By the time they are in 8th or 9th grade they would have spent a large portion of their early years using crappy software or playing games that may be of high q

By the time they are in 8th or 9th grade they would have spent a large portion of their early years using crappy software or playing games that may be of high quality but don't teach them much about computers. And old school learning arguments works depending on the field. You can teaching computing without a computer, but only up to a point after which it becomes tedious to all but the most dedicated.