Charlotte's Webpage: Why Children Shouldn't Have the World at Their Fingertips

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Lowell Monke: Charlotte's Webpage: Why Children Shouldn't Have the World at Their Fingertips, Orion October 11, 2005

I guess people make a living publishing articles like this, which doesn't seem really fair to me. The gist of the article is that computers harm education, mostly because they deaden childrens' encounters with the real world. The author cites what seems to be example after example - the (uncited) Fuchs and Woessman report, the cancellation of recess, the glee with which students set about hacking the school network. The idea is that children are being shown a false reality. For example, "If computers discourage a sense of belonging and the hard work needed to interact responsibly with others, they replace it with a promise of power." More...