Kids & COMPUTERS: What's a parent to do? (1991)

good morning a poster of information systems school on behalf of the attitude for the study

if human knowledge i'd like to walk and you hear this morning when we started when you

have to come in and see more property i started planning this symposium back in december january

i thought it was an interesting idea to have a symposium targeted toward parents on this

topic of kids in computers and i was interested in it because our doing research in the past

about kids some video games that educational software but i didn't have a real personal

interest and be a sort of topic of today is special however i'm happy to announce to you

today but my wife and i are be proud new parents of the baby boy who was one week all day before

yesterday and those if you remember what it was like

to be the parents of the one week old may may be able to appreciate the chinese fortune

cookie message but i got last night the the true story the nightlife is for you

so you know i have a very personal interest in video topic of today session and i hope

you do too we've gathered today some of the world's leading experts on the topic of kids

in computers and education and i think they'll have some very interesting things to say for

you to the [noise] uh let me just a little bit about our sponsoring organization the

institute for the study if human knowledge is a non profit researching educational organization

its headquarters or los altos california i moved to branch off if you're in boston it's

own interdisciplinary organization but encourages uh m- bringing really perspectives to be their

own problems but face our society there's books service series of symposium on hold

ecology you know the topics this is the third a series of computer related suppose you know

it's part of the program on computers were from society uh another symposium will be

healthier in boston next month called the road to the future there or or put posters

of advertising it in the back and you're also able to register for if you're if you like

this uh they would be about how we show how we should go up our own adapt to the world

in the future and what we need to know from or pass we're speakers like the worst laughing

and all those james berkeley so it's coordinator from b._b._c. edward phobia proposal just

robert ornstein the psychologist video i'm a another couple of announcements uh

today's program is being videotaped and those if you who would like copies of the video

tape should leave your neighbor to dress up the registration just at the back so we can

send you information about it when it's available oh there's also another you know smoke in

the lobby out so hard about being held next wednesday sponsored by the boston computer

society uh massachusetts computer using educators that's called changing tools for changing

schools it will feature children from the boston area schools demonstrating technology

in software that they have built tour develops themselves as part of their educational programs

for that looks to be very interesting as well uh i'd like to be fully proceed any further

i think the conference coordinators who helps you just don't see more organized those symposium

i hope they're around here somewhere 'cause your clean cause lonely and and one big worrisome

spent [noise] excuse me stand up or are they better than no uh edith ackerman say it was

by mistake left off of one of the welcoming remarks presenters but according to the conference

she would you know like to give you some more information about today's events today's programming

at her will come to my youth after my professor at the media lab in him or two of one more

time i would like to well i mean when i come to the educators this she wouldn't future

you know and the speakers that just came together to dates even i even keep in computer what

to do that well i mean you know organizing the same post you was to make sure that we

not just and a message or the kind of how to get your child to be smarter or bachelor

using computer story what's we wanted to do is to provide resources human resources and

that's what i don't know i'm you know each and every one of us to beat up on there then

when how often we do i watch and then that was food or she would not use computers and

what kinds of computers so to put it really yeah i that didn't they become brainstorming

events rather then brainwashing in surprise now you know to to do so we kind of a fair

in the far east are human being it's quite the hours in their approach the experience

you about the use of computers uh quite that even in the field of uh education i think

now that we are guy smoother convictions envision about what the best for our children but yeah

i like the choice of well not just one particular very so voice on the outside in the city that's

the end of software company [noise] where to sponsor did then and to demonstrate some

products that he recommends it by just speakers so here yeah i was not just talk about opposed

to be he uh to to use the computer but also supposed to be to play and to get to see all

the bills that the speakers are going to speak about uh some of the worst teachers favor

eat uh software micro words are gay leaving wide range among other things they don't quote

they motor or things like science he to them we write to cheat he can go right to object

petrie's things like how to make goes for now um we believe that the job again of each

other to discover by today we did a software um and we had some of the speakers to discover

each other because you don't know each of you know he believes me to find that i that

was the next and we buy you know i mean that i watch i swim uh it's great that you i think

that we have the opportunity to get for the state of the speakers that's we chose a one

or two enough before i used to work he more packers e. d. epistemology and learning to

hear that that might get to meet all switch seymour property you know we work together

we just do you use of teachers who are easy boston area you know two years project called

science and now i wouldn't i mean i used to eating so i think teachers are we share their

experience to go for registration there would be a um and for any form of discussion with

the uh um we think that if you extremely experienced teachers from such a paycheck i didn't meet

structures which may and others who and i think it's very useful drawing their voices

to do stuff you could spend sponsors so if they are so many teachers here for information

you have a four day for him to students and so it's just across the road you can always

go there for lunch and eat that i have to be a express everybody foods or during thank

you [noise] [noise] without congratulating he's baby so one to appropriate is a a fortune

cookie macy's not classes for me to like to just start talking by saying that if i mean

you know a strange mental status because i've just had to experience which i went to blame

on the computer because uh two nights ago i was in maine with being in the very secluded

trying to finish some writing and then decided to pull together some stuff that i've been

doing during the summer that i went to share with you and god of letters up in the computer

and started checking some programs are saying what just happened it was four thirty in the

morning or somebody was gonna go so i missed that's not funny practically and uh you know

way that six ethical example of one of the a stereotype images when the has it's what

happens when you put people together with computers well one thing led to another maybe

because of the two of them sleep i had caught trouble and i didn't get away i couldn't believe

maine and so the bass quite like yesterday evening and so i am not having step class

national having driven this call six and i have i was from from maine down to you know

well that puts me in a state of mind which maybe is abnormal side uh on the other uh

i have often decided that i would never do that to be much more organized wouldn't arrive

after they had a a airplane was driving in the call would give us talk talk this because

you can venture say even less what uh i intended to say then i always do it it's good to me

that was that uh this i was contradicting myself one of the things i want to talk about

in fact the issue that's often raised about children becoming you know occasionally

as they say it would get to be involved with computers and what was going to say about

that was the uh when i see this happen i think two things supposed to if the strategy was

obsession really involved with the piano with reading shakespeare was writing poetry uh

you wouldn't use with addicted so it's an interesting question about what we used to

be with addicted we talk about computers than maybe chevy too if it is going to say something

about about that how do you know we're just gonna say she has some interesting sports

about that subject so leave that to comment on another so and that is when people ask

me what i think about their children spending six hours a day to do i intend oh games with

whatever it might be the right thing to say is what is the child telling you you know

was the child doing that and not other things maybe this is a message to you about to something

else being so totally boring in the child's life sucks scoop perhaps uh view that so it

