Computer classes and younger students

Computer classes for children in preschool and kindergarten is a topic that can raise some tempers in certain quarters. I have taught computer classes for children as young as 3 who would troop in to my computer lab twice a week for 45 minutes for …for what? The children were too small to see the screen properly without putting cushions on the chair. None of them could read or write. Why were they in computer classes? The answer is, of course, to give their teacher a prep period.

Students at preschool age should be working on a multitude of other tasks more appropriate for their age and developmental level than sitting in front of a computer monitor. I do think that small children should be introduced to computers, but by their parents in very short spurts. When my children were small, they would sit on my lap and listen to a Talking Book and then we’d go out and play.

As far as kindergarten students, computer use should be integrated in with other classroom activities, and should involve only short periods of time. Placing 15 or 20 or 30 students in a lab with one computer teacher for 45 minutes twice a week is basically a waste of time as the small ones will spend a significant part of each period waiting for help from the teacher when the computer freezes or they accidentally turn the program off or they get lost in their program. You know that a computer period is too long when students ask how much longer before the period is over. Activities need to be short and focused

When I was a classroom teacher and teaching second grade, my students loved going in to the lab to work because they were continuing on with something that they had started in the classroom. During those years, I had a rather large first grade class of students that would come in to the computer lab, but I loved having them there because their teacher had a plan for what he wanted them to accomplish, and he had done the groundwork so that I, as the computer teacher, wasn’t creating lessons unrelated to what they were doing in the classroom.

As more and more international schools insist that candidates for teaching positions be computer literate and familiar with integrating technology in to the regular curriculum, life will be easier for the computer teacher who has classes of younger students. The ideal situation, in my opinion, is to have mini-labs for primary students where the computer teacher goes in to the classroom and works with small groups of students on specific tasks with clear goals related to their daily activities. The computer teacher and the classroom teacher work together during this time rotating students using a center model for instruction. This would be a good time to bring in a parent volunteer or two to work with the students as well. In this type of collaborative activity, the kindergartner is developing computer skills while working on other areas of the curriculum.

I’d like to hear other opinions about this issue.