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A new digital divide: Young people who can’t use keyboards

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Re: A new digital divide: Young people who can’t use keyboards

#91

Post by jedberg »

kibwen wrote: post #59

I'm confused here. The article implies that kids aren't learning how to type because they don't have access to a PC at home. But for the majority of the history of computing, it was the case that most people wouldn't have had access to a PC at home as children. My parents learned to type on typewriters at college. I had a mandatory class entirely dedicated to typing in middle school. Have schools stopped offering com…

> Have schools stopped offering computer classes,

Many have stopped or at least severely cut back

> assuming that kids already know how to use them from their experience at home?

Partly this and partly budget cuts. Computer skills aren't on the standardized tests, so they are a "waste of time" like art and music and history and everything else that isn't on the test. So they are deemphasized.

Some schools with money for computers and a computer teacher will at least try to integrate it into their language instruction by doing exercises on the computer.

Re: A new digital divide: Young people who can’t use keyboards

#92

Post by innocenat »

jdietrich wrote: post #45

It's worth bearing in mind that the source is Japanese. All input methods for the Japanese language are a compromise. Inputting kanji on a physical keyboard is nowhere near as fluid as inputting Latin characters - you're constantly toggling between inputting kana and selecting the kanji options presented by the IME. The prediction and correction technologies of smartphone keyboards are a very good match for kanji and…

That's why it's so sad this[0] 2016 Google April's Fool stays an April's Fool

0: https://www.google.co.jp/ime/furikku/

Re: A new digital divide: Young people who can’t use keyboards

#93

Post by jedberg »

ModernMech wrote: post #74
dooglius wrote: post #10

>Given that they can write and submit their school reports with smartphones Would students really do this? I couldn't imagine trying to write an entire essay or a lab report on a smartphone. Maybe Japanese schools don't have to turn in longer things like that?

I used to write my reports on a type writer. A smartphone would have been a dream come true back then.

But didn't you write a longhand draft first? Or at least longhand outlines?

Re: A new digital divide: Young people who can’t use keyboards

#94

Post by innocenat »

ssivark wrote: post #61
crazygringo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who recently worked in education... yes. Anecdotally, I tended to see it at the community-college level with students who owned a large-screen phone and didn't own a computer. I don't think anyone is writing whole research papers or serious lab reports on phones. A two-page reading response is totally doable. Something with footnotes or equations, not so much.

Yes, one can technically vomit out a few hundred words using a small touch screen. But the tools make it damn difficult to edit and re-organize text. Does this mean that all such reports are basically stream-of-consciousness writing instead of a more carefully polished piece of work?

It's not hard to edit & reorganised with larger screen smartphone at all.

Re: A new digital divide: Young people who can’t use keyboards

#95

Post by bachbach »

mikebelanger wrote: post #39
bachbach wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree and I'm in this group. I blame the duration of modern education. It has made newer generations less flexible. Institutionalization. It's a paradox because the Internet has made the pollination of ideas more likely - but we are less likely to do new things, we stay in our boxes. This shows up in the productivity and entrepreneurship statistics. It may be true that wages are poor and rents are high - but also w…

Part of the reason for the decline in self-built in homes is advancements in modular home building. They're much better, and more economical than ever before. Even my Dad, who self-built two large homes himself, admitted it doesn't make sense to self-build. One is better off just working more in whatever specialty they do, and getting a modular home.

We're not buying those either. I've seen only one prefab in my area.

We're not even building Tiny Houses. That movement has faded away as the land permission issue dominated over their advantages.

Meanwhile: https://youtu.be/M73r32vK7C4

That's not a joke - there is a steep decline in being 'handy' - I'm doing everything I can to learn how to be but it still feels a bit unnatural. That lack of adaptability is like an extra tax.

I don't think my parents are more handy either, but that's a generation that bought their houses at 5x-15x lower prices so millennials like me could really do with being more hands on.

To put this in perspective, my father bought his house for 40k 20 years ago and now it is valued at least 250k. I earn about the same as he did 20 years ago and I suspect I earn more per hour than my university peers. Bluntly - they're poor - the most sensitive subject you could talk about is how much you earn. That's private.

