My first experience with computers was in the math lab in Jr. High. A huge grey box with flashing lights, no monitor and i/o through papertape, card, or keyboard. Spent weeks writing a basic program to perform basic calculations but I was hooked. Progressed through the years on the bleeding edge, TRS-80, IBM PCjr... Somewhere in there I no longer got beat up going home from the math lab, and being a geek helped me to earn a living. I have three children, 2 have had there own personal computers since they were about 6 or 7. My oldest lived with his mother in a virtual computing desert, he was unable to accept his geekiness and is currently a beach bum in So Cal. My middle child has been computing for 6 years, and is beginning to embrace her geekiness, experimenting, learning what those little green city things are, and what they do. My youngest is just really starting to get going in computing, although she is comfortable connecting and disconnecting peripherals, and installing programs. I believe that computers are an excellent tool and in order to succeed children need an understanding of their capabilities. Not just be a "user" all of their life. I think having the computers and being attached to a network, Internet etc. has been an invaluable tool to my family, and would recommend it to anyone.
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My first experience with computers was in the math lab in Jr. High. A huge grey box with flashing lights, no monitor and i/o through papertape, card, or keyboard. Spent weeks writing a basic program to perform basic calculations but I was hooked. Progressed through the years on the bleeding edge, TRS-80, IBM PCjr ... Somewhere in there I no longer got beat up going home from the math lab, and being a geek helped me to earn a living. I have three children, 2 have had there own personal computers since they were about 6 or 7. My oldest lived with his mother in a virtual computing desert, he was unable to accept his geekiness and is currently a beach bum in So Cal. My middle child has been computing for 6 years, and is beginning to embrace her geekiness, experimenting, learning what those little green city things are, and what they do. My youngest is just really starting to get going in computing, although she is comfortable connecting and disconnecting peripherals, and installing programs. I believe that computers are an excellent tool and in order to succeed children need an understanding of their capabilities. Not just be a "user" all of their life. I think having the computers and being attached to a network, Internet etc. has been an invaluable tool to my family, and would recommend it to anyone.