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From: taylor@hplabsc.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.comp-soc
Subject: Re: Getting people to use communications systems
Message-ID: <1491@hplabsc.HP.COM>
Date: Wed, 25-Mar-87 20:38:34 EST
Article-I.D.: hplabsc.1491
Posted: Wed Mar 25 20:38:34 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 27-Mar-87 04:03:08 EST
References: <1393@hplabsc.HP.COM>
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Organization: International Technology Development Corp. (ITDC)
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Approved: taylor@hplabs

gordon@bu-cs.bu.edu writes:

>Computer education for children is making good progress.  While it seems
>that computer illiteracy today is an insurmountable problem, the next 
>30 years will show a tremendous drop in "computer illiteracy", as the
>next generation of users (and software) matures.

I have two daughters, in sixth and ninth grades, and naturally I want to 
give them as good a head start as I can.  I have an IBM PC at home, and 
they both can navigate through WordStar enough to write papers, short 
stories, notes for school, letters, etc.  I was thinking of offering them 
a "summer school" course in more advanced computing.  I'd planned on giving 
them an introduction to C, which I figured would go a long ways towards 
explaining the difference between an editor and a compiler...

I'd be interested in any comments or suggestions on such a plan, especially 
any ideas on the "best" way to teach kids a language like C.  (I had thought 
of teaching them BASIC, but heard that it could cause permanent brain 
damage...)

I figured I'd try to build a spelling checker with them, which would teach 
something about databases, files, i/o, etc., and leave them with a tool that 
they could sorely use.

Matthew McClure 	    International Technology Development Corporation