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>I realized using tech in education (pre university) was a mistake. I think we should use tech in education, but in a targeted way. It's important that childre

>I realized using tech in education (pre university) was a mistake. I think we should use tech in education, but in a targeted way. It's important that children gain basic technical literacy, like how to touch type and use basic software. I suspect there is a gap in the technical literacy of lower income students, whose parents are less likely to have a computer at home. The real problem is separating reading/writing skills from tech skills. We shouldn't stop teaching handwriting just because typing exists. And being able to read long books and essays teaches fundamental cognitive skills like attention, focus, and information processing.

ajsnigrutin 6mo ago
> It's important that children gain basic technical literacy, like how to touch type and use basic software. I suspect there is a gap in the technical literacy of lower income students, whose parents are less likely to have a computer at home. Some of us "a bit older" seem to have gone through a golden era of tech, where we actually learned that tech en-masse. In a class of maybe 30 students, around 20, 25 of them were able to configure dial up modems, come on IRC (servers, ports, channels needed to be configured) and do a bunch of other stuff our parents mostly considered "black magic" (except for a few tech enthusiasts), and the general concensus was, that every generation will know more and be "better" than the previous generation. A few decades have passed.. and kids can't type anymore on a keyboard, can't print, have no idea what can be changed in the settings on their smartphone, don't know how to block ads, can't cheat in games anymore (except via pay-to-win) and have no idea where to change their instagram password. So, now you have boomers, who can't use computers and kids, who can't use computers anymore.
- TheOtherHobbes 6mo ago
  Boomers are split between a demographic that is very computer literate, having worked in/around science and tech for decades, and a demo that isn't remotely literate and may not even be online. The latter is a fairly small demo though - supposedly around a third. The split is more by education than by age. Kids can use computers - phones - as app appliances, but they don't understand computers. Peak literacy is young Gen X and older millennials.
pier25 6mo ago
> It's important that children gain basic technical literacy They certainly will at home. > I suspect there is a gap in the technical literacy of lower income students, whose parents are less likely to have a computer at home. In which country? I live in Mexico and even here you really need to go to the poorest families to find a home without a laptop. Even those families have multiple smartphones. Today a smartphone is not a good replacement for a laptop but maybe in a couple of years it will be.
- fasterik 6mo ago
  Even if they have a computer at home, that doesn't mean they're practicing the relevant skills. Touch typing, word processing, researching a topic online, etc. are things that need deliberate practice. Based on my own experience, using a computer at home 99% of the time meant playing video games. The following article suggests that in the United States, about 59% of lower income households have a laptop or desktop computer, compared to 92% of upper income households. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/06/22/digital-divide-persists-even-as-americans-with-lower-incomes-make-gains-in-tech-adoption/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/06/22/digital-d...
  - graemep 6mo ago
    Yes. Kids can learn a lot of they do use computers to do things like research things.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 6mo ago
    Leaving aside the wealth gap factor, which I do agree is important: When I think back to using computers as a kid, both at school(starting in 1999) and at home I don't think it's all that black and white wrt just playing at home vs learning useful skills at school. At some point in the early 00s my underfunded elementary school acquired a bunch of old windows 95 computers. We would have classes where we mostly did basic touch typing, MS Office etc. At home, my middle class parents had also managed to find me some old outdated clunker. And yes, most of my time at home was spent playing games, chatting with friends on msn, pirating mp3s etc. But I'd say I learned orders of magnitude more from my frivolous activities than from whatever we did at school. At home I was learning things like: online research(into warcraft cheat codes or quest guides for Runescape etc); software troubleshooting(having to reinstall windows because I downloaded malware on limewire or otherwise borked my install somehow); fast typing(from chatting with friends about whatever 12 year olds like to discuss. Probably 90% of my typing practice back then came at home, not at school, and there was no touch typing. I could type 100+ wpm on just 4 fingers by the time I was in middle school. Never actually learned to properly touch type until I had force myself into it 5 years ago due to RSI); English as a second language(from various forums, irc, etc, hard to avoid back then); And I believe one of my first forays into programming was trying to get a cracked game with a broken .bat installer off TPB to work. I had a friend who got into it via Morrowind modding. Actually, come to think of it, most of computer class was also in reality spent sneakily playing flash games and/or messing around with the computer settings just to screw with the next student/teacher to use it. Even generalising beyond computers, I think a remarkable portion of the skills and interests that end up defining us as people, can be traced back to stuff we did trying to avoid boredom as children. To summarise though, I do think computers have a place in school. But especially at an elementary school level, I think play should be a significant portion of their use, because play is how kids explore the world and themselves.
