What Five-Year-Olds Can Do with Computers
By Susan Brooks
Available for viewing at the below link:
http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech209.shtml
The article above deals with the use of computers in classes as young as
kindergarten. Now many people may be wondering what a child in kindergarten can
possibly do with having a computer much as I was. Apparently, a five year old can do a
lot more with computers than the average adult may think. According to Susan Brooks
the author of the article, who has 30 years experience under her belt and is a technology
guru, children in kindergarten should be able to do what many adults may find difficult
such as a Power Point project. As it turns out, according to Brooks a child in
kindergarten should learn how to beginning with the basics complete such daunting tasks
such as left clicking a mouse, and using the arrow keys to move up and down on a page.
The students should progressively increase their skills to complete a task like becoming
familiar with the more common letters and their placement on a keyboard as well as
moving up to double clicking on the mouse. By the end of the school year, the children
should be proficient enough with a computer that they can use Word to write and Excel to
create graphs. This article can be very useful for anyone who wonders why children are
using computers in the classroom at such an early stage. The article is bursting with links
to other sites that are useful in the teaching of computers and the technology they possess
to children. This article can be rather enlightening. Since I am sitting in a classroom
with adults where there are moments that we are struggling to function as one with
technology here in the article it states the stuff is so simple a five year old can accomplish
it.