Kids in America

"In fact, one of the saddest but most common conditions in elementary school computer labs (when they exist in the developing world), is the children are being trained to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint. I consider that criminal, because children should be making things, communicating, exploring, sharing,not running office automation tools."
Nicholas Negroponte, Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab

So there is someone else who thinks like I do! Lots more at http://digitallyspeaking.pbwiki.com/

In particular, I like the list of what Will Richardson, widely recognized as one of America's most progressive educational thinkers, believes 'kids' need to be now:

+ Networked–They’ll need an “outboard brain.”
+ More collaborative–They are going to need to work closely with people to co-create information.
+ More globally aware–Those collaborators may be anywhere in the world.
+ Less dependent on paper–Right now, we are still paper training our kids.
+ More active–In just about every sense of the word. Physically. Socially. Politically.
+ Fluent in creating and consuming hypertext–Basic reading and writing skills will not suffice.
+ More connected–To their communities, to their environments, to the world.
+ Editors of information–Something we should have been teaching them all along but is even more important now.

That'll be a challenge for many tutors too!