Expanding technology horizons for 12 year olds

Expanding technology horizons for 12 year olds
by Rodolpho Carrasco
Saturday, January 15, 2000 in San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group
[Rodolpho Carrasco is associate director of Harambee Christian Family Center in Pasadena, Calif. Check out more articles by Rodolpho Carrasco here. Visit Urban Onramps.

Twelve-year-old Corey and I stood in the computer section of the voluminous Stanford bookstore, sending an email to Corey's tutor 350 miles away.

"Say something to Jud," I said.

Corey looked confused.

"I'm online and Jud sent an email," I said. "If we respond now, he'll get it before he leaves the office."

We crafted a brief response and hit SEND.

"That's it?" Corey asked.

"Yeah. We're far from home, in a store, but Jud's going to get this in a minute," I said. "Is that o.k. with you?"

He wasn't sure. Within five seconds he gave three facial expressions of incredulity, the assorted hues of his rich, brown face flickering in the fluorescent light. I think the experience was blowing his mind.

At least, I hope so. I spent three days last weekend attempting to amaze kids with technology. Every year, the staff at the youth center I co-direct takes children like Corey to the January MacWorld Expo in San Francisco. We want to immerse them in technology in ways they will never forget.

This year our group numbered seven. Besides Corey, my wife Kafi and I, we had Magdalena, Tamika, Jasmine and Jovani. All of the kids were between the ages of 10 and 12.

Jasmine loved our visits to Dot Com start ups. She took note of the varying sizes of each company.

SpanishConnection.com, in San Jose, is squeezed into a suite in an office park, just one door in a long hallway even though it is a portal to the digital world for many Central Americans.

PayPal.com, in Palo Alto, is growing so quickly that in some parts of the office there are two employees in one cubicle. We toured the office at around six p.m., but no one had left to go home, nor was anyone packing up their stuff and calling it a day.

BioSpace.com's three-story offices, in downtown San Francisco, are undergoing massive renovation. Ethernet cables and exposed desk spaces are everywhere. Every one of the 30+ employees nodded a greeting to our little group as we walked past their desks.

It was Jasmine who couldn't wait to visit the fourth company, Handshigh.com. On Saturday morning, as our group ate wheat pancakes at the East Palo Alto home of Shannon and April Pekary, Jasmine asked, "Where are we going today?"

"Into that back bedroom," I answered.

"That's an Internet company?" she exclaimed. Her eyes bulged in that startled, little kid sort of way.

Indeed, one of the most successful companies selling Palm OS software is nothing more than a Powerbook G3 laptop computer sitting on a bedside table. Shannon writes Palm software on the computer, then uses a web site and an e-commerce storefront to promote and sell his software. Last year two of his software applications won Palm industry awards for excellence.

What I'm glad the kids saw is that Shannon works out of his home and has lots of time for his kids. He and April have three children of their own and are in the process of adopting two more. But these children have access to both parents for the better part of every day, because of the nature of their father's work.

"What if you could take care of your family and be around when your kids got home from school?" I asked Jovani.

While I talked to Jovani, the other kids fondled Palm hand-held computers. Maggie had the Palm III, Tamika was messing with a Palm V, and Corey and my wife were trying to check the weather on a new Palm VII that can access the Internet.

I tried giving a speech about how technology was the future, but I don't think they heard a word I said. It looked like a room full of kids playing with GameBoys, except quieter.

I wasn't too bothered that the kids weren't listening to me. It's one thing for youth to hear a speech and agree with the ideas. It's another for them to use and master technology, which is what they forsook my speech for.

That's why the show itself, the MacWorld Expo, is each year such a highlight for us. Computers are everywhere. Colors, lights, sounds, video, scanning - everywhere you turn, some little gadget is doing something amazing, something that might be considered witchcraft in another century.

Trips like these help take children to the next level. It's important to get them there, because these days you can't get an oil change at Jiffy Lube without watching an employee bang away on a keyboard (after he was wiped the motor oil off his hands, of course). Most jobs in the future, and nearly all decent jobs, require working knowledge of a wide variety of technology.

What our kids - the Coreys, the Jasmines, the Jovanis - need now is exposure to technology that will encourage them to plan for the future. Kids saying, "I'm going to college" or "I want to learn computers" is not the goal. What they need to be doing is debating the merits of an Imac over a Pentium III, or comparing the value of working at home for yourself versus working all night for a company about to make an initial public offering.

It's not too much to expect from a twelve-year-old.

The copyright for these materials are owned by Rudy Carrasco.  These materials were used with permission by TechMission