goals.
So, after the loooong introduction, the short question is- how young do you start teaching your kids SU and computer skills? On one hand computer skills are such a vital part of the modern employment skillset that it would seem the earlier the better. On the other, do I really wish that I'd been addicted to SU from age 5 as I have been for the last 4 years? By teaching your kids fairly advanced computer skills at an early age would you run the risk of channelling them towards a computer-based career, when they may in fact have become fantastic sculptors, police officers, musicians, builders or athletes? As I am an art and philosophy obsessed architect and my girlfriend is doing a PHd in Biochemistry it's a total coin-flip on whether we produce right-brainers or left-brainers! We both loved playing with Lego as kids on either side of the North Sea so that doesn't explain our respective career paths.
I'm really interested in other's opinions on this- I'm as yet unconvinced either way and the clock is ticking!
Jackson
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Jackson,
What my brother does is that he lets his "kids" play and do whatever on the computer for just a limited time a day hoping that he can prevent them from getting to addicted to anything (the same with watching TV). On the other hand it does indeed involves creativity and like music, learning foreign languages or playing around with sketchup - if you do it well balanced, it should do no harm.
Hopefully Bruce ("Modelhead") will happen on this thread, too and he'll be able to tell his experiences with his granddaughter and SU.
And don't let that clock ticking too long...
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Bruce,
That's very interesting about your daughter teaching signing to your granddaughter- did she read up on it or was it her own system? I've often thought that most of the reason babies become so upset so often is due to an ability to express themselves properly. I admire her "guide, but don't push" approach.
Your link doesn't seem to work- is the site down or is there a typo?
Jackson
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OK Bruce - I deleted my post not to divert people from the thread.
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Bruce,
No worries, I don't mind Corner Bar threads meandering a bit- I like it when they feel like natural conversations. If we meander too far for too long, I'll just gently ease us back on topic. I envy Lily's computer capabilities at such a young age- makes me wonder if there's a recorded intance of a child's first word being "Mac" or "Windows" or some other computer related term? Imagine the sponsorship "opportunities" if Jobs or Gates heard about that! Perish the thought.
Jackson
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I have two small children and when my son was 3 (a year ago) he saw me using sketchup and asked if he could play that "drawing game" so i just showed him a couple of the tools like the eraser and pencil tool and then how to drop in components. He picked it up very quickly, although most of his "work" seems to be abstract. He does have fun for 30 to 40 min and then is off to other things. Also, at 3 he began playing these nickeloden puzzle games, such as dora, spongebob, jimmy neutron, etc. after putting a couple of these together i noticed that he would open a puzzle and while it was still unworked he would change the background in the puzzle game to the same color as the predominant color of the puzzle... and then he would minimize the game and change the computer's desktop background color to the same color. I was floored, and asked my wife who taught him to do that. She said noone, just something he picked up. It makes me wonder sometimes about people complaining about intuitiveness of the OS's maybe it's our preconceived notion of what it should be that clouds our ability to pick something up.
My daughter who is 18months younger really doesn't gravitate to the computer like my son, she just wants to paint stars with my wacom when she sees photoshop open.... to each their own.after thought also, i'm not ashamed to say that my son showed me that the eraser tool can be used by clicking and holding down the mouse button and dragging the cursor around to delete what you want... i was just picking individual entities and deleting one at a time.
so, now i get made fun of that i was actually taught about software by a 3 year old. -
Jackson,
No matter what career your kids head towards
they will no doubt need computer skills. It
seems that computers are becoming part of
everyday life.As suggested I think its best to let them play
but ONLY for a limited amount of time on computers.BTW, I have been looking for entry level
programming software for a friend's kid. Some time
ago I found http://www.alice.org quite good but I have now
also located http://scratch.mit.edu/. The latter is like
playing with building blocks to produce simple
programs, great fun, even for adults
I think SketchUp may be a bit on the techie
side for kids starting out. Maybe you should
have a look at MagicalSketch 2 by http://www.e-frontier.com/article/articleview/1204/1/553?sbss=553MagicalSketch may look childish but some
amazing stuff can be produced. This program
coupled with Scratch should be able to produce
the kind of stuff kids are into these days.Mike
PS: Must get rid of that squirrel .... getting a
pain in the head -
Mike,
"No matter what career your kids head towards
they will no doubt need computer skills. It
seems that computers are becoming part of
everyday life."Absolutely- in fact I was gobsmacked a few months ago when I discovered that my girlfriend is a total whiz at graphic layouts, presentation and animations in Powerpoint- a program I have yet to master. I thought her computer skills would be soley scientific in nature- statistical analysis, spreadsheets and word processing; I had no idea that her graphic presentations were so advanced for presenting findings- I was blown away with her graphic and animation work.
Jackson
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