seems to me that looking at that sort of involvement too ripe response is you know to say that

just saying something about the computer video game or whatever it is it saying something

about your child to about children engine uh people in general you know culture perhaps

uh so applying that to myself i think that to my initial stitches again but i mean myself

as i drove down to one school getting into the situation of you know driving in the chaotic

state having driven are nice and not even worth property dressed but i'm not a a business

school but what if it might be uh i started saying to myself well maybe that's what i

really want to maybe that's really watched this business oh what the computer is all

about [noise] um [noise] and i try to elaborate that as a joke to italy about some of the

things that i've been doing recently with some children on the computer but i'd i'd

say something you know sort of stuff and then i was down in the program i mean to you know

one well to me remarks and shoot making a a talk about computers in children group settings

welcoming remarks for a moment and the reason why they should be kept in i would like to

eat is excellent said about making the same brainstorming north just listening to the

beach is and i guess if i'd never sort of this before but see how many people came here

and hearing the remark about the computer use in education kind of organization it strikes

me that maybe it would be very interesting to have a i you know some sort of continuation

all of this getting together after after to die and then some of people who uh prison

share who appearance and maybe they children too and maybe some of us much like to stay

in touch and continue of uh of the time i was thinking of maybe meetings from time to

time i was also thinking of fading up and then they try to communication that idea and

you know maybe a various times the beach and stroke about it if if the end of the day uh

you'd like to leave you names in the dresses if you interested in doing anything like that

please do find some way to leave them somewhere okay two computers in children [noise] um

[noise] i i feel are as feel all quit just talking to a group of people i don't know

i see a lot of places there you are what you saying what you do uh since my my my whole

approach to education is don't give lectures and what's wrong with school this is the teacher

stands up in front of study children and to accept them and that's not the way to live

under three hundred people in talking at them that some of the wages so it makes me feel

that you know something's wrong how if i don't know how to get around it except isn't ready

propose doing something about getting getting closer together so i'd like to excuse myself

if i make assumptions about some if you set up some of you know to others [noise] one

of the assumptions that people often make even dealing with with you think about children

in computers is well quoted software what computer what activity for that much of a

particular of course is nothing wrong with that and i don't want to discourage that question

but i'd like to focus also some other question that uh i think perhaps oh just as important

maybe in the long run more important than the two kinds of other questions and i'd like

to focus on what it is which is the content of a lot of summer activity apart from trying

to recruit which was working with some children and they pay room on the idea that it would

be nice to have with computers and what you know the people miss is i an opportunity to

do something together with the kids get is as opposed to get the soft food you know to

the computer the kid can go to the computer and run which is great uh maybe it might be

another you know the view of it is would would be interesting if you and the kids the patterns

and the kid could with together oh have projects together around the computer with the computer

uh doing things oh whatever they might be uh so uh that's the perspective that had like

two two two and if i'm going to show you i'll give you a little people of what i was trying

to do trying to design to to make it easy for that to my mother was uh something that

i i see is frequently the case for the all the supplies to you and they don't go to people

i know have a computer at home they have small children who want to use the computer if they

very small children the children are three the children do use the word to use the computer

he's frustrated but the parents also frustrated as not being able to find some kind of more

constructive you know unfolding way of uh doing something with it and i think they're

a lot of such people around you who who have computers getting to be comfortable with uses

it might even be x. two in one way or the aspect of of using computers that have not

been able to find the way of sharing this with children or various ages anyone here

you know i think it's i think it's pretty widespread what i was trying to do father

who was starting with with logo uh um and working with kids and trying to see what tools

we should add to logo to make it easier for the kid to be able to work together to produce

a i produce something examples i just needed in the in the cases i work at i was founded

up some people who are interested in one case the kids was to try and was very interested

in everything to do with me anything involving trains is fascinating for this for this job

so a natural thing to do would be to sit down and make some programs make some something

here that uh maybe starting from something that already exist in this case is evolved

into starting with a general format of of the typical sort of mario types nintendo game

with something moves along in the various action in the very simplified phone but it

was going to involve frying with some simple to the show the parent to develop ideas for

trying to you i i i've i of of of one of these games that would be to buy them and could

develop overtime starting with very simple into more complicated another example was

more socially oriented this will start the older child who was very much involved with

concerned about ecological matters and president you conservation so on and they got involved

in developing some software that would make demonstrations they can be used show to other

people to teaches neighbors to bring out issues about uh you know about them and

it should be college in conservation that's with of comes to the child and the two other

people around them so they're developing the stuff they using the computer to take it still

just adding extra dimension to an interest they were ready and i think this is very different

perspective from thinking of wealth which which will be most amusing for the kid almost

constructive developmental mentally or whatever it might be so that's one perspective that

goes young saying what's good for the kid it's a much good for my relationship with

the kid for our relationships with other people as fix to use the other is related to scoop

anticipating as such so 'cause i try to make about the subject to the conclusion already

come to is that people the people who have computers at interested enough to develop

ideas around them and uses of them and get the kids involved i think that such people

are going to be one of the major uh driving force in changing school and i don't just

mean changing the way that computers are used in school i mean changing scoot so and so

the other perspective is looking beyond what you might do today or tomorrow with the computer

would your kid might do but thinking uh all kinds of activities and ways of thinking about

it in the u._s. involvement which show would explore ideas you focused or kind of a few

of the learning environment that's why i just that's why i just say so in that kind of perspective

i'd like to look the way i'm thinking these days about computers and children on three

different time to speak to one time perspective is what you can do now go tomorrow next week

fee other time perspective way down looking into a future that might be extremely different

from anything that you can possibly do now and then in between is trojan horse idea there

just what can we do a into media that came to bring about that for the state of affairs

i do think that if i miss we give away to set amount of you know if you thinking although

it might have a romantic flavor in itself is we do a certain amount of that we can to

make decisions about what's the important thing to do today [noise] and i think is particularly

applies to what's happening in schools where people are so preoccupied and most of the

research community of most jokingly i think in some ways and everybody's concerned about

what effect putting these computers in the scooter how these kids to spare do arithmetic

or what if it's not be [noise] you know then just haven't do you refer to use and okay

you go if if that's the computers don't make the significance difference anyway and concentrating

on that aspect of it and just to make a you know the whole research community in computers

in education i instrument of conservatism of these days moscow and other places i use

that kind of political job in an instrument of reaction rather than instrument off of

ripple jewish and i find this happening to myself i find that to say about the late seventies

early eighties when they were no computers in schools except in occasional exciting romantic

projects my ideas when i talked about computers are sort of mystic scale of us in tied to

