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Bruce writes:
> games and email can be time-wasters, but, unlike TV,
> they're at least active.
Consolation. But such small consolation.
For the average kid-- or at least for mine-- the issue is the
ratio of effort expended to gratification gained.
When he was little and no one had Microsoft Windows, my boy
once led me to the computer to show me how he had successfully
typed the name of a favorite book onto the screen. The mere
appearance of the glowing words was enough to gratify him and
justify the huge effort of locating keyboard letters that
matched the letters on the book cover. It was his own idea.
We bought a few educational games and he loved them. I
personally sat down with the BASIC manual and programmed a
game of Simon from scratch. (Yes, there was gratification
in writing simple programs, too, in them days.) Technology
was enticing us to intellectual exercise.
Then commercial games came along with a much lower ratio
of effort to gratification. Soon, instead of spending half
a minute on an arithmetic problem just to see a bunny hop up
and down, the kid could see twenty aliens explode in vivid
color just by pointing and clicking. Out the window goes
educational value.
The techwriting connection: If learning is hard but it's
the only way to gratification, people will learn. If
easier forms of gratification are available, people
won't learn.
---------------------------------------- Classification: Public -
- Mark L. Levinson - Gilian Technologies - markl -at- gilian -dot- com -
- tel +972-9-9560036 ext 215, fax +972-9-9565668 attn Mark L. -
- home: nosnivel -at- netvision -dot- net -dot- il, tel +972-9-9552411 or 9555720 -
-------------- * Only half of life is quantifiable * -------------
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