What to teach K-6 about tech

Sorry, I'm blogging about a blogger's blog post, here, but this is relevant to parents and educators. It's about what Internet "usability guru" Jakob Nielsen says children should be taught about computers in elementary school (click to it from this San Jose Mercury News blog. Nielsen's bottom line: "Schools should teach deep, strategic computer insights that can't be learned from reading a manual." Hear, hear! I'm highlighting here three of his eight general skills, which I think are absolute musts: search strategies, information credibility (children click ads much more than adults do, and teens are particularly impatient in info-gathering, which makes them more vulnerable to hype, etc.), and how to deal with information overload (he has some simple strategies for all ages here). Here's Nielsen's "Life-Long Computer Skills."