a fundamental critique of education as practiced in school and i do think i thought then and

i think now that computers in themselves don't do anything that i don't be inanimate objects

but they oh instruments which who would you create context within for each radical change

an education brought about however when computers started creeping into schools the pressure

all the best interested in computers and since and education the pressure to find things

to do with them that can be taken up by the school today and next week or next year if

you said right that instead of that out for two taken away from the thinking envision

beecham subway things might go and they become focused on the east scoot administrations

in the school you know the school the education establishment find reasonable in the in the

in the short run [noise] [noise] [noise] i think that would be in the school we see this

show if in the early eighties when ever i assume i feel computers in schools they were

brought stay by vision of each each of the typical example of a computer in the school

was huge commit just classroom is be is if you've been to well they might be the teachers

to a black board but the back of the room tested around two two computers are a bunch

of kids totally ignoring what's happening up there and involved with crazy projects

some wonderful project using the computers to express gauge out of schools chopping off

of off subject matters and fast pair of an example of that one out of that i like pretty

much because if i can say two minutes was happened you know even new york screwed you

know do you know you know it's about two children would be the same class since first grade

that wouldn't in fourth grade but they'd hardly ever talked to one another and then i'll be

able to talk to another because they have such totally different interests and hitting

the mets was off the crafts and who's interested in science fiction you know she sort of themselves

on just a shame to be interested in music movement you know how you dress very different

things and they didn't talk to one another very much when the computer it was no soft

within those days this teacher programming logo during the previous some and she brought

these two computers along you instantly math was a child you instantly that he was going

to visit his thing he was going to be the soup a superstar at the computer and in fact

very quickly he'd take mastered the technicalities of it but it's so happened that one of the

kinds of programming activities that took on in this class was creating visual special

effects on the screen all sorts of visual effects some animation stories with the narrative

some just abstract things this was it was the movie was young many people as physical

images and they try to make that kind of exciting visual effects the mets was all that we could

do smoke take to go things his programs to not to all the news and i was of admiration

that some i just [noise] and one day watching the dance so i do advance in the in the in

the in the in the playground and ideas and this idea they had to to getting together

and putting together the when the sense of movement dromon right with the others uh easy

mass three of the mathematical aspects of programming and they was they begin to with

together in the projects it went on for a long time to make the best computer poorly

overfield objects moving flying around in spy exposure computers for you should get

the they made some very wonderful thing and this was around the computer divide that breaks

in our culture into fragments was being crossed and i see that as an example of this computer

going against the basic epistemology and sociology of the scoop which reinforces these fragmentation

of knowledge and intellectual stuff that in the scoop mathematics is one thing and dance

and music and art is another thing and for the intellectually inferior more of a this

computer in the classroom in those two kids made a situation fed broke down that showed

i mean if you break it down but if it pointed to the direction of break down of the of of

of this i think extremely finishes a separation fragmentation of of you know what age that

exist in many for me to start really rooted you know how society you know how to use reinforced

by school it was being broken down and i think you get into all the example stuff so in the

early days of my computers in schools teachers who who's in the computer the opportunity

to have i guess pay for that or something that always try to do which is to visit his

regime of reinforcing fragmentation rather to try to bring together in the more the speedway

the excitement of development off off of a [noise] she she i think they're just as many

did even more vision reach each is now the new with then it's not that that has disappeared

but the predominant presence of computers in school has shifted to something else that

by the middle of the day page of the eighties computers in schools became big business it's

got taken over by the school administration by city school department state school diploma

speak companies and quickly we begin to see a totally different from them and then the

way the computer is pulled out of the classroom and pulled out of that sort of use and put

it in a special room with the specialized teacher with the special curriculum and when

this happened i mean inside the context individual kids and she just can still do wonderful things

but if you see the train inherent the nature of school to take it out of the learning environment

fragmented so it becomes one most subjects apart from the rest of the of of of the children

so [noise] so i think what has to see what's happening in schools as i see it as a struggle

in political sociological too it's not the question of you know how to use the computer

a lot of people from schools don't know how to use them i think that's in the states you

know how to use them very well the question is who is using it for for those visually

teachers knew how to use the computer maybe you could still do you get to know how to

use the computer school establishment switch consciously or or unconsciously has the deep

sea vested interest and identification with these traditional ways of thinking is using

it very well it's purposes and one shouldn't mistake uh the fact that somebody is using

it for another purpose you shouldn't confuse that's what they don't know how to use it

and we should do more research so i want to find out the broadway abusing it [noise] well

that was my sister and it's just come back to this idea that if that was all you those

people who see feed vision we role of educational change and want to see the computer as the

kind of trojan horse was an instrument they can be used to be coverage that for traffic

it is i need to have the division of where we go away and i think can be influenced the

decision making in the thinking that's happening inside the school structures by supporting

those visually teaches rather as they get as opposed to the establishment fe now so

it's not that perspective i think one wants to look at the computer in longer right you've

said you know two little prick stories and show you peace videotape program maybe philly

in philly this concept but nothing i didn't want to go at aged for girl who knew that

i grew up in africa say to me how to dress sleep [noise] and i said what you know she's

if they've got such long they waited they put they next [noise] well you know there's

a shitty this try to thought about it just you you know the conversation said well you

know a a puppy last a when he's keeps and so does she 'cause i was in the draft she

was from uh another kid said well maybe it's fun just treat it as a another once it what

it's like a sleep stand you know the big ways it had to go like history things fit it in

with a lot of exposure about a fantasy about how the draft draft sleeps and that was pretty

excited i i didn't know how to dress left so i when i try to do in the encyclopedias

fiji proud to all these books and i've browsed around where i didn't find out how to dress

after i found a very interesting things about giraffes and some things about other things

in this browsing and i didn't have enough with the without have mentioned the story

each have a test of contact on the email to various people submit that eventually brought

back from four or five different people including pretty decent as careful contribute organizations

beating who to finish of holding a direct of resume anyway we found out but if you see

foo foo networking we could explode this activity you know they point to emphasize the fact

that i imagine if i had never known address people i would not be any support of for the

what was extremely interesting exciting for me was that she was exploring trying to find

out and this is floyd intellectual lots and lots of of an adult is about sports makes

things exciting thinking [noise] we have way use like the kind of electronic mail also

stuff like that which enables has to explode distant issues like draft in another

this is not so different from four children do in relation to the more immediate children

from the time they they they everything in the immediate immediate or whatever they

can see they grab it takes concentrate on some aspects of it like put an object and

somehow to contain and take it out and put it in the all the time it is is the

sort of my close relationship between the object and the and the and the child really

