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In most of the schools in Japan or America and in many schools in Germany the using of computers in the tuition is just as normal as using a pencil or a rubber. The goverments of these countries have already realizied, that in our high technnologized and computerized world, only people, who have had a good computer education at school, have a chance to get a good job. In Austria the pupils have computer education too, but just in a special tuition. And only some teachers use the computer active in their own lessons. Also nearly every school has old computers with old programms. And without great investions by the goverment, the pupils won`t have the same chance like the ones in Japan for example.
Now I will tell you the main pros of computers at school:
Pros:
. Adults often have big problems with Personal Computers or Programms. It is an established fact, that young children can learn easier than adults, and because of this fact it is my opinion, that the computer education has to start in the kindergarten. Otherwise we will gamble away the future of our children. With the right teaching methodes it would make fun and they would like to learn more about the computer.
. After school doing the homework, wouldn`t take so long, if everyone had a computer. If you make a mistake, you don`t have to take a correction pen or a rubber to erease the it. You just press a button and the mistake will disappear. And after finishing the homework you don`t have to search for spelling mistakes which you have overlooked. This will make the spelling checker for you, which has an integrated dicionary. And if your typeface isn`t very beautiful the computer has a solution: hundreds of completly different types for every occasion. And if you don`t like a type after finishing your work, just click with the mouse and the whole text appears in another type or color.
. At school teachers can show nonviolent games to the pupils, and so they wouldn`t be tempted to play violent games at home, without any supervision.
. In general persons who often work with computers have a better understanding of technical things in life. That will be very helpful in special situations, when there is nobody to help them.
. When pupils play strategical multiplayer games with others over a network they would learn cooperative thinking and acting. They could make good use of this in the real life, when they have to do groupworks in class or play with their friends in their sparetime.
. If a school has a modem and a connection to the internet, pupils can comunicate and talk with other people all around the world about topics they are interested in, problems or they can exchange their opinions to special themes. This would cause that they don`t grew to lone wolfes.
. Also they would have access to a gigantic amount of informations through the internet. If you have a report at school, just link into the internet and after a short time you will find many informations to the special topic you need. This would be much easier and faster than looking into some books.
. Also many new jobs would be createn. New information scientist, who instruct the pupils, would be needed and a lot of companies would get big orders for whole networksystems, which the schools have to buy. This would cause an economic boom.
. After school more different education ways are aviable for a person with a high computer education level. The chances to get a better payed or more welcome job are raising rapidly. In many organisations and companies you must have great experience with computers to get a job there.
Questions:
1. Don`t you think that we and our children wouldn`t have any chances in the future without a great potential of know how in the computer sector, which we have to build up now and not in ten or twenty years?
2. Don`t you think that the future of our children is more worth than thirthy or fifty millions of Schillings, which must be invested to buy new computers and instruct new teachers?
3. What would be a good age to start with the computer education of pupils? And why do you exactly choose this age?
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