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At my age I can barely read the article's thin, small, low-contrast font, but I believe that I agree with the author. I read Mindstorms back when it was first p

• sneak 10y ago
  Perhaps the false dichotomy of electrical/paper is obscuring the very real one of video games/not video games. Playing XBox is a waste of time in any generation.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  • todd8 10y ago
    I think you're right. I didn't mean to make the implication that the problem was electrical vs paper. I eventually did get old enough to go to the hardware store to buy bell wire, knife switches and bulbs for my early experiments. I wish my kids had grow up more interested in building things. I feel like I failed in this. With respect to using paper and pencil for math there is still no contest between doing math on paper and doing it with your finger on an iPad.
  • taliesinb 10y ago
    That's too easy. Think of a game like Civilization. Granted, it's limited what you can learn from reading the in-game Civopedia, but probably thousands of kids have more awareness and interest in the historical progression of human civilization from playing that game. And even if it is superficial awareness, those kinds of games exercise the fantasy-making faculties that make history itself interesting to learn about, even later as an adult. Another example. There was this flop of a game in the early 90s, called SimEarth, that I have very fond memories of. It taught me about the Gaia hypothesis and the carbon cycle and stuff. Gameplay was pretty wacky though.
    • todd8 10y ago
      I remember SimEarth a modern version could be very educational, but not Gaia, isn't it a wacky theory?
      • taliesinb 10y ago
        Hehe, yeah. Worse, it's a wrong theory. But still kinda interesting, no harm learning about it. Agree a modern SimEarth would be awesome.
    • onion2k 10y ago
      The kids who enjoy Civilisation already understand history - that's why they enjoy Civilisation. The game isn't bringing history to anyone new.
      • stale2002 10y ago
        What about a game like Age of Empires? I know lots of people who grew up playing that game, just as a game, and learned history along the way.
• erlehmann_ 10y ago
  > At my age I can barely read the article's thin, small, low-contrast font I am 28 years old and find it hard to read as well. People who choose small font sizes and low contrast degrade usability a lot. Here is an article about the numerous failure modes of low-contrast designs: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/low-contrast/ https://www.nngroup.com/articles/low-contrast/
  • copperx 10y ago
    I agree, but isn't bright #FFF white against black or near #000 the highest contrast possible in a monitor? I blame the thin font, not the low contrast, for the readability problem.
• wodenokoto 10y ago
  Read it here: https://www.readability.com/articles/zgl0rbkx https://www.readability.com/articles/zgl0rbkx If you are using Firefox, you can also just remove the styling by going to view > pagestyle > No style
  • sp332 10y ago
    That link doesn't actually work that way. It just redirects to the site. If you're in Firefox, Safari, or Edge, they already have Readability modes. It's a little book icon at the end of the address bar.
• pasbesoin 10y ago
  Perhaps it's time for another occasional comment about the hacky utility of bookmarklets. When I'm on the computer, as opposed to mobile device, I still use a few to compensate for such things. The following site's been around "forever", and still provides a quick starting point. Note that web design has changed a lot; nonetheless, some of these still beat the majority of pages into a better appearance. Yeah, I should be all "Read-a-page-ability-in-your-pocket" in my approach, and use some optimized, cloudified, designified nirvana. Instead, I just leave some bookmarklets parked in my bookmarks bar, one click away. https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/ https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/ E.g. (apologies for the ugliness): zap colors - background #E4E3CB javascript:(function(){var%20newSS,%20styles='*%20{%20background:%20#E4E3CB%20!%20important;%20color:%20black%20!important%20}%20:link,%20:link%20*%20{%20color:%20#0000EE%20!important%20}%20:visited,%20:visited%20*%20{%20color:%20#551A8B%20!important%20}';%20if(document.createStyleSheet)%20{%20document.createStyleSheet("javascript:'"+styles+"'");%20}%20else%20{%20newSS=document.createElement('link');%20newSS.rel='stylesheet';%20newSS.href='data:text/css,'+escape(styles);%20document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(newSS);%20}%20})(); Georgia javascript:(function(){var%20newSSGeorgia,%20styles='*%20{%20font-family:%20Georgia%20!%20important%20}';%20if(document.createStyleSheet)%20{%20document.createStyleSheet("javascript:'"+styles+"'");%20}%20else%20{%20newSSGeorgia=document.createElement('link');%20newSSGeorgia.rel='stylesheet';%20newSSGeorgia.href='data:text/css,'+escape(styles);%20document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(newSSGeorgia);%20}%20})();
• mtrn 10y ago
  Distraction is the right word. Focus on harder to measure notions of systematic, analytic or creative thinking are happily exchanged for measurable educational innovations like iPads. If there are two schools: one where they use iPads and another where they build some weird touch device from technological scrap parts - which school would you rather send your child to?
