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> But there was one marked difference: computer use in Madagascar tended to be a collective rather than an individual practice. Children and their families woul

> But there was one marked difference: computer use in Madagascar tended to be a collective rather than an individual practice. Children and their families would gather around one laptop to play educational games, take photos or make videos. Computers were being used to strengthen existing social relations among siblings, parents and peers. I think it used to be like this for a lot of people in the developed world as well when computers were new and most people did not have computers and those that did had only one in the whole household. Nowadays a lot of people including the children have a smartphone each and the household might have one or more iPads and up to several laptops. And of course a PlayStation or an XBOX. I don’t have children yet, but when I get children I hope to show them programming and involve them in what I do with computers and to show interest in what they are doing and to encourage them to be creative.

Fnoord 9y ago
Spot on. Cloud computing is the return of the dependent client/server architecture we had with thin clients and mainframes. But not everything is cloud-only nowadays. You can argue even ChromeOS isn't. But it resembles thin clients. Same with massive clouds such as AWS/Azure; they resemble mainframes.
yourapostasy 9y ago
Before programming, you can start them as young as 4-5 on touch typing, depending upon the individual child’s manual dexterity development. Then the programming is not so obscured by the mechanics of typing.
- frankosaurus 9y ago
  Any software / hardware recommendations for this? I introduced my 5.5 year old to Tux Typing with a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic keyboard 4000. The games were borderline too fast and frustrating.
  - yourapostasy 9y ago
    Plain old browser free of any cookies (I use either a dedicated account, or switch to a child's Firefox container tab), and a free account on typing.com works. The free account has advertisements. Hence the generic blank browser so ads don't reflect your own browsing history, and will start to reflect the child's instead. I prefer the advertisements, because it trains the children to deal with mild distractions while typing, as they will grow up in a world where they will have an advantage if they acquire the skill to type under heavy distraction. But YMMV depending upon the child's level of focus; spring for the paid account if the advertisements are too distracting. "Too" in this context for me means the child stops the lesson altogether to watch the ads. I start out by setting expectations that I don't care about speed, I only care about accuracy and correct finger placement, and the speed will come later with more time and practice. Inevitably, they want to see you typing as fast as you can and will want to emulate that, so I discourage any emphasis upon speed while learning. The lessons have an accuracy ranking represented as 1-3 stars, and the rule I enforce is they must achieve all three stars (95% accuracy) before advancing to the next lesson. Finger placement on the keys is difficult for children this young when starting, but a 5 yo will generally catch on reasonably well after about 5-10 lessons. Usually they lack the fine motor control to prevent stray key strikes when that young, so when first starting out, I limit the lessons to 4 attempts at a single lesson to reach 3 stars, then praise them for sticking with it even if they don't get it, and move on to another activity. After passing the second lesson, I show them how to restart a lesson so if they feel like they are making too many mistakes they can try again without having to go through the system's feedback and feeling dejected by it. I always effusively praise steady persistence performed without undue emotional drama, and if that day's lesson proves too tumultuous, we gently disengage. Depending upon the individual child, you will have to sit with them to enforce correct finger placement anywhere from 3-10 lessons. There is an enormous temptation at first when there are only a couple keys to learn for a child to use their index finger in a pointing fashion like they are used to their entire lives up to this juncture, instead of properly splaying their fingers out on the keyboard, which is a highly unaccustomed position for them. The dots on most computer keyboard home rows definitely helps center them. You feel your way through with each individual child, but generally you can ramp up to four lessons per day at 6 yo, and by then it goes fairly quickly. This is already a wall of text, so I omitted how I calibrate ramping up and other starting out guidelines I created as I went along, feel free to respond here if you want more details, but this should get you started.
lou1306 9y ago
> I think it used to be like this for a lot of people in the developed world as well when computers were new and most people did not have computers and those that did had only one in the whole household. Heck, I'm not that old and I remember playing plenty of games with my dad and brother on the family PC.
- orangehour 9y ago
  I distinctly remember playing Red Alert 2 with my father. It was a lot of fun to discuss strategies and pick his brain as a child.
  - lou1306 9y ago
    Hah, same in my household but with Age of Empires II and Caesar 3. Strategy games are particularly fun/engaging when played cooperatively as a single player.
  - mkirklions 9y ago
    They say RTS as a genre died, but I think there is an untapped market. I liked Starcraft 2, but I think Blizzard needs some competition.
    - hinkley 9y ago
      I think blizzard missed a trick by not consulting with their WoW scripting team to develop an acceptable level of automation of the micromanagement aspects. It would provide another dimension to the game play.
      - stevenwoo 9y ago
        There were games that went all or mostly in on not being a clickfest for resource management - Myth, Ground Control off the top of my head, Total Annihiliation had a different model for resources. My personal preference was for these over Starcraft/Warcraft in multiplayer, but it was nice to have so many options.
aequitas 9y ago
This was also the case with TV's. Where one family in the street would own a TV and all the neighbourhood kids would come and gather to watch. Well before my time though :)
- masklinn 9y ago
  Game consoles as well, most kids may get one (not one per generation, mind), so depending on the latest game or console you'd go to one or the other of your friends.
  - nickpsecurity 9y ago
    In poor areas, this was true for games on top of consoles. I might have gotten a game a year or something like that. So, a friend with a newer game got to show out in front of other friends like I did with mine. Then, there were the rare people who had really different consoles. They got to show us a whole, different experience.
  - wlesieutre 9y ago
    That was my experience back in the 2000's; best friend's house was Halo house and mine was Smash Bros house. But those were the days of splitscreen local multiplayer games. I expect there's much more pressure for a social group to all have the same console now due to the the prevalence of online multiplayer.
    - masklinn 9y ago
      > But those were the days of splitscreen local multiplayer games. Yup. I have fond memories of multiplayer mario kart or goldeneye, or cooperative games e.g. coop Secret of Mana / Seiken Densetsu 2. > I expect there's much more pressure for a social group to all have the same console now due to the the prevalence of online multiplayer. So do I, but Nintendo seems to have kept the flame alive, local multiplayer mario kart works fine on the Switch, and the game is playable with solo joy-cons, so a pair of full-size controllers is enough for 4 players (once you find out how to configure the bloody thing).