explore this all the way i think some of the way the difference takes just the way animals

responded what if they're in the immediate is explode you know very associates persistence

constructive kind of kind of way and i think you seeing him that actually the mechanisms

how to for which really into the actual growth have two children but when it comes with the

just the kind of exploration the kind of happened there is it still exploration in fantasy in

conversation with and the dog fed physics just didn't the shift in balance between what's

you know and what's out to a shift in balance between what field depending on which dependent

on the others the adult saw often motivated or don't have the time and i think that just

to get this data is any particular aspect in the development of of of of children if

they can change i think we did it was something very fun to go out i just you there's obviously

put fad sometime in the future but sometime in the future vitro i would also be able to

explore all this issue of draft better than i could because electronic encyclopedias did

you live so if if you use more intelligent encyclopedias would be better than the encyclopedia

britannica which is limited in size because if it became ten times as big i would have

no she'll space i wouldn't be too expensive it be to come to some to use cross reference

is so hard just thing for example of the fact that they didn't mind factor peter pretending

exactly the piece of information to needed but how do i find things i mean alphabetical

order which way off or do you think are very useful in some way like you can find with

addiction very very quickly if you know how to spanish but i think if you want to find

out having the english would say all that and it easy [noise] how do you find in the

dictionary you might have to reach without addiction or do a lot of gas with the dictionary

isn't as for that but if it's if it's an addiction addiction very little program so they can

put you scan through it easy i think we can in that you quit and the sure you'll just

this just from the immediate well they can be federally explodes to the distance which

now i watch that will be that the shift and that is you're going to happen but i notice

a couple of things about festival it's going to happen easily it won't happen easily because

you know running away and try to get database about draft doesn't solve this problem because

the whole point is that true rafi if he was just one of an infinite number of questions

i could've applied to destroy a so it's going to need a tremendous before oh what if a child

thinks about has a chance of guilt leading to somewhere in the sort of sort of context

so if it isn't something that we can think about tomorrow but it's something that is

an example i i belong to him perspective [noise] they can do you have if uh i also think that

it's problematic it's not obvious that this is a good thing to do it's not obvious that

uh what happened to the child of having to resort to fantasy drugs and the fact isn't

the best thing it's not obvious that the dependence on adult isn't part of the development of

relationship between between the the children the people in the important part of personal

development so it's it's not obvious that how this shifts takes place is how it should

have what's important what's what's wrong about it and how to think about it is not

obvious but i think what is the obvious is that it's important especially dealing with

deep issues they're into deep issue that is in the morning for the job better to add to

amount to i used to say activity anyway in the days of electronic calculators so a very

small example thing i mean what if maybe that's when we think of the future we can think all

very different of computers paying a mental rolled in the lives of children and that's

what we should be focusing needs a lot of mean imagination we did in the way to go but

i think that that's where i should be in the into media i just want to take the rest of

my few minutes to give you some exam show you a videotape which shows the result of

collaboration between usage group and they go company over the last four or five years

they go storm u._s. supported research out a well if they can on this video how does

that half of this video tape was made by mitchell resonate who i think you'll see you know what

i see in this in this piece of video [noise] some little thing objects made out of an extended

lego you basically go materials what's being added to the music is computer in one form

or enough so that they can behave i envy what i don't like to emphasize is uh just focused

to attention on the fact that making these object into fitness and just take the call

is taking all the jews engineering since it's fantasy world you know if you just say you

have to have answers to has computing animals you know so that they had these programs to

this one just to get in touch us [noise] you know i think it had a thing and so i made

it with a change of it as piece of behavior i think it should be changing lie so she's

getting

the point about the fantasy imagination creating something out

you might you know riding but you using technical usually mathematics usually engineering ideas

that oh usually you know the problems of graduate student a professional scientists and engineers

rather then she'll and if there's a need to take out of uh uh the idea of

ideas from with the teaching of math in may so engineering

i think as being taken the particular homes for all sorts of reason that the context of

the technological until very recently was such that they would get it you know that

are small child with that kind of not with just technology that can be method by children

are just not age becomes something that can be can be used and that just from the i think

the knowledge invention get away and you had to being tested on us which applies to being

shot stop divided just subjects is math was riding and chopped up into grade levels i

think all these as fake teaching is the technical education education go x. ought to speak

with the circumstance that you know society for taking logical and all sorts of reasons

i children we're letting without being abused and what i see as she knew elements protein

by the technology is not using the technology to make machines in just super teaches in

the old but changing the relationship you know they're not age become something that

had beach freidy explore infection p._d._a. image and used as in creating a object to

this sort of computer programs also sort of stuff so [noise] i think that enough initially

my computer program uh but i just too scared to get another technology [noise] [noise]

[noise] [noise] [noise] [noise] you know go for the program for the thing is just a repeat

and just come and just which is built into programming language enables the fifth trying

to fit you draw the tried and then you said you didn't motion well the child so this just

found it fascinating making trying to move but after a while well something it by accident

an animal you know and put this rabbit so the rabbit was there and out from under inspired

by nintendo game the child if i press the button the rabbit jump and that was almost

as simple a program to russia in just a few lines again press the button fix the mouse

and the and they and and they and and to sing job so that was fun for a while the

train would come and you're jump over the train then this today to adding onto getting

i was real peace one inch two different directions one was the idea well maybe if it landed on

the trial you know it should just go for the wrong and that was a little more difficult

and probably the four five year old child would not of manage that uh at the age of

of of development but with the pet easily do that and maybe would be appropriate to

uh this could be with the other programming language that would be be easily done so that

happened but in order to do that you have two jobs to jump at the riots and then this

was the child's idea believe that i did see there's trees in the background [noise] that

in order to judge the raw distance between the just try and then the and the rabbit to

make the jump some kind of a difference was ministry and just finding the trees there

was a spontaneous she came from the child as if we have something there then we could

say it's a distance of the tree was wasn't the distance of the tree and just chow didn't

have the language just say one portion of the distance of the tree but fairly that idea

was in the child's mind was used to to decide to put into place about intermixing jumpsuit

would lead on the train and the other direction is which is so when it was the vision of it

is on the teacher huh what the other direction what's what if you message and to try and

jump bumps into the rabbit if something were to happen and you had those noises and the

rabbit flew into the scott each of these little pieces was very simple addition of just to

repeat a lot of times like repeat a lot of food in the goes that's way better for the

fried food well and then it goes out and then after then add to that to feed allowed to

go down so these little programs the to the elaboration of this game and that's i think

of very obvious empowerment of this child as getting us and so i was being able to to

take notice any of the computer better of those video gave us another use those images

