You may hear adults, especially your parents, ask you to spend less time in front of the screens. But at a camp called ID Tech, computers are the necessary tools for learning about robotics (机器人学) and video games.
Logan Doyle, 12, spent last week at this camp learning to write computer instructions for a video game he was creating. “l am trying to make the beginning of this game,” said Logan.
In the room, boys were playing a 3D racing video game. When they finished playing the game, they talked about what they liked and didn't like about the game. Then the camper who designed the game could make it better.
Their teacher, Will Whitney, said the kids were learning problem-solving. “Kids meet a problem and think of different ways to solve it,” said Whitney. Like a lot of the teachers at the camp, Whitney attended ID Tech camp while growing up. As a kid, he loved video games. He loved the camp so much that he attended it seven years ago. “It was always the height of my summer,” he said.
Like English and Maths, it is important to understand technology. It will be important to many jobs in the future. “Technology is everywhere in our society, said Jan Plane, a computer science professor at the University of Maryland. “Whatever field kids go into, having some knowledge of technology is going to make a difference.”
Maybe the right kind of screen time is not such a bad idea after all.
