education

What today's tech is teaching tomorrow's workforce

The technology we call innovative will seem pedestrian to our children.

From touch screens to open source, our kids are being conditioned to interact with technology in ways we hardly expected even a decade ago, despite what "The Jetsons" foreshadowed back in the '60s.

One thing seems increasingly clear: our children are not being conditioned to buy Microsoft. Not anymore.

This thought came to me from two directions yesterday. The first was a text message my 13-year old daughter sent me:

BTW bring more Ubuntu stickers if possible. I wore my Ubuntu shirt today and a ton of … Read more

Is our children learning? Geeks make sure they is

SAN FRANCISCO--The "gospel according to Goldberg." Turns out it can't be found in a local synagogue, Jewish deli, or Rube Goldberg device, though a couple of us puzzling through treasure hunt clues Saturday night were stubbornly stuck on those ideas.

If you're thinking more along the lines of churches and singing nuns, we want you on our team next year.

The Goldberg gospel was just one hint in the Tech Search Party, a semi-geeky scavenger hunt set in San Francisco's Noe Valley and organized to benefit the neighborhood's Alvarado Elementary School, which needs a technology boost. One-third of the classrooms there don't have working computers; many that do work are held together with duct tape, according to Tim Smith, the event's creator.

About 250 people descended on the normally quiet little Noe with flashlights (or flashlight apps) to solve as many clues as possible in two hours and score prizes like Geeknet gift certificates, Electronic Arts games, a date with Kara Swisher of AllThingsD (PR teams only), and, of course, bragging rights.

Smartphones were essential to the endeavor, as Web searches were needed to decipher clues like "cost $45,499 in year of Beverly Cleary's birth" (answer: the San Francisco Library in Noe, which was built in 1916), or 1:3.226 (answer: the grade of the steepest street in San Francisco: 22nd between Church Street and Vicksburg).

My team, the "Noe-it-Alls" (a runner-up for best team name, I might brag), joined 50 other teams with names like "Several Sassy Sleuths," "Is Our Children Learning?" and "Indominable Immersion Mamas" (Alvarado offers language immersion programs).

On hand were family and friends of Alvarado students; random geeks who learned of the event via Twitter or were recruited from lines for the Google and Apple commuter buses that swing through Noe Valley to take employees to work; candidates for San Francisco supervisor; and even Tyler Hinman, winner of the 2009 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. The "Scribble Monkeys" team included CNET's Rafe Needleman of Webware fame and former CNET.com Editor in Chief Steve Fox.

My team consisted of Tom and Rayna, parents of Alvarado students and owners of a Palm Treo and Motorola Q, respectively; Jonathan, who brought along his semi-functional Motorola Razr from 1913; and me, with my little ol' Samsung Alias 2. Needless to say, Rayna and Tom did the Web searching. … Read more

Wozniak on the importance of piquing kids' interests

Apple founder and tech pioneer Steve Wozniak participated Monday in a San Francisco-based lecture series, The Discovery Forum, which serves to increase awareness about the importance of childhood creativity, and raises support for the Bay Area Discovery Museum's educational exhibitions and programs.

Wozniak, in conversation with TV anchor Dana King, discussed some of the projects he played around with as a child such as wiring circuits and building ham radios. He said he never thought his interest in electronics would lead to a career--his interest was the result of personal curiosity. (He also went off topic for awhile on his Prius problems.) … Read more

PBS documentary questions tech and our future

Like Douglas Rushkoff, I've been an enthusiastic supporter of digital technology for more than 20 years and, also like Rushkoff, I've had some second thoughts as to whether--at least for some people--immersion in technology is doing more harm than good.

Rushkoff is the co-host and co-writer of TV movie "Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier," which premiers on PBS Frontline Tuesday at 9:00 p.m. The show was produced, co-written and co-hosted by Rachel Dretzin, who also produced "Growing Up Online," a show that aired on Frontline in 2007.

The new program … Read more

Annotation, subsidies could and should be Apple's 'killer apps'

Though everyone has been thrilled about the possibilities of today's Apple tablet announcement, the functional purposes and affordability of such a device could be the biggest sticking points.

How much people will pay for a tablet seems predicated on how many devices they already own, and more importantly, how much an additional 3G data plan could cost for a device that wouldn't act as a phone for most people.

To this point, we wonder: could a publisher offer a subsidized Apple tablet to long-term subscribers of normally higher-cost publications such as newspapers or weekly magazines? If Apple's … Read more

Google offers freebie laptops to 600 schools

Google employees who got Nexus One mobile phones weren't the only ones who benefitted from the company's largesse this holiday season. The search company also gave more than 600 schools five computers each in an effort to foster science, technology, engineering, and mathematics skills.

The schools were selected from a list of 1,000 of the country's top-rated high schools, said Google spokeswoman Emily Wood.

"These high schools have significant populations of students from under-represented backgrounds as far as technology goes," she said. "We wanted to look at schools already doing a good job … Read more

Software sales slip just 1 percent for holidays

Retail software sales rang in at $278 million for the 2009 holidays, a dip of 1 percent from the prior year, NPD Group reported Wednesday. But the results were far more joyous than in December 2008 when software revenue fell by 13 percent.

Thanks largely to Windows 7, operating systems enjoyed the greatest improvement of any category for the five-week 2009 holiday season, climbing to $29 million from $10 million in 2008. Educational software also proved a popular gift for the November 22 to December 26 period, with sales jumping by 15 percent courtesy of strong titles like Rosetta Stone … Read more

Get 160GB of National Geographic

National Geographic has compiled every issue of its spectacular magazine from 1888 to 2008 and loaded them onto a 160GB hard drive, available for purchase now.

Priced at $199.95, that includes 120 years of coverage on a 3x5-inch hard drive, which connects to a Mac or PC via USB.

Read more of "National Geographic mag library available on 160 HDD" at ZDNet's The ToyBox.

Humanoid robot to teach software class

Classrooms in Japan may soon welcome a new 4-foot-tall educational humanoid robot unveiled by Nippon Institute of Technology and other groups.

It will be used to teach software programming and hardware engineering to students, but will also be demonstrated in elementary schools and nursing homes. It will act as a "teacher" in class along with a human teacher.

As explained in Japanese in the video below, the kid-size bot doesn't have a name yet. With its boyish voice, the robot can be heard asking people to give it a "cool name." It then does some … Read more