ilovetux 9y ago
The important thing here is passion. It is easy enough to teach the basics of programming like it is easy to teach the basics of math, but without passion for the actual subject people tend to disregard even their own knowledge and expertise. tl;dr: It is important to share with your children the things you are passionate about, but equally important is to watch for things your children are passionate about.
- codetrotter 9y ago
  > It is important to share with your children the things you are passionate about, but equally important is to watch for things your children are passionate about. Absolutely, it is very important to me that we do things they enjoy. Otherwise I might end up doing the exact opposite of what I intended — and end up with them having an impression that working with technology is plain boring and a chore. Now of course in any creative endeavors there are times of pain and struggle, but I want my kids to experience the joy and satisfaction that can come from it too.
aidos 9y ago
It's harder than you think (2 kids, another on the way). My eldest is now 6 so she's getting a handle on logic thinking and pattern matching — but it takes a while for them to get there. Also, while they can't read, that's a large barrier to entry. She (and my 3yo) absolutely loved Google's 50 years of Kids Coding doodle [1]. As you've pointed out, finding excitement in the world to share together is the most important thing. The HN crowd tend to be a pretty inquisitive bunch, so there's no shortage of things to look into :-) [1] https://www.google.com/doodles/celebrating-50-years-of-kids-coding https://www.google.com/doodles/celebrating-50-years-of-kids-...
- dyarosla 9y ago
  For any kids who enjoyed that Google Doodle I’d recommend taking a look at Lightbot[0] and Spritebox[1]; similar experiences for playing with programming logic. Full disclosure: I’m the developer on these, but believe they’re relevant here. [0] lightbot.com [1] spritebox.com
  - aidos 9y ago
    Yes! My girls already love Lightbot, we found it after they had played the Google Bunny doodle to death. They'll be super excited tomorrow when I tell them I spoke to the person that made it :-) Will definitely download Spritebox and give it a try. Would you say it's more aimed at older kids and adults? Thanks so much for making it!
    - dyarosla 9y ago
      Happy they like it :) Spritebox is geared for ages 7+, but, like Lightbot, assumes no prior experience with coding.
mercer 9y ago
> I think it used to be like this for a lot of people in the developed world as well when computers were new and most people did not have computers and those that did had only one in the whole household. I remember playing games with family members using only a single keyboard. I have vague memories of even somehow managing four player games somehow, right up until keyboards stopped responding to that many simultaneous inputs. This makes me wonder if part of the appeal the Nintendo Switch seems to have with, in particular, the 30-something crowd, is to do with how easy it is to play two-player games (or more) by just propping up the device and detaching the joycons. Nostalgia seems to really play a role in the popularity of that thing.
onion2k 9y ago
There's a process in extreme programming that works in exactly the same way - "mob programming". Everyone in the team gathers around a single computer and works on the same task together. With the right team it can work really well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mob_programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mob_programming
dahart 9y ago
> I don’t have children yet, but when I get children I hope to show them programming and involve them in what I do with computers and to show interest in what they are doing and to encourage them to be creative. I had the same hope for my children (now 12 & 14), so I let them start using devices & playing games when they were 3 (even gave my older kid the first rev of the OLPC laptop). To a large degree, I regret the decision to start that early. Nothing has gone the same way it did when I was a kid. I had a DOS machine with a couple of crappy games, and a BASIC interpreter. The only thing I could do is learn to program, it was the most exciting thing available. Today, the absolute flood of high quality content in videos & games has basically prevented them from wanting to spend time figuring out low level details. They have options for spending their time that are so much better than I had that they basically can't choose to create. At least not yet. My oldest has been talking about creating his own games for years, he's very curious, he's a super user of the OS's he has access too, his knowledge of game styles and history far exceeds mine (and I was a game dev for a decade). But when it comes down to spending time making things, he inevitably chooses to play an interesting game rather than learn coding. My younger son is almost as addicted to games, but has a simultaneous addiction to YouTube. Recently I met a couple of extremely smart and creative kids whose parents (AI researchers) have completely and severely restricted their access to any devices at all. It got me wondering what the best way to encourage creativity is. Pushing too much will turn them off or make them resist, but a lack of any support can be even worse. Making sure they have time where they're bored and don't have access to high quality and structured entertainment choices at all times currently seems like a good idea to me. OTOH, they're growing out of some habits I was worried about, and maybe the best approach is just to set a good example and love and support them in whichever directions they want to go.
- NPMaxwell 9y ago
  We did not restrict access, and when my youngest was 11, he said he wanted to be a game developer. (As he says, "everyone wants to be a game developer.") We agreed to support him, but only if he wanted to do it "for real". "For real" meant first learning C or Java. He agreed and we did something that seemed obvious after the fact: we hired a programming teacher the way other families hire a music teacher. Our son met with this college senior who had taken Java once a week for an hour and the guy took our son through the first 5 courses of UW's CS sequence. Sort of worked well: At 19, when my son applied for jobs, he could say 8 years experience in Java. By then, he also had C, C++, Lua, Unity, and 3D StudioMax. He made a stab at starting a game-development company, and wiped out on that first try. At 24, he is now coding backend for apps supporting farming and creates games now and then on weekends. (Some day, he might get his G.E.D.)
hahamrfunnyguy 9y ago
I was thinking the same thing. The public library had a few Apple IIs that you could load games on and play. There would typically be a few kids gathered around one computer taking turns.
wink 9y ago
We got the first pc in the household when I was 11 and we never sat there with 2 or more people apart from the occasional "trying to figure something out" or A helping B or vice versa. But maybe that's also because my parents were never interested in games. Thinking about it, it wasn't much different at all of my school buddies' places - often the computer was cramped into a corner that it was already hard to sit 2 kids in front of it and I've also hardly of anyone doing this with their parents or siblings, but that's of course not a proof.