ninalanyon 6mo ago
> how to touch type What for? I've been writing computer programs and documentation since 1969 and I can't touch type. I've never felt enough pressure to do it. I can still type faster than I can think. When I'm writing most of my time is spent thinking not tapping the keys.
- datsci_est_2015 6mo ago
  You typed out this message by hitting individual keys as your eyes searched for them? Isn’t that mentally exhausting?
  - alecbz 6mo ago
    > Although [touch typing] refers to typing without using the sense of sight to find the keys ... the term is often used to refer to a specific form of touch typing that involves placing the eight fingers in a horizontal row along the middle of the keyboard (the home row) and having them reach for specific other keys. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_typing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_typing I think they're referring to the latter.
    - datsci_est_2015 6mo ago
      With such a strict definition the OP’s comment becomes basically meaningless. They could be referring to using index fingers only. They could be using an alternative keyboard layout. They could mostly be using left-hand only. Pretty much any WPM between 1 and 200 seems possible with the statement: “I don’t keep my fingers on home row in between key presses.”
    - nostrademons 6mo ago
      The strict definition of touch typing reminds me of how when I was a kid, my parents would always tell me that there’s a specific way of holding chopsticks. You gotta hold the top one like a pencil, and rest the bottom one between the crook of your fingers and your ring finger, and make sure they’re the same length and the bottom one isn’t moving and you’re just using it as a base to press against. And then I became an adult and visited China and met actual Chinese immigrants and married a native chopstick holder. And half of them don’t hold chopsticks “the real way”. Somehow it all works out. As long as you can eat a peanut with them, you pass. As an adult I learned that there’s also a whole lot of prescriptive bullshit that basically nobody pays attention to. The strict definition of touch typing seems like one of those. If you can type without looking at the keys, you can touch type.
kpw94 6mo ago
That's not using tech that you're describing here. You're talking about literally learning some basic computer skills (such as word processor, excel, reading email, some basic website building, use printer, and some amount of programming) For those, obviously you need a computer and completely agree that those are important skills to learn... But you maybe need to spend 1h/week during last 2 years of middle school on those at the computer lab (as it's been done since the 90s in many schools around the world) But for any other course such as Math, English (or whichever primary language in your country), second languages, history, etc. : that's where using tech is a mistake A bit of tech is ok, but it cannot be "everyone does their homework and read lesson on a iPad/Chromebook"
- fasterik 6mo ago
  Would it be a mistake to use Desmos in a math classroom, or 3Blue1Brown style animations, to build up visual intuition? Should we not teach basic numerical and statistical methods in Python? Should kids be forced to use physical copies of newspapers and journal articles instead of learning how to look things up in a database? I'm all for going back to analog where it makes sense, but it seems wrongheaded to completely remove things that are relevant skills for most 21st century careers.
  - graemep 6mo ago
    Those are great examples. Not familiar with Desmos, but 3Blue1Brown style animations are great. The problem is that people seem to want to go to extremes. Either go all out on doing everything in tablets or not use any technology in education at all. its not just work skills, its also a better understanding that is gained from things such as the maths animations you mentioned.
    - bpt3 6mo ago
      > The problem is that people seem to want to go to extremes. Either go all out on doing everything in tablets or not use any technology in education at all. I think the latter is mostly a reaction to the former. I think there is a way to use technology appropriately in theory in many cases, but the administrators making these choices are largely technically illiterate and it's too tempting for the teachers implementing them to just hand control over to the students (and give themselves a break from actually teaching).
fodkodrasz 6mo ago
Touch typing is not a basic tech skill, and also pretty useless on the long term. I expect dictation to take over very soon, as finally voice recognition is getting to be usable, and commonplace.
theSuda 6mo ago
Just wanted to point out that you and other people who responded to you basically do agree on same points, you are just presenting it differently. I just find it amusing/endearing that we argue with each other even when we do agree on the core issue. :D

