From owner-freebsd-chat Mon Mar 12 19:45:58 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from goose.prod.itd.earthlink.net (goose.prod.itd.earthlink.net [207.217.120.18]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0B8D837B729 for ; Mon, 12 Mar 2001 19:45:51 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from rivas45@sprintmail.com) Received: from sprintmail.com (sdn-ar-004njnbruP323.dialsprint.net [168.191.61.229]) by goose.prod.itd.earthlink.net (EL-8_9_3_3/8.9.3) with SMTP id TAA17033; Mon, 12 Mar 2001 19:45:45 -0800 (PST) Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 22:45:37 -0500 From: Eric Rivas To: Rob Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: How do you get kids interested in computers- other than playing games? Message-Id: <20010312224538.4c42e2c3.rivas45@sprintmail.com> In-Reply-To: <3AAD626B.CC372925@home.com> References: <3AAD626B.CC372925@home.com> X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.4.61 (GTK+ 1.2.8; FreeBSD 3.5-STABLE; i386) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Mon, 12 Mar 2001 15:57:31 -0800 Rob wrote: > My nephew spends just about every waking moment (other than school) in > front of the > computer playing games. So this Christmas I thought I'd expand his > horizons by buying > him a new Imac with SuSE Linux preinstalled by me. > > I showed him how to use the man pages and other documentation, and tried > to explain to him > why such a computer might be more interesting than a Windoze box. Well, > he was pretty much > flabbergasted and confused by this new computer (try accomplishing that > with a teenager). He > had no idea what to do with it, despite my attempts to explain how cool > it might be to do > some hacking and programming on it. To that end I showed him Python, > and how easy it was to make > programs. > > The computer has just sat unused for weeks. > > Did I screw up? Are children so used to being spoon-fed information > that they no longer have > the interest in independent investigation? This is a bright kid who > claimed to have an > interest in computers. How old is your nephew? I'm 16 and I PREFER to code and play around with my FreeBSD box rather than playing games. Many times my friends have told me about some hot new game, so naturally I get it. I then tend to play for a week then thrown it on the shelf and return to playing around with code. If your nephew is really interested into computer, maybe a little slower start and a little more helping might get him started. But then again, I know some people who say they are into computers but just for playing games. Keep trying, I know I would have liked someone around when I was young (I really got into computers on my own). > > Oh, well thanks for listening to my rant. Maybe it will just take some > time. Rob. > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message -- Eric J. Rivas, KC2HMV To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message