Fnoord 9y ago

Spot on. Cloud computing is the return of the dependent client/server architecture we had with thin clients and mainframes. But not everything is cloud-only nowadays. You can argue even ChromeOS isn't. But it resembles thin clients. Same with massive clouds such as AWS/Azure; they resemble mainframes.

yourapostasy 9y ago

Before programming, you can start them as young as 4-5 on touch typing, depending upon the individual child’s manual dexterity development. Then the programming is not so obscured by the mechanics of typing.

frankosaurus 9y ago
Any software / hardware recommendations for this? I introduced my 5.5 year old to Tux Typing with a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic keyboard 4000. The games were borderline too fast and frustrating.
- yourapostasy 9y ago
  Plain old browser free of any cookies (I use either a dedicated account, or switch to a child's Firefox container tab), and a free account on typing.com works. The free account has advertisements. Hence the generic blank browser so ads don't reflect your own browsing history, and will start to reflect the child's instead. I prefer the advertisements, because it trains the children to deal with mild distractions while typing, as they will grow up in a world where they will have an advantage if they acquire the skill to type under heavy distraction. But YMMV depending upon the child's level of focus; spring for the paid account if the advertisements are too distracting. "Too" in this context for me means the child stops the lesson altogether to watch the ads. I start out by setting expectations that I don't care about speed, I only care about accuracy and correct finger placement, and the speed will come later with more time and practice. Inevitably, they want to see you typing as fast as you can and will want to emulate that, so I discourage any emphasis upon speed while learning. The lessons have an accuracy ranking represented as 1-3 stars, and the rule I enforce is they must achieve all three stars (95% accuracy) before advancing to the next lesson. Finger placement on the keys is difficult for children this young when starting, but a 5 yo will generally catch on reasonably well after about 5-10 lessons. Usually they lack the fine motor control to prevent stray key strikes when that young, so when first starting out, I limit the lessons to 4 attempts at a single lesson to reach 3 stars, then praise them for sticking with it even if they don't get it, and move on to another activity. After passing the second lesson, I show them how to restart a lesson so if they feel like they are making too many mistakes they can try again without having to go through the system's feedback and feeling dejected by it. I always effusively praise steady persistence performed without undue emotional drama, and if that day's lesson proves too tumultuous, we gently disengage. Depending upon the individual child, you will have to sit with them to enforce correct finger placement anywhere from 3-10 lessons. There is an enormous temptation at first when there are only a couple keys to learn for a child to use their index finger in a pointing fashion like they are used to their entire lives up to this juncture, instead of properly splaying their fingers out on the keyboard, which is a highly unaccustomed position for them. The dots on most computer keyboard home rows definitely helps center them. You feel your way through with each individual child, but generally you can ramp up to four lessons per day at 6 yo, and by then it goes fairly quickly. This is already a wall of text, so I omitted how I calibrate ramping up and other starting out guidelines I created as I went along, feel free to respond here if you want more details, but this should get you started.