all of that of commercially made games are now approach skated by the child was tremendous

engagement enforced because to try to see them so off and on on other people screens

and becoming abusive rather than just a few of the same things because the child into

new relationship with their knowledge lucy objects with with the child's sales stuff

on there is maybe the most important thing that one sees with these children [noise]

another way of describing what school does two children in financial arising than treating

them like children so to speak now oh well i'm sort of the cast of time with it but i

think children should be treated like children but i think it when i was exploding about

how the draft slept i was doing the child and being treated like children in that since

we should all be treated like shit scoot treats and like children and i in in in the same

switch children off soon to be people who don't have good ideas who's knowledge is limited

who have to be rather than exploding discovering creating position you know what age i think

that's the ships that you can bring around about we have to i see sitting outside vision

as the most important [noise] maybe the most important act in the world all the other things

like saving the environment the panic from from you ways of thinking that depends

into children with two different relationships you know what age difference vision of themselves

so stuff [noise] [noise] some people think it's an acquired taste like a pickle hearing

for breakfast some people think it's about problems all the some people think says

a god given talent that if you don't have it you don't do it but for me i i think all

those are absolutely you know that another way of looking at it is that we're we're thinking

all the time the fun that we do have in life regardless of how it's organized uh comes

from thinking when we stop thinking where dad and the kinds of thinking that we like

to call thinking uh is as much of skill or something we can learn how to do as much as

it is uh something that we come by and in mysterious ways to talk to parents about children

computers it was kind of a kind of complex because i don't know like with the exception

of a few small pieces of software that you can you can buy for your computers at home

i don't know if anything that's really good in the sense of being a share rubble object

between parents and children that really uh really exist on computers today like he more

to it very well one he said he was up in maine trying to figure out a new way to allow parents

and children to have shared experiences about computing and uh uh i've spent the last twenty

five or so years of my life trying to figure that out as well back seymour's to blame for

my uh career you have a place [noise] um i've actually had designed in early personal computer

in the uh in the sixties and uh didn't work very well huh sociological i happen to be

technically pretty good a lot of things that we have a personal computers today but in

fact the uh most of the people we tried it on except for computer science graduate student

hated it and of course computer science graduate students are the worst fear try computers

on because they're in the middle of of puberty rite of passage proving that they can memorize

five hundred stupid commands of of poorly designed system that's why they're like you

know so much i was one of those graduate student a graduate student before unix came along

so i got spirit that particular right of passage but the same year i decided that this early

personal computer that worked on was not going to make it out of the community which i decided

i first visited a seymour pafford cynthia solomon uh out here and i think was bridge

school in lexington nineteen sixty eight and that visit completely change my way of thinking

about computing and what it was about the in the sixties we saw of personal computing

those of us were thinking about it all we thought of personal computing as something

like going from the real world which is the big mainframe own by institutions to sort

of the henry ford phase of everybody having their own car and there's this notion of the

computer as vehicle uh the first people who are working with hyper media for doing it

back in the sixties and there's a travelling through an dimensional space was very big

a metaphor that we're all using what i saw seymour's work with logo and children vehicular

metaphor didn't survive that day i mean survivor that day because we don't put children in

cars when they're uh eight years old we actually wait until they're really dangerous around

eight bucks acquitaine while i was doing whatever the computer was now he was doing it with

children who were eight nine ten years old and the thing i came away from that because

it was just the computer is something like material or something like paper it's one

of the media of our civilization the way we make markings and represent things and so

forth and the thing about media is that you don't withhold it from kids and so we're in

high school very famous nation at risk report uh which was generally really well written

except for us recommendations very good he asked the uh part of taking american education

to to half i i like the uh the opening part which said before in power wanted to do the

u._s. and they could hardly pick the better way than to arrange at our school should be

in the states the theory and very nice statement but then when they got around to recommending

things it was pretty much the same old stuff a little streamlined the recommendation about

computers uh was quickly interesting they said it's absolutely imperative that every

child i have an experience with computers uh one semester in their senior year in high

school i think of that is the drivers added syria goes right along with vehicular notion

but anyway back in sixty eight when i saw a more stuff i thought uh we can at this isn't

what it is about of some sort of media and the thing about media escape the whole thing

about media is that we don't we hold it from shoulder whatever it is we're trying to do

with it and it may be completely random in some cases i may be very pointed maybe two

point or another parent trying to teach their kids to read it age too or something like

that the one thing we don't do it is with hold it from the children we want to be around

to as an artist back in the world part of the world of the trial comes about again and

we want the child to have experience with it and on with that new metaphor uh first

thing i did was to make a cardboard model back in nineteen sixty eight about what a

computer for children uh could look like it i couldn't be one of the thing my own company's

computer but these are big funky things that you can go where the kid is the kid has to

come to them and kids are mobile huh you have to be somebody i can carry around we love

this thing up with what how to see how have you could make it before person with not carried

around we realized that uh port ability is not a point five her nations per block the

portability means you can carry something else to say you can't have everything as important

as a new things happen including the uh designed for macintosh way of communicating 'cause

of course the most important thing about the computer it's not so much whether it's portable

uh that helps with the most important thing is whether it into some sort of recognizable

minute beautiful space for the user if another word to have to be an object that can be read

and written in order for to have something to do with media 'cause media's about getting

messages that other people say and do you do that by having a somewhat of an overlap

between what the author is trying to do and what the author thinks you're able to do and

they about him out of out over laugh uh is the basis for being able to read are starting

to read something in some communication whether to painting or whether it's a book and even

more importantly this goes along very strongly with things to see more and i have agreed

on for years and years and that is things really get interesting and more importantly

the concept of literacy doesn't happen if you can only read if you can only except from

others literacy real learning and everything happens when uh you can put your own ideas

into the thoughts dream in the print media i mean she should be able to write writing

is to me the act up by which we should measure literacy a a studies going around today that

show that we have twenty three million or twenty eight million or fifty three million

depending on who's doing the measuring uh people who are functionally literate what

they mean by that are people who can't read uh ingredients on bottle signs and so forth

i can't read and that is the tragedy but to me the bigger tragedy isn't enough you know

country of two hundred and fifty million people we maybe have two hundred million you can

write so for my standards of literacy were three quarters or worse illiterate because

we can't express their own ideas kind of very strong way and when you have a computer as

a new medium important thing about it is yes we must be able to deal with the offerings

of other people because that's how we add multiple points of view and her life that's

how we get a different possibilities we've never think of enjoyed it's all the benefits

that we have from book except the stuff is dynamic now and we can uh fit with it but

more importantly the tools through which the ideas are transit also have to be reflective

