Think about your laptop, iPad, or smartphone. Are they toys, or something used for entertainment? Maybe they\u2019re appliances, with internal components that work when you push a button without your knowing why. What about when a child thinks of computers\u2014does he or she see a toy, an appliance, or something else?<\/p>\n
Some experts have argued that, as microcomputers become\u00a0more advanced<\/a>, affordable, and widely available, youth are beginning to demystify the computers and apps that have made life so \u201cmagical.\u201d<\/p>\n It seems we\u2019ve come full circle, back to the beginning of PCs.<\/p>\n Picture 1975. A group of intelligent and ambitious electronic enthusiasts meet up to build some of the very first computer operating systems. The meetings of what was then titled the\u00a0\u201cHomebrew Computer Club\u201d<\/a>\u00a0provided a creative outlet for future tech moguls like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak of Apple.<\/p>\n \u201cPersonal computers started off quite literally as personal, with hobbyists cobbling together their own machine in garages, dorms, and basements,\u201d the online\u00a0Computer History Museum explained<\/a>. \u201cEnthusiasts, often working from kits, formed clubs to share tips, scoured electronics magazines, tinkered into the night\u2014and loved every exciting minute.\u201d Ultimately, these hobbyists cultivated a thriving Silicon Valley subculture of what we often refer to today as interest-driven makers.<\/p>\n As TIME Magazine editor and longtime tech expert\u00a0Harry McCracken recounted<\/a>, many of the first microcomputers that arose from the Homebrew Club were sold in mom-and-pop computer stores like\u00a0the Byte Shop<\/a>, which became the first official Apple retailer.<\/p>\n In effect, Homebrew members were the first coders and hackers. They quickly learned how to write the most effective coding language of that time, called BASIC, and how to manipulate devices internally.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t long before Radio Shack began producing\u00a0one of the first<\/a>\u00a0plug-and-play computer models, the\u00a0TRS-80<\/a>. These models did not require any physical construction, but were simple enough to enable tinkerers, like McCracken, to write their own programs. \u201cI spent thousands of hours sitting in front of TRS-80s, cranking out programs in BASIC,\u201d he recounted. \u201cI knew the machine inside and out, in a way that\u2019s impossible with modern computers.\u201d<\/p>\n Suddenly, computers had been reduced to objects\u2014something that could be bought for a set price, at any chain store, in any American suburb. Chief Scientist of the DaVinci Science Center David Smith discussed this shift in a recent interview.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019ve gone through a really interesting cycle with personal computing. In the beginning, if you wanted a personal computer you had to build it from a kit and were very much working with the guts of the thing,\u201d he said. \u201cThen, the computer became an appliance\u2014you expected to go to a store, buy it, maybe download some basic software, and expect it to work.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith said that only now are we finally moving back to a time when people are writing code, rather than relying on what\u2019s being sold to them. He attributed this trend to the influx of low-cost, accessible tools, like the $25\u00a0Raspberry Pi microcomputer<\/a>.<\/p>\n The UK-registered charity began designing these affordable motherboards in 2006, after a team of developers noticed the same shift Smith described. \u201cSomething had changed the way kids were interacting with computers,\u201d\u00a0explained the founders<\/a>\u00a0on the organization\u2019s website. \u201cA number of problems were identified: the colonization of the Information and Communication Technology curriculum with lessons on using Word and Excel, or writing webpages; the end of the\u00a0dot-com boom<\/a>; and the rise of the home PC and games console to replace the Amigas, BBC Micros, Spectrum ZX and Commodore 64 machines that people of an earlier generation learned to program on.\u201d<\/p>\n While they note that the Raspberry Pi won\u2019t necessarily address problems like outdated curriculums or financial crises, they do say that the impetus behind their cause was, largely, to encourage kids to code. \u201cWe felt that we could try to do something about the situation where computers had become so expensive and arcane that programming experimentation on them had to be forbidden by parents; and to find a platform that, like those old home computers, could boot into a programming environment.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith reasoned that the affordability of Raspberry Pi and\u00a0its competitors<\/a>, which continue to grow, have made the microcomputer a real game-changer for computer programming education. Now, computers are entirely accessible for parents and teachers to integrate into homes and classrooms. \u201cAs the computing power becomes more accessible and cheaper, it becomes something that kids could play with and learn from,\u201d said Smith. \u201cWhen you can buy a $20-$30 microcomputer you can solder pins to its motherboard, and if you mess up you\u2019re only out twenty bucks. You\u2019re not going to do that with thousand-dollar personal computers.\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019s right. Thanks to affordable coding devices and programs,\u00a013-year-old Aita<\/a>\u00a0has dreams of becoming a computer scientist who helps create new health care technologies, and\u00a0this 11-year-old<\/a>\u00a0learned how to write her own games using Scratch, a programming language designed for kids.<\/p>\n Just like the young Steve Jobs, youth have more and more opportunities to learn computer programming, which not only helps to demystify computers but also encourages them to become innovators and inventors. And, as the Homebrew Computer Club did for the early days of computers, Learning Labs can serve as an influential outlet for kids to explore the many possibilities computers and coding can offer, particularly amid an emerging\u00a0STEM crisis<\/a>.<\/p>\n As David Rushkoff explained in his book \u201cProgram or Be Programmed: Ten Commandments for a Digital Age,\u201d teaching youth computer programming is more of a necessity than a choice. \u201cAs we move into an increasingly digital reality, we must learn not just how to use programs but how to\u00a0make<\/em>\u00a0them,\u201d he warned. \u201cIn the emerging, highly programmed landscape ahead, you will either create the software or you will be the software.\u201d<\/p>\n By Kelsey Herron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Think about your laptop, iPad, or smartphone. Are they toys, or something used for entertainment? Maybe they\u2019re appliances, with internal components that work when you push a button without your knowing why. What about when a child thinks of computers\u2014does he or she see a toy, an appliance, or something else? Some experts have argued […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":140,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/youmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/youmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/youmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/youmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":580,"href":"https:\/\/youmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions\/580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/youmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}