BILLW@SRI-AI.ARPA (07/10/83)
From: William "Chops" Westfield <BILLW@SRI-AI.ARPA>
a050 3-Jul-83 12:22
BC-COMPUTERKIDS
(Life-Style)
By NADINE BROZAN
c. 1983 N.Y. Times News Service
NEW YORK - What happens to the ability of children to learn and
reason when they are taught to use a computer, when they master the
language it requires, when their labor is accomplished with methods
that are a bold departure from paper and pen?
No one really knows, according to the experts on computer education,
but there are some hints in a project recently completed at the Bank
Street School for Children. For the last two years, 51 pupils have
been observed in two classes where they were taught Logo, a computer
language, and used it in a variety of ways. One class was for
third-and fourth-graders; the other, for sixth and seventh.
Last week, the study was a topic of discussion at Columbia
University Teachers College at a conference on the uses of high
technology in early childhood education. Dr. Karen Sheingold,
director of the Center for Children and Technology at the Bank Street
College of Education, described the investigation, based on
observations from the first year of the study; the second year, in
which changes were made, remains to be analyzed.
According to her assessment, the impact was more profound in the
realm of social relations than in academic achievement.
''Children in both classes were excited by the computer and it made
a major difference for some in their relationship to school and to
each other,'' she said. ''There was more interaction and different
interaction: it was much more task-relevant. When they were working
on the computer, they would talk about the work at hand; when they
worked together in other endeavors, such as math, they would discuss
last night's television show. Some children became experts and
resources to others, but they did not create teacher-student
situations they shared equally.''
The intellectual impact was different. ''After one year or a maximum
of 50 hours on the computer, the children could write short, simple
procedures, but few mastered the language for more complicated
concepts,'' Dr. Sheingold said. ''In their classroom work, they often
made use of programs and commands that they did not understand.''
The study found virtually no differences between the two groups when
it tried to assess whether children who knew how to devise computer
programs were better equipped to do planning than those who did not.
''In general,'' Dr. Sheingold said, ''children were interested in
making attractive, gamelike products. They wanted to make fun things
happen on the screen, not to learn the Logo language, per se. When
they were asked to find errors in existing programs, they detected
only the most superficial ones of syntax and not ones of sequence or
procedure.''
In another part of the project, a word processor was used for two
six-week courses with a separate group of eighth-graders. The
objective was to determine whether the ability to revise work through
a technological tool altered the experience of writing.
''We assumed that if the capability was in the technology, children
would take advantage of it,'' Dr. Sheingold said. ''But they did not
do significantly more revising than they would have done with a
pencil.''
In the second year of the project, the approaches to word processing
were changed, and the results appear to have been more satisfactory.
The students' tendency not to use the machine to revise the writing
shows that ''children may not automatically grasp whatever
interesting ideas and possibilities are built into the software or
language and that long, intensive study is needed,'' Dr. Sheingold
said.
At most of the conference sessions, questions were far more abundant
than answers.
Among the questions: Will the use of computers in some inexplicable
way alter the processes of thought? Does familiarity with a computer
language enhance learning? Will children living in homes with
computers have an advantage over those who do not? Are skills
acquired in one computer program be applied to others or even to
nontechnological endeavors? What effects will technology have on the
way children communicate with others?
As Ursula Wolz, associate director of the microcomputer resource
center at Teachers College, said between sessions: ''This is all so
new - microcomputers have only been around since 1978 - that there is
no way to measure the impact. Some researchers are saying, 'Let's
look at what is happening before it happens,' but the technology is
advancing so fast that no one can keep up. Every time you draw a
conclusion about what the computer industry is doing in education or
where it is, it changes.''
nyt-07-03-83 1520edt
***************
-------FFM%mit-mc@sri-unix.UUCP (07/10/83)
From: Steve Kudlak <FFM@mit-mc>
I must flame just a little!!! Why do we always here what seems to be
these obligatory statements about "obsession with computers" and yet
no one moans how bodybuilders have an obsession with muscles; sports
people have not only an obsession with sports but most of the time
with a whole worldview that emphasizes competion over cooperation,
cultivates the "us and them" way of seeing things and much much more.
The obsessions of MBAs and the business community are legion and much
more widespread in comparison to computer people. They dress up in funny
wierd outfits (from my point of view) and will often refuse to accept
anyone who is not dressed in the same funny wierd outfits. People make
beaucoup bucks by writing books telling people how to do thier funny
wierd outfits so that they have a better chance of success. The funny
wierd outfit we are told must be done exactly right, and can only be
in a very narrow range of styles and colors and if you don't it right
it is a real disaster...And these people are not obsessed!!??
Furthermore it belies a fundamental misunderstanding of the use of
computers to compare them continually to videogames. Most of the uses
of computers are a great deal different from videogames. To imply that
skills in using a computer are the same as those used to play videogames
is so mistaken that it is not funny.
What bothers me is that these miscopnceptions seem to have persisted
for so long. Either people have done a very bad job of clarifying what
uses computers have, and how they could be used, or perhaps there is some
real emotional technophobia that is still operating or perhaps both.
It seems to me that this gibberish and garbage and paranoia has to be
cleared away in order that computer education can proceed in a reasonably
pleasent manner. After all it would be a real drag to try to teach someone
how to use a typewriter, a camera or a car if they were vaguely and intensely
afraid of them.
If these fears could be ameilorated(sp??) and the potentials and limits
of computers could be understood neither as vague terrors nor as panaceas
then perhaps we could begin to have a true and beneficial computer education.
Enuff flames...
Have fun
Sends Steve
P.S. Is there anyway to respond to these wire stories??
If one has comments or rebuttals or kudos for a story
is there any easy way of communicating this to the author.