Directly from the UK, we have ‘swinnie’ from the chat room responding to an earlier post from ‘psionicarchon’ RE: ‘You’re Never Too Young to Start Goal Setting’ – the YouTube video and corresponding blog posts. He writes:

I am 15 and have had a big interest in computers since starting secondary school (high school). And I started making websites with a generator using Freewebs then moved over to HTML, then to CSS, then PHP and MySQL. I am now planning to learn C and C++ as I am interested in gaming also.

I didn’t have a computer for myself with internet access until I was in Year 8 (2nd Year of Secondary / High School) and I used it for school work, email and making my websites. I then progressed to use Instant Chat, You Tube and Forums. I do a lot of IT Based subjects at school and hope to go into the IT Industry and having had the opportunity to use a computer with internet access at home and at school I feel it has helped me. I learnt to touch type and that is going to stand me well for the future as it is a modern life skill that many companies will look for when look at employing someone in an office based job.

Giving a child access to a computer is a good idea, but you need to be able to trust the child and give the child that opportunity to have access to the computer. Parental control is important, this means the parents, the computer cannot do it all for the parent. As the child gets older the control should be relaxed. Fortunately I can restrict myself to certain times and access.

Something worth bearing in mind is that I had been given access to a computer from around 6, 7 or 8 years old. I was allowed an hour maximum every day, and if I had been good I was allowed an extra half hour. Giving computer access to a child in this modern world I feel is very important but gradually increasing the amount of access will allow the child to appreciate the computer more and not take it for granted.

I do spend a lot of time on the computer, and I enjoy learning and am always looking for things to learn on the computer. I have recently set-up a Windows Server in my house which the house will soon be using as soon as I get more hard drives and more RAM. I have also experimented with Linux and will be looking at getting a Mac Mini in 2008 as that is one operating system that I have not used and have seen you using your lovely MacBook Pro’s on the live stream. I am also looking at getting into running my own web hosting completely free like ‘psionicarchon’, as I started out on free web hosts and find the adverts and other limitations annoying and frustrating.

Earlier this year, before I found your site, I set-up a blog that I give people help with technology, and have now also started a live stream and a Moodle (official website is www.moodle.org ) system that I will be posting courses to help users everywhere about technology. I will also be allowing members of the community to submit course material to me to be posted onto the Moodle system.

On a related note of parental supervision, i stumbled upon this video last night when waxing nostalgic. I emailed the link to my dad and we shared a trip down memory lane today. He was able to secure a copy of this program for our first home computer (a C64):

• Computer Kids

Via the southern hemisphere…

My name is Rodrigo, I’m 16 years old and I’m from Buenos Aires, Argentina (I think I’m the only South-American, lol). This is the first e-mail I’m sending, because I found your recent video on children and technology quite interesting. I totally agree with you on sharing technology with children, and the younger the better. I believe my family got their first computer when I was 7 or 8, mainly to replace an old typewriter. We didn’t have Internet (not even dial-up) until when I was 10 or 12. I mainly played around on the computer, with really old-school games like Doom, MDK, and Interstate ‘76 :P. My parents never actually “encouraged” me to use and explore the computer, they actually tried to keep me away from it. It might sound like my family is a bunch of cavemen, but actually it’s because they don’t have quite a “technological” background and they thought that I was playing around, wasting time. I probably discovered most of the basics (like Google, YouTube, IM programs, etc) either at school or by myself, or from my three-year-older brother.

The 2nd computer that I had was a Dell Dimension 4100. It was much faster than the previous one, and by the time we had it we had a broadband connection, so my immersion into technology and the Internet became even bigger. As a young kid, I was always interested in building small, useless websites on Geocities with Pagebuilder, then I started learning some HTML by myself. In my free time, I mostly did gaming on the PC or on my Sega Genesis ^^

Concerning the actual topic, children should be exposed and immersed in technology, and especially logic. Nowadays, knowing how to use a computer, at least basically (making spreadsheets or documents, for example) is almost necessary. If children are introduced to this at an early age, they can either experiment and find things out on their own (like myself) or get help from their parents. Just like reading or solving puzzles, computing is a “brain-developing” activity, especially during youth. It stimulates the brain and encourages the child to think and to use logic and reason. Computing in the early years of education (kindergarden, 1st, 2nd grade, etc) is excellent not only to make the children “grow” intelectually, but to start introducing them to this almost necessary computing world. In later years, more advanced computing (such as learning programming languages, etc) is great to develop interest and apply mathematics.

Right now, I do what most people my age do on the computer; listen to music, chat, surf the web, game (though I believe I am a more enthusiastic gamer than the average 16 year old), etc. I also do 2D and 3D design, a bit of web design, game server and forum maintenance, etc. I am interested in free, open source software and projects, Linux, etc. Here in Argentina, not many people are interested in these things, probably because they are not interested in computing and technology in general at all. As a developing country, I think the country has “better” things to worry about such as making children actually go to school, and worrying about the teaching methods later.

I guess it’s just a matter of your origins and habits that define your likes and dislikes in the future.

Got this followup

I am 14 and English, male :)
I experienced a computer at an early age (around 6-8) with the apple performer. It was a lot of fun but not a lot to do but play some classic games and surf the web. This was at the time when broadband did not exist so I rarely did go on the internet. The next computer our family got was the original iMac. My brother got it and I remember the day it came, everyone was all excited and anticipating Its startup :P It took less than 5 minutes to setup and we were off to go ! At that time we still didnt have broadband which kinda sucked but thats a different story, although I have to tell you this! My brother accumulated 800 pounds (which I think is around $1200) in Dial up internet. He didn’t realize this until the month after and my dad was so angry you wouldn’t even believe how angry he was. Anyway moving on. When I was about 10 My brother had just started University (college) doing a Maths degree. He needed a good computer so he bought top of the line PC parts which he Put together to save costs. That computer was really good :) This was the time when XP had just been released.
Finally we had broadband ! (yey!!!) and we could surf the interwebs :D I mostly used It for Google and pictures and things like that for school. The year after my bro got his computer I had finally got my own at the age of 11. My brother built it for me but remember I was a complete retard back then when It came to computers. This is the computer which I loved most ( mainly as it was MY computer :) ) With It I used it for recreational purposes, or so I thought. I started using Adobe photoshop when my dad brought it home from work one day. From that day on I was hooked on Adobe photoshop. Its been 3 years now and I have improved a lot. I have now took Graphics for one of my GCSE choices (google it I dont know what the equivalent of it is in the US) . We have had one term of it so far and all my skills have been put to the test ! My computer has been very useful serving as both a gaming machine and a resource I use every day.
I am very technologically advanced with computers thanks to the Internet. I read guides on the internet and progressed from there. Within the first year of having my computer I was confident to build my friend a Computer from scratch. I earned 100 pounds doing so :D In the end though I have ended up with my Bros comp, well sort of. MY original compouter has died and well will cost to much to replace (we had a big power surge one day and It fried my Chip and motherboard and basically everything :( I had to scavenge what I could from my computer that was operational and stick it into my bros comp. MY comp is now a hell of a lot better. Very fast for what I do .
I am hopefully going to be a Graphics designer. I want to combine my love of Creating things and Gaming into one. I love gaming (especially on the 360) but some of the games I have played were decent but I think I could improve them :) I would really want to work with Blizzard, Epic or activision or ubisoft. Computers have changed my life for the better.

Hope you enjoyed reading :)
~Jon
Live chat : Jhon (J-hon)

• Trusting Teens with Tech