Archive:Stories: Difference between revisions

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+{{cquote|When I was a sophmore in high school in 1980, I took an 'advanced class' in computers on a (Tandy -Radio Shack) TRS-80 in the 'new' programming language called 'BASIC'. The computers came via a state grant, had a whopping 8 megs of RAM and an 'expansion interface' that created up to 16 megs of ROM. All programs created by the students had to be 'burned' to a cassette tape (ask your parents if you don't know what a cassette is.) We usually had to 'burn' the program on at least 3 cassettes, and the cassette 'burning' sounded like a phone modem connecting to AOL. (If you don't know what a 'phone modem' or 'AOL' is, again -ask your parents...)
+The teacher told me something that I'll never forget -because at the time, it seemed impossible. He said "Someday, everyone will have one of these (computers) in their house, and they will all be connected. When a child wants to learn about a 'lion', they will type it into the computer, and they will learn facts about lions...one of those facts about lions, like 'lions live in Africa', will make the child interested in Africa, so then they will type in 'Africa', and so on...This will be the way that your children learn when they are your age..."
+And now here we are 30 years later, and darn if that teacher wasn't RIGHT ON! (...That's right kids -believe it or not, your teachers DO know what they are talking about!) Thanks to websites like 'Wikipedia', children of all ages can continue their endeavor in learning. Kudos Wikipedia on creating a human interface that allows us all to teach and be taught! The future is NOW! }}
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 {{cquote|I use Wikipedia constantly as a source of information about so many things in this world that spark my interest.  While other specialized sites may have more in depth or expert data, Wikipedia provides an astounding breadth of information about every conceivable subject area, and with peer review it provides a very high degree of accuracy.