The Danger of iPads in Schools | Hacker News Reader

The Danger of iPads in Schools

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6 pointsmatt200014 comments

I don't know how old OP is, but I'm 20 and first computing experience was graphical - with Windows NT 4.0. My elementary school had Macintosh OS 7/8 (don't remember exactly). However all I can remember doing on these computers were playing games - AOL Kids, Math Blaster, JumpStart and Zoombinis.

I didn't start programming until I was 13 (out of my own curiosity) and I wasn't offered any sort of programming classes by my junior year in high school.

My point is I think for most of us who grew up in the era of graphical interfaces, computers have always been glorified xboxes. When GUIs were introduced and we had options like Math Blaster I don't think many of us actually considered that we could write our own games. In elementary school I think the bar may be a little too high (not to say it can't be done). That said, it didn't matter to us that the machines were directly programmable. We didn't have the resources to create our own MathBlaster and I don't think any of us would have patience to wrestle with gcc.

I think Codify is a much better tool for teaching programming than a plain text file would be. Its a lot easier to make a "cool app" from a app that hides all hard parts of making a game (like a graphics library) than to try and convince a kid he should mess around in the console.

Interesting - do you remember at all how you first got into programming? How did you even find out it was an option? And what was the first thing you tried to make?

BTW, I'm the OP and I'm 38, I started with Logo on Apple II's at the Library, but I'm wondering if there's something more we should be doing to help kids get into this stuff.

My friend and I both got started with Flash. His dad was a graphic designer and we both knew with Flash you could create games, but we didn't know anything about programming. However after his dad showed us how to make a play/replay button, we played with the concept more, and made a Rock Paper Scissors game. (This was done by animating every possible combination, then having a "play button" that would jump to a random frame).

We did have to do a lot of Googling (we were only ever shown how to make a play button), but I don't think its very different from what Codify is trying to offer. After we had most of the basic programming control structures down and learned some of Flash's features (ActionScript 1 was very easy to use) we were off making games.

In hindsight, you are right. Simply having the programming environment to do whatever we wanted helped us learn. I remember we jumped into networking to create online versions of our games. However I am not sure if there is a way to recreate that push - we simply got into it because we spent so much time on sites like Newgrounds and armor games.

Kids who are inquisitive (future engineers) will still want to take the devices apart and will find a way to write apps.

You are focusing on the device not the environment. Consider a book, you cant edit or create with a book but that doesn't inhibit potential authors.

iPads allow (admittedly somewhat limited) creative activities, as well as supporting a raft of consumer educational software, consoles do not (so much)

edit: In addition, we should trust our educators to determine the best tools from those available to achieve the desired pedagogical outcomes.

Well put. However, I would argue that we should be attempting to reach the kids who might not realize they could or would like to be future engineers. The problem with the book analogy is that it's very obvious how you would make a book, all the pieces all there in front of you. It's not obvious how you might make an app for the iPad, none of the requirements are present. When I show kids how they're made, they're generally amazed.

Finally, I'm not sure we should trust our educators without question, this stuff changes very quickly and very few of them are programmers. In the 30 years since I've been programming there doesn't seem to be much change in how programming is taught in schools, so it might be time for a rethink.

Agreed, it's a more complex procedure to create an app, but the kudos for achievement is proportionality higher. It could therefore be argued that there is a rough balance in terms of motivation (assuming kudos drives motivation).

The fact that educators are not inherently technically adept is precisely why they need devices that can be reset and redeployed quickly and simply. If you take into account the attention span of young kids you can see why these devices have become so popular so quickly.

The target market in this context is a younger age range than the age at which programming should be introduced to the curriculum (admittedly this a contentious issue).

I'd argue that the use of iPads in this setting only reinforces the importance of learning to program when the opportunity present itself. How many of our peers were put off a possible career in programming as a result of the high barrier to entry presented by the flashing cursor and a lack of comprehension of the relevance of writing code? We need a proportionate representation of all personality types in the programming world to provide the best solutions for the non-programmers (at least until everyone is a programmer). Maybe this early exposure will attract people with insights we currently lack to careers in programming.

This is a great point, I didn't consider how many people got turned off a computer right from the start because of an unfriendly interface like a basic prompt.

I don't think that a prompt is the reason why kids get interested in computer programming. If that was the case, we could call this The Danger of Windows 95 in schools.

If anything, the prolifieration of apps makes a lot of programming more attainable for kids.

Hardward hacking, on the otherhand...

I don't think the prompt itself is the thing, it's the perception that the machine is under their control. In these kinds of things perceptions seem to matter a lot, especially to kids.

I have Scheme on my iPad. You can get Python for iPad, too. Not much useful you can do with them, but useful for learning programming.

But yeah, if you want to write native apps for the iPad you need a Mac and Xcode. Of course, it's not like people write Android apps on Android very much.

I can see the author's argument, but I think there are more fundamental issues to be dealt with. My high school, for example, discontinued Computer Science classes altogether due to low enrollment.

This is sheer insanity to me. I just don't understand why comp sci isn't taught as a fundamental course like math. Do you have a sense why nobody was enrolling? Was it seen as too hard, too nerdy, something else?

I'd say that it's usually because the pace of change in the industry is too fast for the curriculum to keep up.

Maths courses written in the time of COBOL are still being taught. The only option is to teach the basic fundamentals, which (without application) makes for a very dull subject.

Sadly this is more and more common. It's not unusual for entrants to university computer science courses to have no formal education in programming.

Fortunately there are plenty of fantastic free online resources available for independent study, and online communities brimming with experts only too happy to help :-)

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