Computer independence

When I was a kid (like 10 yrs old) dad had a computer in his bedroom at that foot of the bed that we could play a few games on.  They only had ASCII art, and were mostly very simple.  Ben and I liked to play Wheel of Fortune.  I don't recall needing a mouse, just the boot disk and the game disk and a few simple commands on the DOS prompt.  We did fun games like Oregon Trail at school, but I don't recall that we ever had it at home.

Later, when we moved to Tullahoma, dad got a better computer.  It had Windows 3.1 and a color monitor!  It had very simple graphics compared to current standards, but at least they could do blocky cartoons!  Remember Gorilla and Nibbles?  We played Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? and Frogger and a few others.  Computer time was a privilege that we fit into the spaces between chores and homework.

A few years later, and the new computer (Windows 95, perhaps?) could play MegaRace where there was an actual embedded video host.  He looked so lifelike!  We could play battle chess where the chess pieces walked across the chess board and actually fought.  I remember the imagery having such an amazing detail.

MegaRace.

Now the computer is grown up, and the innovations since I left for college have been in the realm of wireless connectivity, display, inputs, "the cloud", and massive storage.  As a few examples: household wifi, peer-to-peer action games, high-definition video (1080p!), on-line video chat, streaming movies and television, DVR, touch-screens, active sensing and force-feedback.  I keep lots of my files "in the cloud" so I can reach them from multiple devices or locations.   All of our pictures since 2004 are electronic and are accessible primarily through a computer.

I do have to wonder what the iterations will hold for my boys, who will always have computers in the home.  I do remember when we first got an Ipod Touch how Ian wanted to PUSH the buttons instead of touch the buttons.  It was a learning curve for him.

On the other hand, Blake knows exactly how to get to the PBS Kids App and scroll through to Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood without any supervision (to our delight on a Saturday morning, and chagrin when he's supposed to be working on something else!).

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The main reason that I'm thinking about this is because we are still the gate-keepers for our kids, and get to decide to what degree and how the boys interact with our computers and devices.  So far it's mostly been app-based access, with occasional typing for Ian in Word/Gmail/Blogger or games at Starfall.com and the like.  Last night there was another activity.

(Here's the short version)

Tuesday night at the homework table, Ian was having writer's block and had a terrible time accepting that he could write a whole story about Thanskgiving.  He was in a stalemate with himself (and us) and was pretty weepy.  After quite a while (more than an hour), I invited him over to sit on my lap and dictate to me some letters for FamilySearch Indexing on the laptop.  We did a full batch together, and he was interested.  He said, "Tomorrow can I do it all by myself?"  So I promised him that if he got his homework done that he could transcribe and do the typing.  As promised, tonight while I was putting Blake to bed, Ian sat at the laptop and indexed 19 names!  I'll do some error checking before submitting, but it was definitely a high-five moment in our household.

I'll be interested to hear Ian's observations in 20 years, when he outlines his "history" with a family computer.