DON’T BOTHER ME, I’M LEARNING

[Music] [Music] um [Music] don't bother me i'm learning i'm learning how [Music] don't bother me i'm learning now don't bother me i'm learning how [Music] [Applause] [Music] don't bother me i'm learning what you're about to see is the revolution everybody's been talking about the personal computer revolution that's sweeping the entire country people of all ages are working with the latest technology they're playing with it doing business with it and they're learning with it video games took the mystery out of computers they're easy to learn to play they test your reflexes and they're a lot of fun but once you learn to make the computer work for you you can't wait to go a step further from fun to challenge from entertainment to education from using a toy to using a tool that can stretch your imagination and expand your limits it's not just the basics like spelling and math it's not just storing and retrieving information it's the opening of a new door to a whole new world of knowledge you can use the computer to provide you with a much broader range of information you can experiment invent create and simulate take whatever it is that interests you most and go after it you'll find the answers to your questions and a whole new set of questions to ask let's go meet some people in california who are already using computers in the menlo park community a group of people are making a major concerted effort to give all its residents a chance to try the computer the group took equipment and instructors to visit and teach at the library and boys club as well as the senior citizen center they even put up a computer exhibit at the street fair the whole project started with an idea called computer town usa it began here as the brainchild of bob albrecht and ramon zamora who was now project director we started computer town with computers and kids here in the menlo park public library our goal in computer town was to give everybody in the town of menlo park which is a town of 27 000 people a chance to use a computer this project started with us trying out the project in pizza parlors and in bookstores and in the school situations and we used our own equipment and we carried it around to various places and we discovered that the library is the best setting for what we're doing and what we're trying to do within computer town usa and the library provides a very natural setting this is open you know eight or nine hours a day and so it's a free access location and people can just come in and use computers like they would a card catalog or a book so we're providing an alternative place for people to get their hands on a microcomputer and to learn about the technology very early on in the process we ended up with a lot of children learning how to use the machine and teaching other children how to use the machine we told the kids one thing they couldn't do when they came in the library was they could not ask the librarian any questions that the librarians did not know anything about the machines that they had to ask another kid what naturally evolved after we tried it out a little bit was a process of validating children we gave them a button and this and their library card would let them get into the library and use the machines anytime the herbert hoover boys club has 600 members both boys and girls from east palo alto and menlo park a minority target area the club offers all kinds of sports and activities including auto mechanics and home economics and since computer town usa made them available the club also has computers which they keep in their learning center our learning center is really a library but we found that it's more attractive to youngsters if we dub it our learning center and try to sneak a little learning in so even our usage of the software for an example a prerequisite for playing the games that are available is that they use the educational tapes and they kind of have to suffer through that the kids say we have to go through this before we get to what we really want computer town usa is a group that made this available to us and the first time that the computers were made available to our membership the kids are just swarming all over the place and it's just phenomenal the interest is just great it is an eye-opening experience for parents and it really dispels some myths of it that uh you know it's only for the uh professor peabody types and that sort of thing um no don't try no changes hey this is hard huh you on your own jason thank you [Music] um [Music] we think that the computer town exposure is very important and we hope to continue that sort of relationship [Music] it isn't just the boys and girls who are learning at the little house senior citizen center at menlo park you can learn to paint sew and sculpt or try your hand at the computer [Music] [Laughter] some people are initially scared to death of computers matt layman overcame his fear i was terrified of computers when i first started to fool with them and when i came over here to do some volunteer work at the little house it certainly occurred to me that here's a whole group of people they're in the same position i was that are terrified of these monsters that all they do is mess your builds up and that maybe if they knew a little bit more about them that they would feel a little more comfortable with it i have been using mine now for so many things at home i don't see how anybody gets along without one all the letters i type are on that because i make terrible mistakes it's very easy to correct when you have a word processing program almost all of my financial information is kept on a computer now everything from magazine renewal lists to uh recipes i mean there's so many things that can be done i think it's going to be an individual thing alabama alabama we're going to get that right go push the button that's so bleak enough that it just might be it's wrong jackson thank you maine this ought to be a dinger i think we saw they got interested and they'll get interested in games and from games to uh more practical use just like children and they'll learn like children so uh this will make a little more familiar with the thing once you know a device is no longer a monster computer town is basically an idea and it's not a place or a thing or any particular group of people it's an idea of how you can provide technology to a large number of people in a a public setting ramon estimates that in two years over twelve thousand people in the menlo park area have played with worked with or learned with a computer you don't have to be a genius a brain or a mathematician you just have to be curious [Music] for some people the computer has completely changed the way they live and how and where they work if you've ever thought about working for yourself if you've ever said i'm tired of the rat race the commute and the corporate politics meet terry howard who's been a stock broker for 20 years he worked in a big office downtown and commuted in and out of the city for 18 of those years terry now works out of his house using a personal computer and it makes all the difference in the world three years ago i made the decision and bought the computer once i had the computer and had it working i realized gee you know now i don't need a secretary