> differences. First, drawing with a drawing program involves using a > mouse. A mouse is a rather blunt instrument. Six-year-olds can draw > with it, but what they produce looks like what a three-year-old could > do with a crayon. Still, we print it out and make a fuss over it as if > it were better than anything they could do themselves with actual art > supplies. I'd rather have my kids learn that what they create with > their own hands is worthwhile in its own right. I'd also rather have > young children working with three-dimensional, physical art supplies > that have texture. But that's just me.
I'm not an artist but I have opposing thoughts on this. On the one hand, I can't draw without a computer. I can do SOME visual art with a computer. On the other hand you are correct about using the computer prematurely, I believe that you will better develop a young child's sense of art using real tools instead of virtual tools. Art has evolved from the primitive need to imitate real life - most artists, whether they are realists or abstract artists, draw on <i>experience</i>, thus working with real materials creates experience whereas computers don't create that understanding. > But during my school tours last year, I found that computer use is not > left up to the teachers. Computer time is a scheduled part of the week, > whether or not the teacher has an academic objective that s/he believes > can be best achieved with computers. Well, this is part of an overall problem of trying to dictate curriculum from too high a level. If that were possible, the computers would BE the teachers. > > if its newness makes it better. Some new software is useful, but much > of it isn't, and you can't really tell until you've bought it and sunk > The other thing that bothered me during school tours was that so many > principals sounded like sales reps for software companies. The educational environment imitates corporate life... See Dilbert for more information. > > And about teaching programming: I tried to teach programming in Basic > to third graders, believing it was a neat idea. It was a complete waste > of time. They don't think that way yet. I think in setting policy, we > have to bear in mind that children really are children, and that they > have developmental stages. Well, granted - if you are responding to an earlier post of mine, I was really thinking about high school or better. Besides, BASIC is pretty limited. It would be interesting to try your experiment again with an object-oriented language and really robust component library. - Heck, try using Lego mindstorms, you'll accomplish a similar objective with potentially interesting effects. _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
