I am pretty skeptical about the value of learning to build websites. I think it is too tempting for students to devote significant time to something that is not foundational knowledge and where they won't get any valuable feedback anyway.

It makes me think back to my writing assignments in grades 6-12. I spent considerable time making sure the word processor had the exact perfect font, spacing, and formatting with cool headers, footers, and the footnotes, etc. Yet, I wouldn't even bother to proofread the final text before handing it in. What a terrible waste of a captive audience that could have helped me refine my arguments and writing style, rather than waste their time on things like careless grammatical errors.

Anyway, I do agree with the idea of incorporating Excel, and even RStudio for math and science as tools, especially if they displace Ed-tech software that adds unnecessary abstractions, or attempts to replace interaction with knowledgeable teachers. One other exception might be Anki or similar, since they might move rote memorization out of the classroom, so that more time can be spent on critical thinking.

Would it be a mistake to use Desmos in a math classroom, or 3Blue1Brown style animations, to build up visual intuition? Should we not teach basic numerical and statistical methods in Python? Should kids be forced to use physical copies of newspapers and journal articles instead of learning how to look things up in a database?

I'm all for going back to analog where it makes sense, but it seems wrongheaded to completely remove things that are relevant skills for most 21st century careers.

what's funny is that they don't even teach basic tech literacy but just rely on kids to figure it out!

I learned how to touch type in middle school with school software like Mario teaches typing and Mavis beacon. I peaked around 80wpm and I was faster than 90% of my classmates.

A few years ago I invested in a rectilinear split keyboard which has a slightly different layout, but much more ergonomic. But interestingly I can now type 120wpm+.

I think touch typing is very similar to learning penmanship (and I guess cursive to an extent). If I followed the exact rules I learned about handwriting in school, I'd have much more legible handwriting but I'd write so much more slowly. Instead I my own way, which lets me get my thoughts out quickly, albeit not as neat as "correct" penmanship. Fortunately typing is much more lenient on this front.

You typed out this message by hitting individual keys as your eyes searched for them? Isn’t that mentally exhausting?

Fast typing is not about throughput, it's about latency. If I only needed to type fast enough to produce the 125-something lines of code I get into production per week, I would be able to work at a word a minute. Alas, that's not how that works.

https://entropicthoughts.com/typing-fast-is-about-latency-no...

In general, mastery involves taking the basic mechanics of something and making them completely automatic, freeing up cognitive resources for higher level processes. Expert pianists don't need to look down at their hands when sight reading.

> touch type

can even be harmful

IFF we interpret "touch typing" as the typical thought typing method and not just "typing without looking at the keyboard".

In general key arrangement traces back to physical limitations of type writers not ergonomics and layout choice isn't exactly ergonomic based either.

But even if it where, the biggest issue of touch typing is that it's often thought around the idea of your hands being somewhat orthogonal to your keyboard, _which they never should be_ (if you use a typical keyboard on a typcal desk setup) as it leads to angling you hands/wrist which is nearly guaranteed to cause you health issues long term if you are typing a lot.

The simple solution is to keep your wrist straight leading to using the keyboard in a way where you hand is at an angle to it's layout instead of orthogonal which in turn inhibits perfect touch typing. But still allows something close to it.

As keys are arranged in shifted columns this kinda works surprisingly well, an issue is the angle differs depending on left/right hand :/

Split or alice style keyboards can also help a bit, but I often feel man designs kinda miss the point. Especially many supposedly ergonomic keyboards aren't aren't really that ergonomic, especially if your hand is to large, small, or otherwise unusual...

Which brings us to the next point, human autonomy varies a lot, some people have just some very touch typing incompatible hands, like very short pinky fingers making that finger unusable for typical touch typing (even with normal hands it's a bit suboptimal which is why some keyboards shift the outer rows down by half a row).

Even if they have a computer at home, that doesn't mean they're practicing the relevant skills. Touch typing, word processing, researching a topic online, etc. are things that need deliberate practice. Based on my own experience, using a computer at home 99% of the time meant playing video games.

The following article suggests that in the United States, about 59% of lower income households have a laptop or desktop computer, compared to 92% of upper income households.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/06/22/digital-d...

Many parents don't themselves have the technical literacy to properly teach things like what thr filesystem is.

Boomers are split between a demographic that is very computer literate, having worked in/around science and tech for decades, and a demo that isn't remotely literate and may not even be online.

The latter is a fairly small demo though - supposedly around a third.

The split is more by education than by age.

Kids can use computers - phones - as app appliances, but they don't understand computers.

Peak literacy is young Gen X and older millennials.