ajsnigrutin 6mo ago

> It's important that children gain basic technical literacy, like how to touch type and use basic software. I suspect there is a gap in the technical literacy of lower income students, whose parents are less likely to have a computer at home. Some of us "a bit older" seem to have gone through a golden era of tech, where we actually learned that tech en-masse. In a class of maybe 30 students, around 20, 25 of them were able to configure dial up modems, come on IRC (servers, ports, channels needed to be configured) and do a bunch of other stuff our parents mostly considered "black magic" (except for a few tech enthusiasts), and the general concensus was, that every generation will know more and be "better" than the previous generation. A few decades have passed.. and kids can't type anymore on a keyboard, can't print, have no idea what can be changed in the settings on their smartphone, don't know how to block ads, can't cheat in games anymore (except via pay-to-win) and have no idea where to change their instagram password. So, now you have boomers, who can't use computers and kids, who can't use computers anymore.

TheOtherHobbes 6mo ago
Boomers are split between a demographic that is very computer literate, having worked in/around science and tech for decades, and a demo that isn't remotely literate and may not even be online. The latter is a fairly small demo though - supposedly around a third. The split is more by education than by age. Kids can use computers - phones - as app appliances, but they don't understand computers. Peak literacy is young Gen X and older millennials.

pier25 6mo ago

> It's important that children gain basic technical literacy They certainly will at home. > I suspect there is a gap in the technical literacy of lower income students, whose parents are less likely to have a computer at home. In which country? I live in Mexico and even here you really need to go to the poorest families to find a home without a laptop. Even those families have multiple smartphones. Today a smartphone is not a good replacement for a laptop but maybe in a couple of years it will be.

fasterik 6mo ago
Even if they have a computer at home, that doesn't mean they're practicing the relevant skills. Touch typing, word processing, researching a topic online, etc. are things that need deliberate practice. Based on my own experience, using a computer at home 99% of the time meant playing video games. The following article suggests that in the United States, about 59% of lower income households have a laptop or desktop computer, compared to 92% of upper income households. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/06/22/digital-divide-persists-even-as-americans-with-lower-incomes-make-gains-in-tech-adoption/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/06/22/digital-d...
- graemep 6mo ago
  Yes. Kids can learn a lot of they do use computers to do things like research things.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 6mo ago
  Leaving aside the wealth gap factor, which I do agree is important: When I think back to using computers as a kid, both at school(starting in 1999) and at home I don't think it's all that black and white wrt just playing at home vs learning useful skills at school. At some point in the early 00s my underfunded elementary school acquired a bunch of old windows 95 computers. We would have classes where we mostly did basic touch typing, MS Office etc. At home, my middle class parents had also managed to find me some old outdated clunker. And yes, most of my time at home was spent playing games, chatting with friends on msn, pirating mp3s etc. But I'd say I learned orders of magnitude more from my frivolous activities than from whatever we did at school. At home I was learning things like: online research(into warcraft cheat codes or quest guides for Runescape etc); software troubleshooting(having to reinstall windows because I downloaded malware on limewire or otherwise borked my install somehow); fast typing(from chatting with friends about whatever 12 year olds like to discuss. Probably 90% of my typing practice back then came at home, not at school, and there was no touch typing. I could type 100+ wpm on just 4 fingers by the time I was in middle school. Never actually learned to properly touch type until I had force myself into it 5 years ago due to RSI); English as a second language(from various forums, irc, etc, hard to avoid back then); And I believe one of my first forays into programming was trying to get a cracked game with a broken .bat installer off TPB to work. I had a friend who got into it via Morrowind modding. Actually, come to think of it, most of computer class was also in reality spent sneakily playing flash games and/or messing around with the computer settings just to screw with the next student/teacher to use it. Even generalising beyond computers, I think a remarkable portion of the skills and interests that end up defining us as people, can be traced back to stuff we did trying to avoid boredom as children. To summarise though, I do think computers have a place in school. But especially at an elementary school level, I think play should be a significant portion of their use, because play is how kids explore the world and themselves.

