Students can learn to revise and edit using a computer word processing program. Again, this supports the use of computers to learn keyboarding just as we teach manuscript and cursive writing: the keyboard is merely a third way to record information and generate data. Students can also learn to use spreadsheets and databases (Fouts, 2000), which can give them the tools to use computers in another way: to organize information, present it in a new way, or even to generate new information. For instance, even first graders can use a simple spread sheet to count how many red, blue, green and yellow m & m's are in a package, combine the information, average them, and with one or two keystrokes, produce a bar chart. In this way, computers can make higher levels of information available to students.
CHANGES in EDUCATION BROUGHT by COMPUTERS
The use of computers can have significant effect on how teachers teach (Selwyn, 2000). Once students have basic computer competence, they can take more responsibility for their work. They can work at their own speed and correct many of their errors on their own. Meanwhile, the teacher may be more monitor and facilitator, at least sometimes. When students are generating their own new information, the teacher demonstrates how to generate the information, not what the information itself is (1). This will probably require some opportunities for teacher retraining, and should probably also include time for teachers to network with each other and share ideas.
The use of computers can dovetail nicely with other important movements in education, such as the move toward authentic, hands-on learning rather than the older, more traditional lecture / textbook / test style (Selwyn, 2000). One author used the example of a class who created a computer-based museum of information on the topic they had studied. This approach became multidisciplinary, but required larger chunks of time than the traditional 50-minute class (1). Thus, the use of computers in inferential ways and for generating new information may be...
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