Tech camps are on the rise, with 16 percent more computer camps now than in 2000. Many summer camps are offering science,
robotics, game programming, and whole bunch of other subjects to appeal to the tape-on-the-glasses set. A number of people are concerned that with
childhood obesity rates rising, too much summer time in front of a monitor might only exacerbate the inactivity problem, and recommend throwing a couple of weeks of general interest camp into the mix. There's also the concern that we as a society spend too much time plugged into various devices, and not enough time having real live human interactions.
Some camps address these issues by offering field trips to places like NASA and behind the scenes at Disneyworld. And the director of marketing for one camp, Cybercamps, says, "'It's not just everyone sitting in front of the computer until the wee
hours of the morning by themselves... We are getting them
out of their bedrooms and basement and getting them to play in a social
environment, which is a huge plus.'" I think that helping geeked-out kids interact with each other and introducing them to other kids with similar interests sounds like a great thing. If I remember correctly, summer camp often had a Lord of the Flies element to it that relegated the nerdy, unathletic children (like me) to ostracism and bunk sabotage. The only real danger I see here is that if you get that many geeky kids in one room with a bunch of state-of-the-art computer stuff, you could end up with the World Bank being hacked or something. But shoot, sign me up now for the sleepaway program, cuz I wanna learn 3-D modeling.