lou1306 9y ago

orangehour 9y ago
I distinctly remember playing Red Alert 2 with my father. It was a lot of fun to discuss strategies and pick his brain as a child.
- lou1306 9y ago
  Hah, same in my household but with Age of Empires II and Caesar 3. Strategy games are particularly fun/engaging when played cooperatively as a single player.
- mkirklions 9y ago
  They say RTS as a genre died, but I think there is an untapped market. I liked Starcraft 2, but I think Blizzard needs some competition.
  - hinkley 9y ago
    I think blizzard missed a trick by not consulting with their WoW scripting team to develop an acceptable level of automation of the micromanagement aspects. It would provide another dimension to the game play.
    - stevenwoo 9y ago
      There were games that went all or mostly in on not being a clickfest for resource management - Myth, Ground Control off the top of my head, Total Annihiliation had a different model for resources. My personal preference was for these over Starcraft/Warcraft in multiplayer, but it was nice to have so many options.

aequitas 9y ago

This was also the case with TV's. Where one family in the street would own a TV and all the neighbourhood kids would come and gather to watch. Well before my time though :)

masklinn 9y ago
Game consoles as well, most kids may get one (not one per generation, mind), so depending on the latest game or console you'd go to one or the other of your friends.
- nickpsecurity 9y ago
  In poor areas, this was true for games on top of consoles. I might have gotten a game a year or something like that. So, a friend with a newer game got to show out in front of other friends like I did with mine. Then, there were the rare people who had really different consoles. They got to show us a whole, different experience.
- wlesieutre 9y ago
  That was my experience back in the 2000's; best friend's house was Halo house and mine was Smash Bros house. But those were the days of splitscreen local multiplayer games. I expect there's much more pressure for a social group to all have the same console now due to the the prevalence of online multiplayer.
  - masklinn 9y ago
    > But those were the days of splitscreen local multiplayer games. Yup. I have fond memories of multiplayer mario kart or goldeneye, or cooperative games e.g. coop Secret of Mana / Seiken Densetsu 2. > I expect there's much more pressure for a social group to all have the same console now due to the the prevalence of online multiplayer. So do I, but Nintendo seems to have kept the flame alive, local multiplayer mario kart works fine on the Switch, and the game is playable with solo joy-cons, so a pair of full-size controllers is enough for 4 players (once you find out how to configure the bloody thing).

ilovetux 9y ago

The important thing here is passion. It is easy enough to teach the basics of programming like it is easy to teach the basics of math, but without passion for the actual subject people tend to disregard even their own knowledge and expertise. tl;dr: It is important to share with your children the things you are passionate about, but equally important is to watch for things your children are passionate about.

codetrotter 9y ago
> It is important to share with your children the things you are passionate about, but equally important is to watch for things your children are passionate about. Absolutely, it is very important to me that we do things they enjoy. Otherwise I might end up doing the exact opposite of what I intended — and end up with them having an impression that working with technology is plain boring and a chore. Now of course in any creative endeavors there are times of pain and struggle, but I want my kids to experience the joy and satisfaction that can come from it too.

aidos 9y ago

It's harder than you think (2 kids, another on the way). My eldest is now 6 so she's getting a handle on logic thinking and pattern matching — but it takes a while for them to get there. Also, while they can't read, that's a large barrier to entry. She (and my 3yo) absolutely loved Google's 50 years of Kids Coding doodle [1]. As you've pointed out, finding excitement in the world to share together is the most important thing. The HN crowd tend to be a pretty inquisitive bunch, so there's no shortage of things to look into :-) [1] https://www.google.com/doodles/celebrating-50-years-of-kids-coding https://www.google.com/doodles/celebrating-50-years-of-kids-...

