IP: Re:panic in educators -- Computers Can Harm Young Children, U.S.Group Says

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> X-Sender: tesler () espresso stagecast com
> Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2000 18:56:16 -0700
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
> From: Larry Tesler <tesler () stagecast com>
> Subject: Re: IP: Re:panic in educators  -- Computers Can Harm Young
>  Children,    U.S.Group Says
>
> To attract the press to the event and to persuade them to carry the story, 
> the organizers made some extreme-sounding, oversimplified statements.
>
> The report itself is more reasoned. It builds an indirect case based not 
> on studies of computers in classrooms but on theories of childhood 
> development that the authors believe are likely to apply.
>
> They admit that their concerns about computer use for kids under the age 
> of nine are largely unproven. But the uncertainties they claim only 
> bolster their assertion that studies are needed.
>
> I won't take the authors on point by point. But one assumption they seem 
> to make is that children glued to their computers interact less with other 
> children. The fact is that many teachers wisely assign students to groups 
> of two or three per computer. From what I have seen in my visits to 
> classrooms, students arranged in this way interact in meaningful ways with 
> other students more than they do when they toil in solitude with paper 
> workbooks.
>
> The authors say teachers sometimes abdicate responsibility to a 
> computerized "baby sitter". But time spent keeping order in a classroom is 
> not educationally productive. When most of the students in a classroom are 
> working with self-paced software, a teacher is freed to help students who 
> need special attention, to plan the next lesson, etc.
>
> The authors raise a wide range of important issues from spending 
> priorities to the ergonomics of computer desks for children. Although I 
> disagree with many of their views, I think the issues they raise are ones 
> that should receive serious attention. And I think they have. What 
> educator or parent has not had to balance the pro and cons of computer 
> use? Or, for that matter, TV use? Or involvement in sports that entail 
> physical and emotional risk? "Too much of a good thing" applies in every area.
>
> I think the authors go too far by calling for a moratorium on computer 
> purchases in elementary schools. But if the publicity of their report gets 
> a few more parents and teachers looking at the angle of a child's wrist at 
> the mouse and keyboard, their work will have been a benefit to society.
>
> Larry Tesler
> CEO, Stagecast Software, Inc.
> Purveyors of Stagecast Creator (mainly used in middle school and up)
> "The software no teacher should be without." -- Instructor Magazine
> "Best software of the past decade" -- Technology and Learning