There are several dubious links in the chain of reasoning here.
First, because many, including Steve Jobs, say that this is a game changer, that it is going to make the laptop obsolete, it is going to change the future of computing forever. So it may be.
Second, therefore, because it is a closed platform, and because it is going to change the future of computing forever, when you buy one for your kid, all possible learning about how to hack things will instantly die in that child.
Third, who here learned, on their own, by using something in exactly the way that the manufacturer intended? I don't see all that many hands up.
I think kids or adults learn new ways of doing things by hacking. That is, they pick up some device and ask "hmm, I wonder what will happen if i connect these two wires".
So let me ask a semi-rhetorical question: Is there a way a kid can learn from an iPad by using it in a way that it was not intended? Of course there is. Are you telling me that there is no 8-year old that will find a way to use the iPad that will surprise his parents or peers?
Does anyone remember tube radios? I do (at the risk of dating myself), and I remember the sounds of doom when transistors came out. No user serviceable parts inside, says the label on the back. So has experimentation in Ham Radio died out? They build and launch satellites for goodness sake. New modes of digital communication, like WSJT (by Joe Taylor, Nobel Laureate, discoverer of a type of pulsar) to bounce signals off of meteor trails, or PSK31, a very narrow-band keyboard-to-keyboard mode of communication, or Cliff Stoll hooking up a kit from Ramsay Electronics to his Macintosh to graph the speed of cars going past a kid-filled street to help petition the city to put speed bumps there.
Fourth, where new ideas come from is not readily anticipated. And that is the point. The net of the article is that iPad totally locks down any possible avenue of learning for kids. I don't think so. If I were raising kids today, I would be much more concerned about their exposure to television.
First, because many, including Steve Jobs, say that this is a game changer, that it is going to make the laptop obsolete, it is going to change the future of computing forever. So it may be.
Second, therefore, because it is a closed platform, and because it is going to change the future of computing forever, when you buy one for your kid, all possible learning about how to hack things will instantly die in that child.
Third, who here learned, on their own, by using something in exactly the way that the manufacturer intended? I don't see all that many hands up.
I think kids or adults learn new ways of doing things by hacking. That is, they pick up some device and ask "hmm, I wonder what will happen if i connect these two wires".
So let me ask a semi-rhetorical question: Is there a way a kid can learn from an iPad by using it in a way that it was not intended? Of course there is. Are you telling me that there is no 8-year old that will find a way to use the iPad that will surprise his parents or peers?
Does anyone remember tube radios? I do (at the risk of dating myself), and I remember the sounds of doom when transistors came out. No user serviceable parts inside, says the label on the back. So has experimentation in Ham Radio died out? They build and launch satellites for goodness sake. New modes of digital communication, like WSJT (by Joe Taylor, Nobel Laureate, discoverer of a type of pulsar) to bounce signals off of meteor trails, or PSK31, a very narrow-band keyboard-to-keyboard mode of communication, or Cliff Stoll hooking up a kit from Ramsay Electronics to his Macintosh to graph the speed of cars going past a kid-filled street to help petition the city to put speed bumps there.
Fourth, where new ideas come from is not readily anticipated. And that is the point. The net of the article is that iPad totally locks down any possible avenue of learning for kids. I don't think so. If I were raising kids today, I would be much more concerned about their exposure to television.