in the sense that we have to uh be able to make things and the hardest thing to do over

the last twenty years or so has not been to design firm user interface like macintosh

which a house about nine thousand uh books of the future if you will find thousand applications

published in the in the way that it's fairly easy for people to deal with and there's the

consistency between them the loud people haven't learned one to know about seventy percent

of the next one if i haven't seen before all those are the kinds of things that you should

be doing when you're a dealing with the media and that is trying to publish the ideas of

others but in twenty years it's been almost impossible i i should say it has been impossible

to come up with the really good uh writing tool to construction tool logo was one of

the first that made a difference smallpox stuff we did as iraq made the difference the

hypercard answer because it's on the macintosh maybe stella some other uh systems run there

make a difference for certain population but none of the two of us the construction media

has actually gotten above the threshold i think where people can be come really literate

without becoming the equivalent of professional life to the idea of writing in our culture

is they should be able to write without having to become a professional rider the writing

or something you do as a non professional and in fact i think everybody here realizes

that back before fifteen hundred or so uh there was no concept of literacy or illiteracy

just as in our society today we have for health health percy that's because of positions are

professionals and we expect them to do their job and we don't have to deal with their own

you know maybe ten years from now the different uh they'll be mad measurement the says that

you know twenty three million americans are ill health they can't take care of your

basic uh bodily functions and they wait until something goes wrong with them before they

go thinking professional to do what we want something else our society needs are they

not professional to be able to do a reasonable covering of much of the things that are professionals

too you don't feel that it's all that a person who uh works all day you know insurance for

more person who goes to school as an eight year old also can play baseball funny professionals

but we do it too is part of our amateur thing a hundred years ago it was not unusual for

people to right much more than i did because i communicated using letters rather on the

telephone and so this whole notion of what i mean they have a computer in our society

means casual used reading and writing something that you have to do only for important thing

i think about paper you can do trivial things like one of our biggest breakthroughs on this

was taking the attitude of what kind of computer would just have to be so you would do something

so trivial as to put your a grocery list on it and be willing to take the computer into

the market and back out again with regret bags of groceries now if it wasn't astray

obviously a computer like that should not have an aunt off which just as an example

are important like watches the don't have an aunt off switch 'cause we don't want like

knowing the time isn't such a big shouldn't be a big deal in our society after hundreds

of years of having a boxer so so we just make them without on off which is uh the first

uh over actually tried watching had allergies this place to consume so much power that uh

they would be oh until you have the little but not to see what time it was nothing laugh

so since so well they realize that they have to have something so they're finding out the

time was a casual thing for the same thing as saying things through now what is the thinking

stuff come in well i have a couple of a couple of little story a couple years ago i was having

lunch with my radio math uh receive the nobel prize or either inventing or discovering quirks

depending on your series of how science uh and uh he's very funny guy we're talking about

education and so forth and uh he said you know education and the twentieth century of

like being taken to the world's greatest restaurant and being forced to just the menu i

met a whole bunch of things by that i think some of them are obvious part of it is that

uh we are increasingly a society that deals with our ideas by representing the various

ways that's very important represent patients are the things that we can right now so when

we read some representation of an idea a difficult for usually to transmit that representation

of the idea back into the visceral experiences with the people had when they had the idea

that they were that one once removed uh whether we like it or not worse than that so the society

encourages us to feel that we're have done our job we can recognize that we're saying

these ideas before multiple choice pass all about television is all about recognition

television is very happy if you can recognize this product or that after uh it doesn't require

require north really set up for anything they because they take awhile to evolve a friend

of mine once said about public television which is supposed to be the savior television

news you know public television is the butterfly lodging in roach motel i particularly like

that because not only does it espresso gap between public television and commercial television

but it also espresso similarity because both the butterfly and the rocher insects in other

words they're actually of the same species making television better it's not like going

to help things at all because of the isn't conducive to the most of saw that our society

is actually build up and things of the some of them just the other the other so i like

to tell you something i know couldn't happen in an intelligent organizing rational place

like massachusetts i was born here but i live in los angeles now where anything can happen

and i imagine that in a crazy place like california that the parents perhaps from watching too

much m._t._v. the side of the children would not make it in life unless they became a musician

by the time like a high school of course they'd seen in the paper comparison of the united

states children as musicians compared to the japanese and the koreans and of course we

came out eight out of twelve or something like that uh doing very badly so i start beating

on the state legislature saying our children are gonna fail in life unless they become

musicians courses state legislature will not listen to them until they collection came

along and then they announce with the flow alright what we're gonna do is we're gonna

put a piano and every classroom now unfortunately we don't have enough money to hire any musician

to teachers so what we're gonna do if we're gonna take the existing teachers and give them two week refresher course in the summertime and actually solve the problem and we get

all imagine intelligent well many teachers in fifth grade i haven't gone through the

refresher course trying to figure out what they're going to do when school starts one

says to the other you know there was the sci major scale thing they taught us we show the

kids that some of the kids would be better at it because of the worst out of that would give us a nice distribution for getting him so it was what teachers do when they don't

know what to do is they come up with behavioral objective and the problem with the scenario

is that music never gets in the classroom because any musician will tell you the music

is not in the piano it's not in the piano and in fact a survey about ten years ago when

they were thinking about getting into the keyboard business show to startling facts

from the american population that is that a large number over ninety percent of people

under the age of fifty would love to do more about music which they have done more would

like to do more and the other interesting fact came out of the survey was at nine out

of ten people who had taken piano as children were turned of life or music for the rest

of your life you know why because the music is not in the piano you can't apply the kids

to the piano and have something happen the very best the piano can be isn't amplifier

like all technology for impulses or inside the learner if you don't develop a musical

involved then you're not going to get anything but mechanical playing bass and the kids that

are sensible reject the rejected out of hand is not having anything to do with their their

life and that was exactly what happened the reason that happens is because most of our

technology has both this amplifying way of looking at things and it also has a prosthetic

way of looking effects the piano for music can take a musical involved with that you

have and you can express them directly like ones that involve multiple voices working

together as a single person to experience that and to compose those things the wonderful

instruments i play it myself but uh for many people what technology one's of things are

kind of prosthetic put a prosthetic whim over healthy one of the healthy one oh after because

one of the main messages that nature gives us over and over again both for our muscles

and for a minute is use it or lose it so what happens with thinking eh the kinds of thinking

that we do on the kinds of thinking that kids see their parents do off and they kind of

the kind of thinking that they do if i don't understand the possibilities if they don't

experience uh things are field or hitting home runs they have understanding of what

can be done with the baseball they don't experience somebody uh like horror was playing the piano

