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