Hi Phillip and everybody-
Your example is very good - I observed this difficulty as well. Kids
entering the world of computers have to learn a lot of tacit things such as
correspondence between their actions with keyboard, mouse and the screen.
Games involve also a lot of tacit knowledge that the kids have to learn. For
example, I saw a little kid that could not grasp that when the screens
change the character remains the same. He thought that the game starts all
over again.
I think that it is not true that the kids "naturally good" with computers
but rather outside schools, kids' diverse cultures often organize
"communities of practice" around computer games and other Internet-based
computer activities like chat rooms with relative ease creating
developmental pathways of learning and "intergenerational" networks of
players. Of course, computer companies designing games make all their
efforts to break into children market but still their success is remarkable
with regard diversity of children's cultures. This is an interesting
phenomenon.
What do you think?
Eugene
> -----Original Message-----
> From: White, Phillip [mailto:Phillip.White@cudenver.edu]
> Sent: Sunday, November 09, 2003 12:55 PM
> To: ematusov@UDel.Edu
> Subject: RE: Dialectical materialism / Nature
>
> Eugene wrote:
>
> I want to comment only on one point out of many that Andy made:
>
> I observe many of those kids learning
> computers for the first time. In my non-systematic observations, I did not
> find that it is true that "young people know how to use screens almost
from
> whatever background they come from ... because they have to."
>
>
> to throw in my two-cents worth about what i think, Eugene - i have made
similar
> observations - having working in elementary schools for the last three
decades, many
> students come to school without a clue about how a computer works - just
getting the
> relationship between the cursor's movement on the screen and the movements
of the mouse
> in their hand can be for some a difficulty of some duration. of course,
maybe this notion of
> "young people" is defined by those who have completed elementary school,
say. but for
> young people entering elementary schools it's not true - and even as a
young person moves
> through the grades, those students whom come from homes with computers and
internet
> access have a depth of understanding of ways to negotiate / a sense of
identity and agency
> with computers / that students without such capital at home don't have.
>
> and of course, there are always exceptions.
>
> phillip
>
> phillip white
> university of colorado at denver
> school of education
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