they have very little sense of what the range of expression as possible on the thing if

i don't see people thinking around them and i think we can all that that they don't see

a lot of that a a spectator sport you can put on television the worst thing you can

never do an interview show on television is say let me think about that from into the

they're the television is all about being able to be spontaneous and recognize things

it's not about the same thought most kids see parents come home tired from work off

and both parents are from work the parents come in next themselves to drink in turn on

the television and that becomes part of what the environment is that the child uh works

from south of what to do with media what what do you do with the piano suppose you want

your child to be a musician always like the child to have every chance to choose to learn

to be a musician what do you do you put the piano there but i think it's good to have

the piano around i think it's good for the kids to be able to count on it you know maybe

try if you're things out but you really want your child a musician what you do is just

saying with your child because singing is what it's all about i go to the chamber music

kampfer dealt each summer and basically what they tell us we've summer is you know if you

think the music inside express itself as you play at most musicians who instrumentalist

to play don't singing music inside because er used to letting the instrument do it for

them when you do that you wind up with stuff that's fairly mechanical 'cause that's where

they actually can do all the phrasing and stuff the turns noises into beauty that same

thing as through with with children do you want children to learn how to read read with

your children drug children to thank you gotta think with your children and the important

thing about thinking is the important parts of it to me like with music or the things

that go on and here we have things are out here is the problem with computers and video

games and um other artifacts we've made it so there's a tendency to external wise 'cause

of the ribs with television because television so visual it actually removed from uh some

of the necessity for imagining things in our own my radio doesn't have that problem folks

don't have that problem like forced us to create images of what's happening in our in

our mind uh when we don't have something going on in our mind we're not learning how to build

images and mine are mine it's much difficult more difficult for us to think about things

because we have to try out things we have to polite thing the other words we have to

construct things in order to do much thinking about it and mature by media today remove

the necessity for construction thing going in the back is great you can learn it quickly

generally a good idea but uh i've discovered you know i used to macintosh in the school

that if we want the children to actually sit down i think about something i've a newspaper

that i carry and when i talk to the child but i do like put the newspaper over the screen

and also the child starts acting very differently then uh when the screen is there 'cause the

back of all about which i do that and what you should do next and you can try things

out and so forth all those things are very useful but in fact there are certain ways

of thinking about things that are not about what should i do that they have to do about

what should i do they have to do was go they have to do with what am i gonna do down the

road of it rather than what am i gonna do right now so it's interesting uh continue

um between what musicians called improvisation and composition cannot musicians they seem

very similar somebody is coming up with music that hasn't been heard before but to musician

improvisation and composition could hardly be more uh more different the reason is that

when you were improvising your major goals or not to drop me and you see mostly type

things together as to what you wind up doing is using lots of of material uh whenever you

can't think of anything else in the few little cycle just thinking you have going for you

you're trying to see we're going on with the larger structure oughta when you're composing

you're doing a completely different set of spot action composing is largely about what

other kinds of things that i can do with an idea and the idea of the state is the beginning

of the things is often constructed to allow it so many different things to be done to

it as possible in the middle so i think some of the music or often compose from the middle

out from the possibilities back to back to the beginning and towards towards the end

and they've got two different ways of doing things all these are useful just as if you

had it was useful but we have to realize that just as a visual feels caused this to think

about things and one way and then those of the piano causes to think about pitch in the

way that is very different from almost any other instrument and our own voice we have

to learn how to get around those limitations if we know that their limitations that whenever

we start using the computer we have to have some sense i think of what we're trying to

use it for the if the parent is interested in having more than the social experience

with the child i have nothing against just the purely social experience because i think

it's the best thing for kids to do is to try and model themselves against what their what

their parents are doing for the parents are interested in going for the children in the

hopes of children will get interested in reading that i think the parents are people who are

starting to have ideas about the kind of thinking the kinds of information that their like their

children to deal with so um what is that like to do here is um how many people here in the

audience can add single digit numbers that's that's pretty uh pretty tentative but see

i like i like the volunteer or somebody who thinks they can do it reason we well i'm not going to tax a but there's gotta be some tech easier you come up here that i like somebody

who feels very anxious about uh even adding single who any mass here yes please come up

right so we have a person who's fairly confident and we have a person who think she might be

a massive all that you have to get both just stand right here first second or so you're

the numbers from one to nine you can memorize okay i

like you to stand here like you come with me to have to try yours again we're going

to do is pick number's one of the time from here um until you can pick three or she can

pick three that out of the fifty okay and and start anywhere that you like in the in

to help a little bit i'm gonna make little marks on here so we'll we'll remember the

ones that have been use a phone having confusion on that that okay okay so much you start first

what number would you pick first okay mark okay what number to pick pick one

to as fifty seven okay

okay so she picks seven five and three and she was a long oh more than i make different

marxist time okay want your shoes first okay for ya you remember you know you have

nine five

okay so i i think i'm making my point here uh let me show you what's going on she's the

math my friend years working with this representation she's working with this one you know it's

as the magic square pathway adds up to fifteen and what do you think she's what game do you

think she's playing effects oh thank you if you teach your kids this they'll try it on

every adult within range because the question is is the person who's using this cheating

or they cheating you know our whole civilization built on finding better represent patience

for ideas what representation is is something that simply calculate more especially the

kinds of answers that you're interested in just like when we went from how you can represent

the or because of the planet using ptolemy system of having the earth at the center and

having lots of after psycho by making the upper cycles and the rule sufficiently complex

you can show where the plants are going or you can go to um the newtonian copernican

type system the has the son of the center analytical or you get something it as much

simpler for the whole point of represent patience is that are like you have to change and any

noticeable fashion in measurable history and probably has changed four hundred thousand

or maybe even a half a million years imagine the tragedy of having two hundred fifty i._q.

