The joys of tinkering 

On Sunday, The New York Times discussed the demise of tinkering, and now Glenn Fleishmann is ranting about the use (misuse) of computers in education.

It is becoming a commonplace to suggest that technology is no panacea for learning — or anything else, for that matter. Although I didn’t become a technologist, I was one of the kids referred to in the Times who assembled Heathkits in my basement, and built model rockets which Larry Berz and I shot high into the sky from a local park. There is tinkering that can be done with computers, but most kids are seduced instead by video games and ICQ.

In schools, things are generally worse, as Glenn points out. Too few teachers have much understanding of computers or the Internet, so either the kids get on with it or the equipment languishes as expensive paperweights. My Daily Princetonian colleague (those many years ago) Mitch Resnick is making valiant efforts to change this, not least with his StarLogo projects. As he said in Davos last year, “Would you rather have your child learn to play the stereo, or learn to play the piano.”

The great remaining hope, as I see it, is the tinkering possibilities of other technologies, particularly robotics. My six-year old is fascinated by Robot Wars (it ranks below Harry Potter, but not by that much), and regularly bugs me to start a robot project of our own. In a couple of years…