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Huge help he's giving his son by teaching him basic security practices, but also how to type on a damn keyboard. I volunteer with an engineering education camp

by m3rc 10y ago

Huge help he's giving his son by teaching him basic security practices, but also how to type on a damn keyboard. I volunteer with an engineering education camp over some summers and kids are totally unable to do anything with a normal computer. We try to start teaching them programming through writing minecraft mods and we require that kids have a little bit of experience with minecraft, but half the kids that come in have NEVER used a computer that wasn't an iPad. In their lives. We have to show kids how a keyboard works, and they're point of refrence is the virtual one from a touchscreen.

ianai 10y ago
Wow how old are these kids? That makes it sound like we're a generation away from using tablets 100% in place of generalized desktops.
- m3rc 10y ago
  I never took data down but I'd say most are in the 10 to 12 range, with a couple outliers above that. Next to no kid below 10 has touched a keyboard. I don't live in a tech-y area either, and the kids come from a lot of diverse backgrounds. It's just that kids first introductions to computing is always an iPad. Makes the job of educators a lot harder :/
  - ianai 10y ago
    Believe it or not that makes me worry a little less. My keyboard classes didn't really start until 7th grade I think. Tablets are great. My guess is they're easier to lock down for kids, but also expose kids to modern concepts (passwords, websites, idk what else). Its probably fine so long as they sooner than later learn to type. Now, there's the worrying number of hunt and peckers I see in the IT department at work...
dzhiurgis 10y ago
> We have to show kids how a keyboard works Interesting. I wonder if any parents nowadays teach their kids to use dvorak, colemak or other alternative layouts?
K0SM0S 10y ago
Assuming most people will live in some Augmented/Hybrid reality by the end of the next decade (2025-ish), the likes of Magic Leap, it seems that a physical keyboard will gradually become too cumbersome an interface, largely relegated to very specific use. The question is whether or not speech (or even thought) recognition will be good enough to properly replace 99% of what a keyboard empowers you to do -- probably easy for most messaging/writing, perhaps a bit harder for coders as you wouldn't be efficient spelling out every symbol. Then we'll really have entire generations who never used a keyboard and don't really need to. Except coders, maybe, which rarely account for more that 2-5% of the population. And it seems all too natural that we'd create "natural speech coding languages" that properly fill in the blanks to convey the programmer's logic (e.g. just saying "if i=0 given i++ while i<10 then do this else do that"). This could probably be enough for most of the code out there. Soon enough, you'd actually just spell the logic in plain english and the interpreter would code it for you. It's basically the idea of moving ever closer to Star Trek's computers, naturally human interfaces. Your comment is both frightening looking at today (and yesterday) and at the same time a probable clear indication of the shape of things to come.

by m3rc 10y ago

ianai 10y ago

Wow how old are these kids? That makes it sound like we're a generation away from using tablets 100% in place of generalized desktops.

m3rc 10y ago
I never took data down but I'd say most are in the 10 to 12 range, with a couple outliers above that. Next to no kid below 10 has touched a keyboard. I don't live in a tech-y area either, and the kids come from a lot of diverse backgrounds. It's just that kids first introductions to computing is always an iPad. Makes the job of educators a lot harder :/
- ianai 10y ago
  Believe it or not that makes me worry a little less. My keyboard classes didn't really start until 7th grade I think. Tablets are great. My guess is they're easier to lock down for kids, but also expose kids to modern concepts (passwords, websites, idk what else). Its probably fine so long as they sooner than later learn to type. Now, there's the worrying number of hunt and peckers I see in the IT department at work...

dzhiurgis 10y ago

> We have to show kids how a keyboard works Interesting. I wonder if any parents nowadays teach their kids to use dvorak, colemak or other alternative layouts?

K0SM0S 10y ago

Assuming most people will live in some Augmented/Hybrid reality by the end of the next decade (2025-ish), the likes of Magic Leap, it seems that a physical keyboard will gradually become too cumbersome an interface, largely relegated to very specific use. The question is whether or not speech (or even thought) recognition will be good enough to properly replace 99% of what a keyboard empowers you to do -- probably easy for most messaging/writing, perhaps a bit harder for coders as you wouldn't be efficient spelling out every symbol. Then we'll really have entire generations who never used a keyboard and don't really need to. Except coders, maybe, which rarely account for more that 2-5% of the population. And it seems all too natural that we'd create "natural speech coding languages" that properly fill in the blanks to convey the programmer's logic (e.g. just saying "if i=0 given i++ while i<10 then do this else do that"). This could probably be enough for most of the code out there. Soon enough, you'd actually just spell the logic in plain english and the interpreter would code it for you. It's basically the idea of moving ever closer to Star Trek's computers, naturally human interfaces. Your comment is both frightening looking at today (and yesterday) and at the same time a probable clear indication of the shape of things to come.