Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!scooter!netsys!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu!karl
From: karl@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Does `computer literacy' destroy `computer rabidness?'
Message-ID: <25018@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 19 Oct 88 11:59:26 GMT
Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
Lines: 34

A friend of mine was back at his high school for his 5-yr reunion
recently, and spent some time with one of his math teachers while
there.  My friend was one of those folks who got deeply attached to
computers while in high school, completely hooked, spent many long
hours learning how to do perverse things with the hardware available,
the usual sort of thing you expect to find when a teenager gets his
paws on the machines for the first time.

His teacher made the observation that my friend and a couple of other
kids from the following year were the last students who had the
`computer bug.'  That is, there is still a (growing) pile of hardware
available for use at the school, and it gets used.  But it seems that
there aren't any students who show up early in the morning, nor do
they hang out in the computer lab at noon, nor does anyone show any
interest in significant after-school activities.  There is a Computer
Club, but I am given to understand that it looks more like a social
club than a technical club.

The teacher further observed that this seemed to happen about the time
that students started showing up at high school with a reasonably
`computer literate' background.  They knew how to use PCs of various
flavors, can run editors without a second thought, know a spreadsheet,
maybe know some programming, one or two understand what's going on via
having learned a little assembler and tweaking idly at various weird
registers in the machines they've used.

But none of them are really hyperactive about computers like such
students used to be.

So I'm wondering: Is the trend toward making students `literate'
causing them not to have any real interest in them after all?  Or is
this lone data point completely out of the norm?  Corroboration or
refutation?

--Karl