Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!BILLW@SRI-AI.ARPA
From: BILLW@SRI-AI.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: more computer education
Message-ID: <2963@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 10-Jul-83 06:17:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.2963
Posted: Sun Jul 10 06:17:19 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 13-Jul-83 06:05:48 EDT
Lines: 87

From:  William "Chops" Westfield 

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


***************

-------