Program or be Programmed

Ah-hah! That's why I was teaching computers to kids for all those years back in the States...

You have to forgive the book sales nature of the video - Douglas Rushkoff is a great cultural critic and clarifier of all things media. If you don't know about him, I'd highly suggest checking him out.

Seriously, I've long believed in the necessity of knowing how programming works - at least the metaphorical kind, anyway. A tremendously good resource for kids (and grownups, as long as we're at it) is Scratch, (sorry, no picture, but it does look cool) an easy to use programming-language-disguised-as-a-game developed by the "Lifelong Kindergarten" folks at MIT's media lab. Hmmm, homeschool curriculum, I think...