Blobs of plastic
By Jason Slater in Reader
Posted in General on January 2, 2008 at 6:47 pm
With two very young children in our household Christmas means the house is now filled with huge blobs of plastic toys - sometimes I think that friends and family either think we live in a warehouse or that they have some wicked sense of humour. I am often also gobsmacked at the almost thesis worthy way in which these toys are attached to the packaging materials which means either severed fingers or so much twisting of little plastic wire seals that the fun of the toy is lost by the time it is opened. Fortunately Santa way busy opening all their toys on Christmas Eve (and came armed to the gills with batteries) so they were ready to play come Christmas morning.After playing with these blobs of plastic for a few minutes each then raising an almost cynical eyebrow my two (nearly three) year old daughter reverted to the two things she likes best: my portable DVD player and my PDA. My PDA is an aging HP IPAQ 4350 and since I loaded some games on it and a basic drawing program she has been hooked. She can power the thing up, retrieve the stylus from the device, understand how the stylus works in relation to the screen and load in both the game and the drawing program. For the game she knows she has to navigate several screens of information to choose the game from the game collection and she also understands the concept of how the game works. She even asked me recently if she could print out her pictures for heavens sake - a few years ago I was teaching rooms of employees the relationship between moving a mouse and an onscreen pointer! For the portable DVD player she knows how to switch it on, open the DVD cover, open the DVD case and get the DVD out of it (by pressing those little plastic button things). She can then power it up, navigate the menu and play her Peppa Pig DVD. By the way - I just love the episode where daddy pig fixes the computer by “switching it off and on again”.
I almost fear for her potential level of applied IT knowledge by the time she gets to the ripe old age of five - she will probably be redesigning our home wireless network or explaining to me how badly implemented our home data backup solution is!
If there truly is an IT skills crisis then perhaps employers are looking in the wrong place – maybe they need to contact their local school instead? Happy New Year!
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Loading ...Comment by Mike Skuse - January 3, 2008 on 11:36 am
Now this is what I like to hear!, Whilst it may be odd for me to be saying this, I will anyway - if I was to have kids, I’d like them similar to this - knowing how every bit of technology in the house works, using laptops before being able to walk and knowing more about technology than me by the end of it. It is a bit of a shame that simple toys are now being thrown out of the window in replacement for video games and the like but to be honest I’m willing to make the sacrifice if that means a generation who are incredibly intellectual on the workings of technology.
Good on her for knowing more about portable dvd players and pda’s than the rest of my family put together!
Comment by Sharon Jackson - January 4, 2008 on 11:06 am
Although my kids are a bit older (10 & 12) they have both been using gadgets for years. They have (old) PDAs, digital cameras, laptops and can operate them all easily - which is more than my hubby can do! The other year my daughter got her camera and before I could offer had installed it, taken pictures and transfered them to the PC. I’m now trying to interest them in graphic design and programming, at a simple level of course. My daughter wants me to teach her web design this summer too. Kids learn quicker and better at a young age so I hope they keep at least a hobby interest in IT.
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