dagblog - Comments for "Wasting Time Is New Divide in Digital Era"

there's a new field of

PeraclesPlease — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 09:42:14 +0000

there's a new field of neolamarckism or epigenetics, which from what I understand doesn't quite mean the environment or wishes direct inheritance, but that there's a second much more variable force on inheritance than matching up chromosomes, which is essentially how they're expressed.

(in Web terms, this might be thought of as the same content expressed through different CSS stylesheets for web browser, mobile phones, etc., except no one's writing the stylesheets for pre-determined effects, and there are perhaps a million variations in the expressions based on chemical & other variations rather than 5 stylesheets)

This may not be all that different from alcohol affecting fetal development, except that it's alcohol passed on in RNA messaging, rather than in the environment of the womb, so it can continue to express itself after birth.

As one layman who got poor scores in chemistry & biology's idiot attempt to describe. (though there are more naive explanations which is that epigenetics really is the false-conception-of-Lamarckism updated to show that the environment actually chooses favorable outcomes like long necks and shortened ears, just with a slightly different mechanism than expected.)

Perhaps this could expand into genetic/environmental influence on behavior, not just physical characteristics.

Having the advantage of

EmmaZahn — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 06:10:55 +0000

In reply to I've seen with twin girls

Having the advantage of living in a long established community, it often fascinates me how mannerisms and traits are as heritable as physical characteristics. Makes me think that maybe some forms of knowledge are passed along with genes. In other words, the birth lottery explains a lot of the differences you describe.

Sometimes my staring at a

EmmaZahn — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 06:05:14 +0000

In reply to You as educated professional

Sometimes my staring at a wall is a waste of time but even I cannot always tell right away whether it is or not. I guess that is my main point.

And being online is not necessarily downtime. If television has been found to be a social surrogate that provides a degree of belonging, how much more so is online social networking or role playing.

Will these children be better or worse off than the ones diligently preparing or being prepared for a collapsing socioeconomic system?

Who can really say. Certainly not me.

I've seen with twin girls

PeraclesPlease — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 04:59:19 +0000

In reply to ("Math's tough", says Barbie,

I've seen with twin girls where one has a much more innate understanding of math and music than the other. But where the other one is overall much more "clever" in school and life and other topics. Who knows.

(I do think there's something of a reverse syndrome now, where normal boy physiology is now considered "hyperactive", so that girls may have an advantage in terms of scores and teacher tolerance - not sure how factual this is though, vs. urban myth - lots of "trends" are just creation of columnists with need for copy)

You as educated professional

PeraclesPlease — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 04:53:09 +0000

In reply to You read a lot more into my

You as educated professional staring at walls while figuring out stuff not the same as low opportunity 10-year-old spacing on iTunes or whatever.

You said "beware an article that talks about..." or however you put it.

Yes, some of kids' downtime is useful, some isn't (i.e. 10-11 hours per day). So I don't know what your point actually was.

("Math's tough", says Barbie,

EmmaZahn — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 04:15:00 +0000

In reply to Really, please don't confuse

("Math's tough", says Barbie, but there's a question of how a kid who can learn 5 languages without really trying would have trouble understanding a reflection around a point - how are we wired inside?)

Languages and grammar are easy for me. Math was harder for me. But not because I am a girl. My college trig teacher was seriously insecure. He made the class so hard only one person passed -- with a D . He lost his position and everyone had to take the class again. My replacement teacher was quite good. You could actually see how much she enjoyed teaching and making it easier for students to learn.

You read a lot more into my

EmmaZahn — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 04:01:00 +0000

In reply to Really, please don't confuse

You read a lot more into my post than what I wrote. Do you do that with everyone? No wonder the 'discussions' go on and on.

How do you figure I confused two things? Never mind.

Tell me instead what skills level you think a child should have before they are strongly encouraged to begin learning on their own? And yes definitely, tutors should available to assist. Peer work groups would be very helpful too.

The traditional teaching model is suboptimal. One teacher for multiple students with varied backgrounds, learning abilities and involved parents. Once that may have been the best we could do. Not so now.

Really, please don't confuse

PeraclesPlease — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 03:27:17 +0000

In reply to Note to self: always be wary

Really, please don't confuse 2 things.

Someone who's working out problems needs time to think, analyze, relax, re-shuffle info.

But that means you already have a task, a job, likely already spent thousands of hours acquiring the skills to make down time actually productive.

Sure, someone sitting on a bus without an education or a job jamming to music might be getting life formative thoughts, but they're more likely just listening to music and taking no steps forward.

There's a lot of poverty around the world, and people have a lot of time to stare at the wall. As a success strategy, the % is pretty poor.

The emorium idea is interesting, but having spent enough time with home education, even smart kids can require some serious hand holding through what seems to be obvious, while the less swift can need direct help every step of the way - it has to be an extremely good program to replace a teacher. Or if your emporium has tutors behind, that could be brilliant but you still need stages to step them through. And for those who can't show up to the center, remote access, which means affordable internet connections & now a $100 tablet or $300 computer.

I just spent an evening on point symmetry with a very clever kid - but somehow even with graphic info showing the reflections on the other side, it was tough getting through. ("Math's tough", says Barbie, but there's a question of how a kid who can learn 5 languages without really trying would have trouble understanding a reflection around a point - how are we wired inside?)

But frankly, teaching math tends to be much easier than teaching English, writing, description, creativity, vocabulary. The full vocabulary for math up through 7th grade is what, 1000 words?

Depends - if their work or

PeraclesPlease — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 03:14:20 +0000

In reply to knowing how to play angry

Depends - if their work or life schedule is difficult, the course may have to be on-demand, or recorded for those who can't make it.

But people can be lazy, and if it's dropped in their laps, they don't have to lift a finger, then they may disregard it even more.

Remote education is more difficult than people tend to think.

And thanks for agreeing Angry Birds as not a real job skill.

Yes, there's a certain

PeraclesPlease — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 03:10:20 +0000

In reply to Your info is interesting to

Yes, there's a certain education value into learning to plug in your VCR to your TV, or auto-record a TV series.

But since Steve Jobs & co. have put great effort into making MP3 downloads simple, there's just not that much job value - you don't have to touchtype to do this, it's basically go to a Web URL and either pay or pirate your tunes.

Is that the same as knowing how to set up repeat calculations on a row of Excel data, to write a simple Visual Basic macro, or to pretty-print a report?

It used to take some skill for Rock'em Sock'em robot too, or maybe scoring high in Pacman and Asteroids. But move it from a game console to on iPod or smartphone and we start thinking of these as work skills?

Get them hacking tools, set them up with clubs where they show you how to get past the fancy friendly GUI and program the bits and bowels of the thing - write code and manage systems that move data around, visualize it, share it, ....

And it's nice to remember that somewhere on the other side of the world, 300 million kids are getting the idea of hacking their PCs and phones for money with formal programming, database and electronics training, and a future at about $100/month in yuan or rupees. Is playing MP3's and Youtube on the metro going to compete with that?