War Games is an interesting movie to show to my class. Not only does it help me to remember the fearful feelings of the Cold War, but it brings up memories of just how skeptical many people were about computers back in the eighties. I can remember how when I started teaching in 1987, most teachers didn't want anything to do with them. I became the computer teacher at my first school because they had acquired 2 Apples and I was the only one interested in figuring out how to set them up and turn them on.
The computers in War Games are archaic and feeble in my students' eyes. Text crawl across the screen in only one color. There are no graphics and no mouse. The huge computer in the movie is much less powerful than the students' laptops.
How far we've come. But now that we have these powerful machines, the question becomes more about how and when to use them. I have no doubt that most of the highly effective people of the future will embrace new technologies rather than shake their heads at them.