It's not the cost of equipment that's the problem. The cost of good power tools is lower than before and they're more effective. Materials prices are higher but not that much. The big constraint is psychological, possibly followed up by permissions for building.

There's a weird psychology with this subject - weird to hear it described but it's there.

Somehow not having a house is believed to be less impoverished than going and building one. Count me out! I don't think forking over half your earnings to a landlord is sophisticated. I remember talking to people about the Tiny House concept and I got the strong impression that living in a modest self built dwelling was an admission of poverty.

Re: A new digital divide: Young people who can’t use keyboards

#96

Post by hunter2_ »

actsasbuffoon wrote: post #81
api wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more important is the nature of PCs vs mobile devices. The mobile platform is designed to commoditize the user and create a stark division between users on one side and content and software creators on the other. You can't easily create anything of any substance on a mobile device and the ecosystem discourages it by e.g. treating user data as unimportant. PCs were designed to be devices for people to create thin…

I strongly disagree. I use my tablet for painting and sketching, composing music, and sometimes a bit of writing. These devices are amazing for content creation. They’re currently not good at programming, which is a small subset of content creation. This problem plagued personal computers for a long while as well. For example, Apple’s Lisa could only be programmed by attaching it to a second Lisa (which was extremely…

I think it's also a governance problem. The relative inability to program within itself reduces the number of bricked devices. A bricked device either becomes a cost to the manufacturer, a cost to the consumer, or can be quickly reflashed by the consumer. Not only does reflashing likely require a second device to do so, but it also works against the locked secure bootloader concept which is such a popular (albeit controversial) feature to keep these ecosystems healthy.

The days when you could compile an exe without any kind of signing and distribute it with nobody getting a warning about an unknown developer were the days when everyone was bluescreening monthly; hardly a coincidence.

Re: A new digital divide: Young people who can’t use keyboards

#97

Post by mey »

innocenat wrote: post #92
jdietrich wrote: post #45

It's worth bearing in mind that the source is Japanese. All input methods for the Japanese language are a compromise. Inputting kanji on a physical keyboard is nowhere near as fluid as inputting Latin characters - you're constantly toggling between inputting kana and selecting the kanji options presented by the IME. The prediction and correction technologies of smartphone keyboards are a very good match for kanji and…

That's why it's so sad this[0] 2016 Google April's Fool stays an April's Fool 0: https://www.google.co.jp/ime/furikku/

It sounds like even just the google flick keyboard on a tablet as an input device to a computer would be useful.

Have a Qwerty keyboard center, a flick keyboard left and mouse right? (Or personal preference of course)

Re: A new digital divide: Young people who can’t use keyboards

#98

Post by victorvation »

21 wrote: post #16
nickserv wrote: post #9

Do your children a favor and get them a "real" computer with keyboard and mouse, instead of a tablet. I've found it helps with several things. For one, I've seen children accustomed to using touch interfaces blurring the line between physical and virtual, i.e swiping at physical objects like books, photos, even walls. I've not seen this behavior with those used to non touch interfaces. Also, learning to use a keyboar…

> I've seen children accustomed to using touch interfaces blurring the line between physical and virtual, i.e swiping at physical objects like books, photos, even walls. I've not seen this behavior with those used to non touch interfaces. Why do you think this is a bad think? This is how kids learn how the world works, by trying the same thing in different contexts, like how small children put everything in their mou…

I find this type of neo-Luddism to be a strange form of gatekeeping for technologists. "Back-in-my-day"-ism for Google and manpages and the computer mouse.

Re: A new digital divide: Young people who can’t use keyboards

#100

Post by protomyth »

kibwen wrote: post #59

I'm confused here. The article implies that kids aren't learning how to type because they don't have access to a PC at home. But for the majority of the history of computing, it was the case that most people wouldn't have had access to a PC at home as children. My parents learned to type on typewriters at college. I had a mandatory class entirely dedicated to typing in middle school. Have schools stopped offering com…

Typing class and most computer classes are long gone. One of the problems with dedicated computer class is it has most of the characteristics of a vocational class. You need a dedicated teacher, a special room, and special equipment. At least shop classes don't need many updates to the equipment. Computers are now a resource, and most kids get minimum instruction (just enough to type papers or use the educational programs).
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