CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCINGTHE DIGITOD

Bill Gates coined the phrase Generation i to describe childrenborn after 1990, who were raised with the Internet as a givenin their lives. I would extend that definition to include thechildren born in the 1970s and later, for whom the internet is a gift intheir lives. And these folks, now in their thirties, are having quite a timepassing on their knowledge to their kids. Sometimes, though, it mustfeel as if the knowledge is flowing the other way.

Here's an example: my son Ben is thirty-seven. One of his earliestmemories is seeing me walk into his kindergarten classroom with anAtari 2600, which I had just purchased. I can see his ecstatic five year-oldface even now. We went home, we set it up, and he began to play.He and his generation were the first to hone the skills at home thatolder kids had developed on pinball machines in arcades. The ultra-keenhand-eye coordination, the ability to watch the entire field of ascreen at one time, the split-second decision-making and the intenseconcentration were as natural to him as watching the new–fangledSaturday morning children's TV programming was to my generation.

So, when computers became available for the home, Ben and hisfriends were ready for them. Their skills and their curiosity were alreadyin place. Just as clear as his kindergarten memory is the day Ben gothis first Apple computer, a IIc, which he received as an eighth birthdaypresent from my mother and father. "I can still see Grandpa writing outthe check on our red couch," he tells me. This amount of detail meanshe has a powerful and important memory of the event.

It is important to note that while these children of the seventies andeighties were learning to love the computer, they were simultaneouslygoing to school, where they had a different kind of experience. This wasa time when school was beginning earlier and earlier in children's lives.When Ben was introduced to the computer at five, he had already beenin school since he was two. Thus, the digital and real-life experiencesblended for him, and the real-life experiences began before the digitalones.

After college, Ben immediately found a job in the computer industry.It is no surprise that when he had children, Ben went right to his homecomputer and found software designed for them. By then, the computerhad undergone a profound change. "It wasn't just for geeks any more,"Ben says. "You didn't have to go down to the one store in town thatsold computers and hope that they had the one you wanted in stock.A supermodel could dash into an Apple Store and get a computer aselegant as she was in under twenty minutes."

Naturally, the software folks were ready to design activities forthese "second generation" children. While kids could watch "Dora theExplorer" and "Sesame Street" on TV, there was also Sesame Street"lapware" on the computer. Some genius invented that term to explainthat a small child could play if he or she were sitting on a parent's lap.These games were not only fun; they also had the obvious advantageof attention from mom or dad. As nice as it was to sit next to a parentand watch TV, this was better. It was interactive: the child played anactive part in the game.

The first computer games for small children in the new millenniumwere found and downloaded from the internet. They required a lot ofparental guidance. Games such as Bob the Builder: Build a RecyclingCenter and Wind Farm on bobthebuilder.com, or Dora the Explorer'sCity Adventure Game on NickJr.com, required the grown-up to pointand click. The children learned fast but mostly, they had to wait untiltheir muscle co-ordination had become mature enough to operate themouse by themselves. While there was powerful incentive to learn, andmany children did, there was still a necessity of having a parent nearby,to help out on a difficult screen, move between websites, fix a glitch, ormaneuver between individual games on the same website.

Because it was so much fun, children learned to play quickly. Bythe time she was four, my eldest granddaughter Sadie was a whiz. Iremember her whipping around various games, asking for occasionalhelp from her father, who was nearby. (It was a great day when Dadfound a piece of software that would allow him to fix his daughter'sscreen issues from his own computer, without even getting up andwalking over!) Sadie's younger sister Orli sat by her side watching hercarefully. She was too young to maneuver the mouse, but she was nottoo young to watch and learn. When Orli uttered her first completesentence to me, at twenty-two months, it was "Grandma, you have todouble click." That's when I knew I was in a different universe.

In 2007, Apple introduced the iPhone; by 2009 over one billionapplications–apps–had been downloaded. You could download a gamefor your child, and it would stay on your phone for multiple uses. Thesecomputer games were simpler and more accessible. They were easier touse because you didn't need a mouse. A child played by simply usingher fingers.

When I visited my grandchildren, I would often find Sadie engrossedin a computer game and little Orli sitting on the couch playing withher father's iPhone. The similarities were striking. Both children wereengaged in a satisfying visit to the digital world. But the differenceswere also remarkable: while Sadie was tethered to the one spot in thehouse where the computer was operating, Orli's game could be takenanywhere. A child could play a digital game in the bathroom, in thebedroom, on a car trip. The era of very young children learning from amobile device had begun.

For all the amazing technological advancement, there was a crucialsimilarity between the computer learning process for Sadie and Orli andtheir father. All of them were also in school. DIGITAL learning wasbeing processed in their brains at the same time as SOCIAL andEMOTIONAL learning within a group of their peers.

Fast forward only two years to a classroom inhabited by theDigitods, our name for the digital toddler. Here's a discussion I hadon...