Computers In The Classroom

By: Danette Russell '09

Walking into a kindergarten classroom today is not at all like walking into the one I attended several years ago.  I was taught to read from Dick and Jane.    Computers were not only not in the classroom they weren’t anywhere in the building at all for anyone to use.  The copy machine, the only one for the school, had a large ink tube and a hand crank.  Computers still weren’t in the classroom when my girls started school.  The first observation I did in a kindergarten room was like walking into a lab for little genius people.  Not a classroom.  It was the most organized digital, learning center I have ever seen.       Computers have opened all doors to education.  All student records are kept on electronic file, medical records, teachers have their lesson plans plus attendance and any other student record they may need.  Coaches must be overjoyed about being able to plug in information and have any stat they desire in any order with just a few clicks.  Amazing.  Having a personal computer has certainly made being a student a lot less challenging for the simple fact that the information I need is most likely provided by the internet and I don’t even have to leave the house.  I don’t even have to leave the house to go to class!  Makes books seem almost obsolete.  Soon we may not even need a book bag at all. 

I guess I ride the fence on technology.  Yes, computers are wonderful in the classroom and out, and I love mine and what it brings to me, but nothing will ever come close to picking up a book and reading it from cover to cover.