I worked at a publicly funded inner city technology center in one of the larger UK cities whose mandate was to integrate technology into the curriculum of the s

I worked at a publicly funded inner city technology center in one of the larger UK cities whose mandate was to integrate technology into the curriculum of the surrounding schools. I can not tell you how much potential was wasted. Huge computer labs essentially used as annex class rooms. spyware installed to make sure kids weren't "googling bad things" or "speaking ill of their teachers in email". There were attempts to teach programming but the few kids that were interested had to come after hours and use notepad to write javascript to run in internet explorer from the desktop (not a bad way to learn just how easy it is really, I am just saying there was no official support/classes for such programs). So in short: I really hope this is a sign of change but I also know that money thrown at these programs is often just squandered on projectors and digital white boards. edit: upon reflection I think I feel guilty that I did not do more to make things the way I envisioned. I could have easily created a "programming class" image that we flashed the systems with to let them have linux, learn emacs, vim, apache etc. but I think I was too inexperienced to really be sure of myself. I'd love the opportunity now as I could offer a scratch/squeak course, a scheme course, web apps, lua/love for game programming. So many awesome free tools for every type of aptitude.