dyarosla 9y ago
For any kids who enjoyed that Google Doodle I’d recommend taking a look at Lightbot[0] and Spritebox[1]; similar experiences for playing with programming logic. Full disclosure: I’m the developer on these, but believe they’re relevant here. [0] lightbot.com [1] spritebox.com
- aidos 9y ago
  Yes! My girls already love Lightbot, we found it after they had played the Google Bunny doodle to death. They'll be super excited tomorrow when I tell them I spoke to the person that made it :-) Will definitely download Spritebox and give it a try. Would you say it's more aimed at older kids and adults? Thanks so much for making it!
  - dyarosla 9y ago
    Happy they like it :) Spritebox is geared for ages 7+, but, like Lightbot, assumes no prior experience with coding.

mercer 9y ago

> I think it used to be like this for a lot of people in the developed world as well when computers were new and most people did not have computers and those that did had only one in the whole household. I remember playing games with family members using only a single keyboard. I have vague memories of even somehow managing four player games somehow, right up until keyboards stopped responding to that many simultaneous inputs. This makes me wonder if part of the appeal the Nintendo Switch seems to have with, in particular, the 30-something crowd, is to do with how easy it is to play two-player games (or more) by just propping up the device and detaching the joycons. Nostalgia seems to really play a role in the popularity of that thing.

onion2k 9y ago

There's a process in extreme programming that works in exactly the same way - "mob programming". Everyone in the team gathers around a single computer and works on the same task together. With the right team it can work really well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mob_programming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mob_programming

dahart 9y ago

> I don’t have children yet, but when I get children I hope to show them programming and involve them in what I do with computers and to show interest in what they are doing and to encourage them to be creative. I had the same hope for my children (now 12 & 14), so I let them start using devices & playing games when they were 3 (even gave my older kid the first rev of the OLPC laptop). To a large degree, I regret the decision to start that early. Nothing has gone the same way it did when I was a kid. I had a DOS machine with a couple of crappy games, and a BASIC interpreter. The only thing I could do is learn to program, it was the most exciting thing available. Today, the absolute flood of high quality content in videos & games has basically prevented them from wanting to spend time figuring out low level details. They have options for spending their time that are so much better than I had that they basically can't choose to create. At least not yet. My oldest has been talking about creating his own games for years, he's very curious, he's a super user of the OS's he has access too, his knowledge of game styles and history far exceeds mine (and I was a game dev for a decade). But when it comes down to spending time making things, he inevitably chooses to play an interesting game rather than learn coding. My younger son is almost as addicted to games, but has a simultaneous addiction to YouTube. Recently I met a couple of extremely smart and creative kids whose parents (AI researchers) have completely and severely restricted their access to any devices at all. It got me wondering what the best way to encourage creativity is. Pushing too much will turn them off or make them resist, but a lack of any support can be even worse. Making sure they have time where they're bored and don't have access to high quality and structured entertainment choices at all times currently seems like a good idea to me. OTOH, they're growing out of some habits I was worried about, and maybe the best approach is just to set a good example and love and support them in whichever directions they want to go.

NPMaxwell 9y ago
We did not restrict access, and when my youngest was 11, he said he wanted to be a game developer. (As he says, "everyone wants to be a game developer.") We agreed to support him, but only if he wanted to do it "for real". "For real" meant first learning C or Java. He agreed and we did something that seemed obvious after the fact: we hired a programming teacher the way other families hire a music teacher. Our son met with this college senior who had taken Java once a week for an hour and the guy took our son through the first 5 courses of UW's CS sequence. Sort of worked well: At 19, when my son applied for jobs, he could say 8 years experience in Java. By then, he also had C, C++, Lua, Unity, and 3D StudioMax. He made a stab at starting a game-development company, and wiped out on that first try. At 24, he is now coding backend for apps supporting farming and creates games now and then on weekends. (Some day, he might get his G.E.D.)

hahamrfunnyguy 9y ago

I was thinking the same thing. The public library had a few Apple IIs that you could load games on and play. There would typically be a few kids gathered around one computer taking turns.

wink 9y ago

We got the first pc in the household when I was 11 and we never sat there with 2 or more people apart from the occasional "trying to figure something out" or A helping B or vice versa. But maybe that's also because my parents were never interested in games. Thinking about it, it wasn't much different at all of my school buddies' places - often the computer was cramped into a corner that it was already hard to sit 2 kids in front of it and I've also hardly of anyone doing this with their parents or siblings, but that's of course not a proof.