now i don't need all these other things and i can adapt the computer to do other things for me so i decided and i had the space here at home which uh made it possible so i thought i'd give it a try for three months or six months and see how it worked and it worked it's been a you know it's very a very comfortable lifestyle now i i get up 45 minutes later than i used to and uh instead of spending all my time putting on a coat and tie i go out and i do some exercise and i usually run three miles every morning and and uh i'm you know here at work by 7 30 or 8 feeling a lot better than i did when i was working in the city when you think of the expense and the frustration involved in driving 20 miles one way to work each day wow you know how did i ever put up with this for 18 years you don't seem to notice it while you're doing it really you know from the time i get up in the morning till i get down here it's just a 10 or 15 second walk and i mean i've got more time to devote to work and and more energy i feel better physically and psychologically better than i than i did 20 years ago my wife is my assistant she she's on the payroll so to speak and prepare a pretty good salary and she's very happy with that and the kids enjoy having us all together working i'm sure i see a lot more of my children than i ever did before terry's family likes having him work at home but what about his clients has it presented any problems to them or changed their relationship in any way well in our business uh 99 of the contact is over the telephone and so from their standpoint there's really not any difference at all i mean i may be you know sitting here on a sweltering day in a t-shirt and a pair of shorts and they don't know that you know they probably still think of me as having a coat and tie and looking like a stock broker but that's the nice thing about the telephone what they don't know doesn't hurt me [Laughter] work is still work i mean you have to earn a living and by definition work is not play so if you have to work this is about as good a work environment as i can imagine [Music] these children are a little too young to have their own business but it may be just a matter of time what's her name she never gets in the way but she always loses her plow not always no just one day today okay helena and maria are learning to draw with a graphics plotter their first subject is anita [Music] at this age using the computer is no more complicated than playing with a doll she has a very pretty dress [Music] the computer is giving these young children a whole new way to learn a means of communication never dreamed of until now [Music] here in the santa barbara hills there's a very special summer camp a computer camp so there are kids here from all over the country who come for the usual camp activities there's plenty of sailing and swimming tennis and horseback riding but without exception everybody's favorite sport is computer programming [Music] programming is definitely an indoor sport the computers are housed in trailers which must be kept dust free and cool so as an extra added bonus you learn to program barefoot camp director gary white explains what it's like to run a computer camp these kids are so eager they're so willing they're so bright they're so enthusiastic it's part of it just runs itself i mean you put the kids on the computers and in some ways nature just takes its course the kids get in here and they're right on the computer and they want to do everything and they type and they try things you give them new technology and they're on it immediately they've got it figured out and they're working with it right away they're learning to think logically they're learning to explore when it comes right down to it a 10 year old camper here helps to teach and it's not unusual to have them teaching a 15 or a 16 year old camper because you never know who's going to get the concepts first who's going to be who's going to be the sharpest the quickest to catch on to something and they love being able to share it it's better than a regular camp some things never change computers or no computers kids will be kids david and annie fox pioneered another way to learn to use computers in 1977 they founded the marin computer center north of san francisco it's a public access center where anyone can come in and use the computers okay take as much time as you need to have a really good story some people who are working on the um it's a place where people could come in and play with computers in a real friendly low-key environment we essentially rent computer time by the hour for game playing and educational use and we teach programming to kids and adults the under all purpose of everything that we do here is to give a child an experience of power over what you formally thought was an extremely powerful machine putting the child in a driver's seat making him aware of the computer's capabilities as well as limitations gives him a feeling that hey you know i'm eight years old and i can tell this machine what to do i think that they're a great motivator because to be a programmer you have to be a teacher and in order for a child to take on the role of a teacher the child has to really know his material really well and it kind of puts him on the other side instead of always receiving the information he's now inputting information into a computer and the computer becomes the student [Music] that feeling of confidence if you can have a feeling of power over a computer then then the child feels there's nothing that he cannot do there are people in their late 30s and 40s and older who feel the computers have just passed them by and that's difficult because a lot of them are now dealing with them on a professional level because the computers are everywhere i've learned that anybody can learn anything and i use myself as an example because i was scared to death of computers i was not good in math and i hated technology per se and for me to be a proponent of this stuff makes me realize that really anybody can learn on whatever level they want to get into and it's fun i've learned computers for fun [Music] as you can see the personal computer is by no means limited to video games it can be used as a toy or as a tool a tool that can draw and then animate the drawing it's a new way to teach children their abcs it can run a business [Applause] [Music] and it can help people communicate for the first time in their lives but we cannot afford to let noisy aggressive shoot em out of the sky games threaten the positive potential of the computer the future of software does not lie in the darkness of the video arcade it lies in the imagination ready to follow in any direction the human mind chooses to go the computer is meant for the curious the wonders the explorers for people who know there is more than one way to do it and who are ready to take that step for fun to challenge from entertainment to education with the computer we now have in our hands a whole new way to learn and it's no longer a matter of will you have one it's a question of what you will use yours for [Music] don't bother me i'm learning i'm learning how [Music] don't bother me i'm learning now don't bother me i'm learning how [Music] [Applause] i'm learning [Music] so [Music] hmm [Music] me so you