I wanted to jot down my thoughts regarding your K-6 computer use.
It’s a good idea for children and their parents to have computers available to them. Ideally this is at home, but a library on or off campus could suffice. In the worst case scenario a friend computer.
I also think it’s a good idea for teacher to challenge students into providing presentations, media, and other creative communication tools and projects. Perhaps even requiring it.
However I reject the idea that classroom instruciton time should be used for the purpose of tutoring children into using any particular software, any particular operating system, or any particular device. I have four reasons for this.
The first reason is that there already isn’t sufficient instruction time.
The second reason is that children have many opportunities to pick up these skills as time goes on
Third is that the particular software will drastically change by the time it’s truly necessary.
Fourth, and most importantly, fundamentals are far more important. Things like Logic, decomposing complex problems into simple steps, abstract thinking, algortihms, reasoning and critical thinking are far more important. These can be applied to all forms of software and processes. Everything from understanding a poem, to taking on a challenging task. an interesting proverb, that I can paraphrase, comes to mind:
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
- Chinese Proverb
