Tell me, 1uxb0x—your name is so like Linux to me. (Because of ‘fluxbox’ which was my favorite back when I was only probably three times your age.) I think you are still deciding on a name though—is that right?

Your “Notes” and “Free Writing” pages are solid gold.^[1] You are clearly a very hard worker—I can’t tell if you are hard on yourself or just very determined. You have a lot of things you want to do in your life, that’s for sure.

I like your “Free Writing” pages—and I do the same thing myself. When I am writing, I like to just write something that I see. Almost like taking a photograph, but I am writing it down. I think most people like to write what they are feeling, but that often causes me to stop and think too much. But I just want to write something—and they are very fun to read back on.^[2]

Haha, well—“don’t do much”—first off, you have hundreds of wiki pages under your personal belt at this point… and I know damn well that you are one of the ghost-architects of h0p3’s wiki. You work on scripts and CSS for him—it’s all right there in the logs, j3d1h! For hell’s sake, you set up Windows 8 VMs for him!

I’m sorry that I know all this. I do apologize. I am just a random guy.^[1] And I have no idea how to offer you any advice or suggestions as to your wiki—I like that you are just doing your own thing, you seem perfectly capable to me, of writing your own thoughts and following some of your dad’s practices—and establishing some of your own.

I just h0p3 it is encouraging that you have a reader out there who thinks your Social Studies Log is awesome—as a window into your young reactions to history. Or your Deep Reading Log—since I am an avid reader and your words remind me of what it was to read The Chosen at your age—which I probably did! (Although I can only guess at your age and am very impressed at the things you say to h0p3 which he quotes—your words strike like a queen’s sceptre of supreme sarcasm^[2]!)

I wonder if it’s possible for children’s television to ever be anything but that—considering how much money is required to produce television.

I’m not an expert on all grades—and I’m only three years deep into my research on the grades I specialize in, which is 1st through 3rd in the U.S. I have spent a bit of time in 4th and 5th—Chromebooks are very useful to these grades and are a step forward. (From no computer 😆.)

I have such a different perspective from articles such as Stager’s that I just don’t know where to begin! And since this is an off-handed comment, I’m not going to dig up citations—but hope to do more of that soon on my blog.

On the topic of laptops:

• Trackpads are a huge problem. Childrens’ hands get extremely tired trying to manipulate them. So an article that mentions a laptop without emphasizing a mouse—I realize this seems like a small thing, but it isn’t!
• To say a Raspberry Pi is better—I just can’t imagine. I did RPi stuff in after-school clubs but the setup and takedown is insane. And you don’t want your kids behind giant glowing tombstone-sized screens. They also are totally underpowered—they take longer to boot and get going—so it seems funny to criticize Chromebooks as not being beefy, then mention… RPi?
• To say that a Chromebook can’t fulfill Papert’s and Solomon’s list smacks as disingenuous—it’s just that there is a lot of elitism around what is proper technology. Just off the top of my head: Sphero, Twine and Voxel Builder are legit tech. Scratch and Scratch Jr. are legit—but are aging. I looked down on these, too, until I saw what kids were doing with them.

There was also a project that Linden Labs was doing on iOS called Blocksworld that was fantastic, but everyone ignored it (and their in-app purchases were awful.)

Since my focus is young kids, I feel (and the research seems to be showing more and more) that tablets are the sweetest computer at that age. A pre-reader just cannot navigate a keyboard yet. And a tablet is not a computer for mere consumption for them—armed with the right software, they will write, record, create visuals of all kinds, it totally opens them up. I hope to show more of the projects that I do with the kids because I think it will be eye-opening.

For me, the hardware issue is pretty easy at present: iPads for up to 3rd grade; Chromebooks thereafter. The more interesting discussion—the software—is where we should spend our time. And also, there is a limit to how much time you can spend with technology in the younger grades, for motor skill developmental reasons.

If I am off, I am always glad to be directed to papers I’ve missed!