Two years ago my daughter (who had just started 4th grade) came back from school and
told me that she had sent me an email. I searched again and again and finally found
a message from Microsoft Office 365 where she had written a note in a document she
shared with me. As I talked more with her about what she understood about
technology, I could see a large gap. And this gap is global: what is being
taught today is mostly surface level, and doesn't go into how the technology actually works.
The systems themselves have become very complex, and schools don't
get enough help to keep adapting as technology evolves.
Many parents depend on private institutions or companies hoping that they will
teach how to code and how to build, but even there the trainers rarely have
experience building things themselves, which means they don't have the same
level of understanding as other IT professionals. In addition, security and privacy are
two major concerns which everyone is dealing with in the connected world.
This is going to be even more important in the current days of LLM / AI
tools. We need the new generation to understand how things actually work and
how to build systems ourselves. Everyone can build things with the help of AI tools, but to
maintain what you have built, it is important to understand how technology actually works.
We are already seeing the demand of young folks who understand these things. Whichever job they will
do, they will have to use technology in all parts of their lives.
My hope with this series of classes is to help folks discover (starting with my daughter's
age group) that technology and computers can be fun and that they can learn things
without fear. The goal is not to teach them everything, but to teach them how
to learn by themselves, and how to keep having fun while doing so. Giving them
the basics of security and privacy from the beginning.
Last but not least: in the world of technology, writing code is a small
part of the work. The bigger part is to be able to communicate, to be able to read
code, chats, emails, and reply back expressing what is in one's mind. I hope that
introducing kids to the philosophy of Open Source Software, and the skill of knowing how to
share their knowledge will help them throughout life.
I provide the material open and freely accessible to everyone, so that
people can follow along, or teach others based on this material.