ten thousand years ago [noise] of perhaps that was the acute leonardo have that in the

tragedy of having that when he had his able conceive of all these things but even the

person uh within intellect far beyond most people of his age could not france and the

age enough to build the uh the motors and power devices that would be needed to make

any of those things were babbage has been transcending idea about the computer in the

last century but the things he went up inventing modern mechanical drawing on the part of life

which were tools to make the tools you never got around to doing the tools so to me i think

the most important thing about learning thank has to do with the power of using different

representations the think with and so this little game is something that everybody understands

immediately uh and they don't even usually give me a blank look what i said well that's

all mathematics us all mathematics is taking stuff and finding things like the tic tac

toe magic square which allow uh think more strongly about the parts of it that we've

decided are important that's what we do every time we think about something that's important

understand that when we were able to think well it is usually because we've just guarded

many many thing uh marvin minsky the work with anymore for many years likes to say you

don't understand something was uh if you don't understand something if you only understand

it one way or the reason to have a deep understanding of something usually means to understand part

of it very strongly by using some special way of representing like mathematics for computer

simulation and if that is the only thing we understand about it then we've actually cut

ourselves offer many appreciation of the thing as the whole system but we need to look for

different ways of doing things i think what you see what i'm driving at here that uh one

reason so i'm not using the computer in this presentation is i believe that the first i'm

not against them i love the thing the great fun but just as with music what i would do

is to find a way that you can sing with your child i these things involve playing various

kinds of games puzzles things that get images into the child reading stories producing stories

uh i'm doing reasoning about things that there's not require a simple but if it's this way

i could be this way the free up the trials imagination one of the interesting things

to happen the children around third grade that seems to be somewhat universal or even

explanations for is the children tend to get a conservative around third grade or um the

reason seems to be that uh they grow up in the world it seems quite chaotic they have

to make sense of it and then they kind of over shoot a in gathering up all the rules

and they were you uh come up with a somewhat rigid conception of themselves in the world

with the ram by around a._j. that's one of the uh studies around the world it seems to

confirm this is the progression of children's art of the free form nature of it uh early

on and then the very rigid category uh categorical type of are the kids get around the age of

seven or i i think the parents can do the hell is to find ways to free up the trials

imagination one more one time one of them is uh having eh what you might even think

of is is somewhat repressive a notion of how television should be watched that is actually

one of the worst my opinion is one of the worst things you can possibly let the child

doing it on restrain manner for many different dimension not just the concern of the time

not just that it's simple minded and about categories and recognition but also because

a lot of the things that are on television are not in any way make any distinction between

adult life and child's life i think all those things are very important consideration the

other thing i think without from a psychologist that nobody knows how it works even the psychologist

and so it is very difficult to make a statement that our pre script too but i think one of

things we need to appreciate if it is how different are actual thinking prophecies are

from the way we think are thinking process things were we think of ourselves as single

identity there's on me and myself where all the same person i can remember back to when

i was a child uh when i do something i feel guilty about it uh i feel guilty i never blame

apart of myself for that so that's kind of this monolithic notion that we have of identity

you have to true seems to be quite different example if i could have the slides of course

the whole point of the slightest nobody knows how the mind works but consider the one of

my favorite example is the upside down face and if you look at it closely you'll see that

there's something a little strange about it maybe could focus of the stuff there all the

anybody say anything to smell the fear turning your head give a quiz afterwards okay the

the mouth is a is upside down i anything else the i forget where in most schools in the

u._s. today we're now i just thought of as being the fluid that is transfer drop by drop

from the full feature vessels fiancee student vessel fly called a theory of knowledge and

that blew it is mostly in terms of english sentences for the idea is if i know something

i telecommute when english then you should understand it and that's all a teaching and

learning a are about very simple minded conveyor belt kind of notion only give you an english

sense about the photo what we've taken the photograph of the young girl extracted horizon

now for them upside down put them back into the picture and then turn the entire picture

upside down that's a reasonable to everybody yeah so you should be quite prepared for what

it looks like right beside up i'm not trying to that 'cause i discover that nobody will

listen to me when it's on the other so one of the bigger picture of a mama with

excel i gave you a complete disclosure of the picture and yeah you were quite surprised

when you saw what's going on here is as marvin seem more like the call is we have inside

here of society of mine's not a single yet that's doing the thinking force their different

parts of us doing thinking and they do a different way but i gave you the english that went in

through the years went over to the left hand side of the brain was evaluated their as something

close to a proposition and uh everybody thought okay that's probably that was that sounds

reasonable no emotional reaction it all show you the picture goes in through the eyes go

to the back of the brain come down on the on the right hand side of the brain words

process completely different like em there's the surprise reaction that surprise reaction

is actually going on all the time except we don't realize it when we learning about things

learning about computers in school learning about ideas different parts of us are learning

about it in different ways and some of those parts of us are learning about it better now

in fact we even have a part of our brain or mentality if you will i mean not caught part

of our brain barber mentality that thinks things are more true if they were my

my sofa dolls where to put out of print the ad it said you'll become a better looking

person if you eat mcdonald's hamburgers you're rejected the pros senses the proposition they

came out with the slogan that said uh a big mac and fries blender your five

so i'm more plausible well anthropologists i've noticed that we seem

to have over a long period of passing down our culture in the oil production that we

seem to have selected people who are good at remembering things in terms of rhyme resnick's

games and affect anything that's put into a scheme or the next thing is not only remember

better but it's got to be more true i thought to be more true because back then when that

was the only way remember things the only things are put in there with the things the absolute with ought to be true so oh point of this is that what we have going on is kind

of patchwork quote different horses training in different directions they're all trying

to think about the world and the most one of the most powerful things we can do is to

try and when we try and learn about something to try and learn about it in different ways

to learn about it with our body as piaget's adjusted for very young children to learn

about it in terms of configurations and simple relationships individual kind of way to learn

about things in terms of chains of in front of connecting the things we think are facts

together to get things from up uh get things i making inference here the seymour's pointing

to was watch means i should uh quit talking is that right yes okay okay so so i mean we

were this with this final uh thought if i can run that videotape place i was a twenty

two month old little girl and she has never lived in the world not densely populated by

macintoshes is actually very early is back in nineteen eighty five about their mother

and father are work at home and each of her mother and father has macintosh and i found

out the little girl two months before her who's now two months before second birthday

why why that she was interested in computers i i gave her an apple two which he rejected

she didn't know what that was but what you want it was what mommy and daddy had in

fact i don't want you to be to impress here because she's actually using the macintosh

by about six months for about six months here so she actually started the mac um when she

was about a year and a half old and uh even though we'd originally designed the system

for children we never thought to try it on one so young i was quite interesting to see

her are constantly using all the stuff it was built to take advantage of what her mind

was actually able to do or what happened that's really amazing they want the fresh piece of

paper so she goes up to the clothes block of the window saves or drawing using the pop

up to go to the pull them to get the new one and she's off rolling again in fact we discovered

that at age twenty two months she was about seven probably stop it plays that age twenty

two much she was about seventy percent literate in the interface that we didn't decide to

be more an accord with the way the human mind actually seems to work so you're the two sides

of the ad i think the music may not be in the piano but the computer's a heck of a piano

can be used by children even earlier than when they can use the piano and yet in order

for them to use it and not wind up being shackles by the prosthetics but we have to do is they

help develop the inter music for which the computer is the best instrument thank you