[Infowarrior] - Why Johnny Can't Program: A New Medium Requires A New Literacy

[Richard Forno]

Why Johnny Can't Program: A New Medium Requires A New Literacy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/douglas-rushkoff/programming-literacy_b_745126.html

The whole article is worth reading, but this quote pretty much sums up the fundamental argument regarding Americans and technology education.  I've long-argued this will become a problem, and only gets worse in an era where FB, Twitter, and mobile apps are far more enticing to our IT workers than understanding the basics of technology and then finding new ways of using it to push the envelope into the future.  In other words, we've become a nation of users and doers, not thinkers or innovators....even within the IT community.  --rick   

"Just last year, while researching a book on America's digital illiteracy, I met with the Air Force General then in charge of America's cybercommand. He said he had plenty of new recruits ready and able to operate drones or other virtual fighting machines - but no one capable of programming them, or even interested in learning how. He wasn't even getting recruits who were ready to begin basic programming classes. Meanwhile, he explained to me, colleges in Russia, China, and even Iran were churning out an order of magnitude more programmers than universities in the US. It is only a matter of time, he said - a generation at most - until our military loses its digital superiority."

Full article @   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/douglas-rushkoff/programming-literacy_b_745126.html