ninalanyon 6mo ago

> how to touch type What for? I've been writing computer programs and documentation since 1969 and I can't touch type. I've never felt enough pressure to do it. I can still type faster than I can think. When I'm writing most of my time is spent thinking not tapping the keys.

datsci_est_2015 6mo ago
You typed out this message by hitting individual keys as your eyes searched for them? Isn’t that mentally exhausting?
- alecbz 6mo ago
  > Although [touch typing] refers to typing without using the sense of sight to find the keys ... the term is often used to refer to a specific form of touch typing that involves placing the eight fingers in a horizontal row along the middle of the keyboard (the home row) and having them reach for specific other keys. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_typing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touch_typing I think they're referring to the latter.
  - datsci_est_2015 6mo ago
    With such a strict definition the OP’s comment becomes basically meaningless. They could be referring to using index fingers only. They could be using an alternative keyboard layout. They could mostly be using left-hand only. Pretty much any WPM between 1 and 200 seems possible with the statement: “I don’t keep my fingers on home row in between key presses.”
  - nostrademons 6mo ago
    The strict definition of touch typing reminds me of how when I was a kid, my parents would always tell me that there’s a specific way of holding chopsticks. You gotta hold the top one like a pencil, and rest the bottom one between the crook of your fingers and your ring finger, and make sure they’re the same length and the bottom one isn’t moving and you’re just using it as a base to press against. And then I became an adult and visited China and met actual Chinese immigrants and married a native chopstick holder. And half of them don’t hold chopsticks “the real way”. Somehow it all works out. As long as you can eat a peanut with them, you pass. As an adult I learned that there’s also a whole lot of prescriptive bullshit that basically nobody pays attention to. The strict definition of touch typing seems like one of those. If you can type without looking at the keys, you can touch type.

kpw94 6mo ago

That's not using tech that you're describing here. You're talking about literally learning some basic computer skills (such as word processor, excel, reading email, some basic website building, use printer, and some amount of programming) For those, obviously you need a computer and completely agree that those are important skills to learn... But you maybe need to spend 1h/week during last 2 years of middle school on those at the computer lab (as it's been done since the 90s in many schools around the world) But for any other course such as Math, English (or whichever primary language in your country), second languages, history, etc. : that's where using tech is a mistake A bit of tech is ok, but it cannot be "everyone does their homework and read lesson on a iPad/Chromebook"

fasterik 6mo ago
Would it be a mistake to use Desmos in a math classroom, or 3Blue1Brown style animations, to build up visual intuition? Should we not teach basic numerical and statistical methods in Python? Should kids be forced to use physical copies of newspapers and journal articles instead of learning how to look things up in a database? I'm all for going back to analog where it makes sense, but it seems wrongheaded to completely remove things that are relevant skills for most 21st century careers.
- graemep 6mo ago
  Those are great examples. Not familiar with Desmos, but 3Blue1Brown style animations are great. The problem is that people seem to want to go to extremes. Either go all out on doing everything in tablets or not use any technology in education at all. its not just work skills, its also a better understanding that is gained from things such as the maths animations you mentioned.
  - bpt3 6mo ago
    > The problem is that people seem to want to go to extremes. Either go all out on doing everything in tablets or not use any technology in education at all. I think the latter is mostly a reaction to the former. I think there is a way to use technology appropriately in theory in many cases, but the administrators making these choices are largely technically illiterate and it's too tempting for the teachers implementing them to just hand control over to the students (and give themselves a break from actually teaching).

fodkodrasz 6mo ago

Touch typing is not a basic tech skill, and also pretty useless on the long term. I expect dictation to take over very soon, as finally voice recognition is getting to be usable, and commonplace.

theSuda 6mo ago

Just wanted to point out that you and other people who responded to you basically do agree on same points, you are just presenting it differently. I just find it amusing/endearing that we argue with each other even when we do agree on the core issue. :D