1998-05-15|Marketplace of ideas: Making an impact?
To the editor
Human civilisation is evolving from "Information Age" and "Knowledge Economy" to what I call "Post-Knowledge Society" in which creativity, imagination, ingenuity and originality will be valued more than the possession of knowledge.
With this paradigm shift in mind, I believe that computers can have a positive impact on young children by helping them express their creativity and foster non-linear thinking during their formative educational years.
For example, I have developed a multimedia HyperCard stack called HyperGames <http://WWW.HyperInfo.CA/HyperGames/> (sorry, Macintosh only until cross-platform "QuickTime Interactive" is released). Many of the games were conceived by my kids (8, 6, and 4 years old), who also drew most of the graphics for the games. Although they are still too young to do computer programming, they understand that computers are not just for typing, surfing the Internet and playing ready-made games.
Using an appropriate authoring tool (e.g., HyperCard) with a high-level scripting language (e.g., HyperTalk), one can create animations, educational quizzes, mathematical puzzles, music makers, word counters, etc. Besides games like Tic-Tac-Toe, HyperGames <http://WWW.HyperInfo.CA/HyperGames/> contains a real-time Magic Triangle generator, a Fractal Shape generator, a Morse Code generator, and a Weather Forecast analyser, among others. A Pong clone and a Pac-Man clone are written in only about 200 lines of code each. Kids will learn basic engineering principles such as Digital Number conversion (binary, octal, decimal, hexadecimal) and Internet Format conversion (BASE64, ROT13, etc.) by doing conversions themselves. Now that computers have become fast enough, the scope of what kids can programme is limited only by their imagination.
Incidentally, the mouse is a wonderful I/O device, but is awkward for drawing pictures. For me, the light pen was light-years ahead of the mouse (pun intended) as the most natural user interface device. I long for the comeback of a pen-based I/O device on a flat desktop computer.
Thank you very much for your attention.
P.S. If you decide to publish my comments, I would appreciate your including my E-mail address.
