Take-Home Computers Point Students at Success

The small table in Rose Ortega’s cramped kitchen has been cleared of plates and utensils, and a home computer put in their place.

For more than week now, her 9-year-old daughter, fourth-grader Claudia Robles, has been studying synonyms, spelling, reading and math hour after hour, enticed into improving academic skills by the chance to play games while learning at the same time.

Her mother, who speaks little English, has even taken her turn on the keyboard, able to help Claudia at times with some of the spelling games. But more meaningful to Ortega has been the chance--with the computer--to see what her daughter is learning in school and to strengthen Claudia’s desire to do her homework.

That’s the idea behind a unique program at Edison Elementary School in East San Diego to let 30 families for a month at a time have their children take computers home and use them together with parents or other family members.

The hoped-for benefits are twofold: to improve reading and math performance of the school’s more than 500 students, a majority of whom come from economically-disadvantaged families, and to do more about parent involvement than simply tell parents that they should help stimulate their children to learn.

Almost 80% of the school’s population qualifies for special federal and state funding targeted for schools with large numbers of low-income families and with significant numbers of students needing help in raising achievement levels.

Edison’s multi-ethnic study body is 29% Latino, 25% Indochinese, 20% white and 20% black, reflecting the diversity of the neighborhood, with many of the residents attracted to the inexpensive stock of older apartment housing.

Wrestled With Problem

San Diego city school administrators have wrestled for years to find more productive ways of using the federal funds, available since 1966 but which many critics say have been spent with less than maximum effectiveness.

“We’re certainly trying to get more flexibility (on how schools can use the federal program) and try some new innovations,” said R. Linden Courtier, assistant director of the office overseeing use of the money.

The district has spent $22,000 to set up the year-long pilot program at Edison, modeled after a similar home computer effort in Grand Rapids, Mich., Courtier said. Prescription Learning Inc. of Phoenix provided the computers and the educational software and trained Edison students and parents at two night workshops before sending the machines home.

“This is a no-lose situation for us,” said Edison Principal Constance Akashian at the second of the two night meetings early last week, surveying a crowded cafeteria full of parents and children as they practiced hooking up computers to electrical sockets and television screens.

“I sent out a special flyer explaining we were making computers available to take home and this was a great opportunity for everyone,” Akashian said. “And I got a great response, with all the available slots applied for within a couple of weeks.

“I really believe that parents are interested in helping their kids but they lack resources or the time in so many cases and just don’t know how . . . so many are single parents and (few ) can afford to have fancy computers at home.” Because of the potential for improvement with home computers, Akashian is mystified why two other schools were offered a chance at the program ahead of Edison but turned it down.

For Ortega, the program has allowed her for the first time to see what her daughter does in school. Ortega grew up in Tijuana and only completed schooling through junior high. She is a maid at a Mission Valley hotel but wants something better for Claudia’s future.

“I was hesitant at first (when I got the flyer),” Ortega said the other day. “Maybe yes, maybe no, I thought; it would be too hard. But I went to the first meeting, and found out a little about computers, how children can learn and how they need more training, so it is a good idea to bring the computer home.”

Ortega wants her daughter to finish high school “so that she will know things important for the future for a better job; I don’t want (housekeeping) for her.”

But, she added, “I wish I could do more to help her . . . I want to know what she is doing in school but I really can only get to a school at night.”

Nevertheless, Ortega has been able to assist Claudia in the spelling programs, gently suggesting an “a” or an “e” in Spanish to her daughter when Claudia appears stumped on a particular word. And she has gotten Claudia to do her homework more quickly by insisting that Claudia finish it first before using the computer.

In addition, the reading program Ortega has seen on the computer makes her happy she moved Claudia from a school in Chula Vista into the San Diego district. “They (in Chula Vista) wanted her in a bilingual class but I told them I don’t want that. I can teach her Spanish but English is more important for her in California . . . and that’s what my mother and father said, too.”

Increased Involvement

For Oneida Braswell and her fifth-grade daughter Gwen, the home computer program has also brought increased educational involvement.

“I’ve worked with computers at my job (in the bookstore) at San Diego City College,” Braswell said. “And I think it’s fun to have at home because Gwen can use it anytime she wants to . . . I think that by using it, there is no way for her not to learn.”

Both Ortega and Braswell would like to have a computer permanently for their daughters, aware that at the end of next month, they must return the machines to school for the next group of parents to take home. But the financial sacrifice would be great and prospects are uncertain.

“The computer is a plus,” Sara Singer, director of the computer lab at Edison said. “It doesn’t replace a book, it’s not an either-or, and in many cases by making a student more familiar with words in general, by familiarizing a student with words and the associated pictures, it will make reading a book, getting into a book, easier and more enjoyable.”

Singer doesn’t know what the eventual results will be from the home program in terms of reinforcing basic skills and enrichment. Much of the lab time at school is reserved for students having trouble with reading or doing math at their particular grade level, so the home program will give students not needing remedial help a greater chance for enrichment practice.

“Already, I have seen some of the students with their software packs, picking up discs to take home and they seem excited,” she said.