• Swizec 10y ago
  Well when I was 13 I was creating video games and faux operating systems in Turbo Pascal. And I was also drawing and building model planes and thinking about how to best get girls' phone numbers on IRC then never dare call them. It's not about not having computers, it's about how you use them.
  • unusximmortalis 10y ago
    I totally agree with this. Schools should train our kids for real life, slowly and gradually. It much more important how tools are used than what tools are used for training purposes. Later when they specialise then what tools are used will matter.
• dbg31415 10y ago
  > At my age I can barely read the article's thin, small, low-contrast font, but I believe that I agree with the author. It's not your age, it's bad design. Original: font: 14px/1.5 Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; color: #777; font-weight: 300; Suggested: font: 16px/1.5 Lato, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; color: #212121; font-weight: 400; See the difference: http://imgur.com/a/GJpqA http://imgur.com/a/GJpqA Lato Regular is easy to read, Lato Light is not great for body-text. https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Lato?query=lato https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Lato?query=lato
  • dannas 10y ago
    Thank you for your suggestions, very much appreciated. I've updated my styles.css file. Sorry for the inconvenience. I'm an embedded developer and know nothing about web design. The jekyll theme was copy-pasted from one of the default styles provided by github. Next step: Learn some css to make the design acceptable.
    • dbg31415 10y ago
      Good article, this was a great line! I think that's a great concept to get through to parents. > the question should not be “how make a programmer out of a kid?”, but instead “how make the kid a maker?”
    • ontouchstart 10y ago
      IMHO, this is much more legible: https://github.com/dannas/dannas.github.com/blob/master/_posts/2016-08-27-review-of-seymor-paperts-mindstorms.markdown https://github.com/dannas/dannas.github.com/blob/master/_pos...
      • dbg31415 10y ago
        Interesting... From a social sharing and SEO perspective I think this page (http://dannas.github.io/2016/08/27/review-of-seymor-paperts-mindstorms.html http://dannas.github.io/2016/08/27/review-of-seymor-paperts-...) is better than (https://github.com/dannas/dannas.github.com/blob/master/_posts/2016-08-27-review-of-seymor-paperts-mindstorms.markdown https://github.com/dannas/dannas.github.com/blob/master/_pos...) -- but I think one or the other needs to have a canonical tag or at least a NoIndex. I haven't played with GitHub as a blogging platform -- may have to do some more research.
• kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
  It was added with JavaScript rather than in the CSS. NoScript fixes it or just good 'ol Alt-+++.
• ThomPete 10y ago
  I believe you are looking at this the wrong way. Just as you most probably wouldn't be against a child learning a second language or learning to play music I see no reason why one would be against them learning programming. Learning to program is like learning a language. The language spoken by most feedback mechanisms in the world, more than any individual national language. The point is not to turn them into programmers but to make them comfortable and familiar with the construct of computer syntax. Just like you don't need to learn Chinese you don't need to learn computer programming but just like learning chinese or playing an instrument will affect your thinking so will learning to program even if you don't end up a programmer. We can't compare this with our own upbringing even though it's tempting just like our parents couldn't compare our upbringing with theirs.
  • loup-vaillant 10y ago
    > Just as you most probably wouldn't be against a child learning a second language or learning to play music There is an obvious reason to oppose such things: opportunity cost. learning anything takes time, and the curriculum is full. If you want to teach a new topic, you will have to remove something else. This might not be worth it. (That said, I still support basic programming and basic computational reasoning at school. I propose we take away some of the math away, though I don't know which math exactly.)
    • aakash58 10y ago
      Time and workload is certainly necessary to consider. However, removing parts of existing curriculum may not be the best way. Considering the fact that computers have pervaded across domains, we could try integrating computational thinking with these domains. For example, you could teach Chemistry using simulations and modeling. It would deepen learning and, if the curriculum is well-structured, provide students the opportunity to learn computational thinking (within the context). Integrating computational thinking in the existing curriculum has several benefits: 1. Deepen learning of the subject content: Enables active learning and knowledge construction 2. Learn programming concepts in the context: This is especially beneficial for students who have no prior programming experiences. 3. Not increase additional workload: Computational thinking (or as DiSessa puts it: "computational literacy") is a literacy skill like reading and writing. Here, we are proposing to use computers as a tool to think with. This requires a lot of effort including providing professional development for teachers, restructuring curriculum, and supporting stakeholders through flexible implementation opportunities.