Classroom Use of Computers

Re your series on classroom computers, June 7-8: Congratulations for exposing the folly of our schools spending billions of dollars on computer gear.

As one who has spent over 30 years working with computers, I would ban computers from elementary schools and I would ban computer networks from secondary schools. What is going to happen when the public discovers that our schools have no way of keeping pornography out of the classroom?

The root problem is that we never hold school administrators accountable. That is the problem we must address. Whether we solve that problem with standardized tests, school vouchers or some other means is a minor detail.

LARRY BLANK

Costa Mesa

* “Technology Remains Promise, not Panacea” (June 8) raised an important point about how students can benefit from going online. It is unlikely that students will learn anything worthwhile from any source unless they have a goal. We can expect a long and lively debate over how best to use computers in the classroom. In the meantime, there are three steps that teachers can take now to help students get the most out of their visits on the Internet:

* Submit a list of questions that they will look for the answers to during their online sessions.

* Justify each question as to its educational value.

* Keep a journal of lessons learned from each online session, and turn it in to the teacher periodically for feedback.

These steps will encourage curiosity, creativity, focus and accountability among our students.

WILLIE C. BROWN

Professor Emeritus

Department of Biology

UC San Diego

* As a library media teacher (i.e., school librarian) and a user of computers, I agree that computers by themselves are no educational panacea.

My high school library is rich in technology: satellite receiver, videocassette tower, Internet access, computer catalog, CD-ROM databases and electronic encyclopedias. Students are taught how to access, synthesize and evaluate information using a variety of electronic media. They use these media in preparing class projects and research papers.

That being said, computers are no substitute for books, both fiction and nonfiction. Children learn how to read and write by reading books, not by accessing Web pages. Young children, especially, need story in their lives. Stories must be read to them, and they must read stories themselves from books. And they need to physically possess books, not access them via virtual reality. Children must have the opportunity to regularly visit well-stocked school libraries with a wide variety of books if we expect them to develop into lifelong readers.

The computer interface is not appropriate for sustained reading, but books are. Computers must be seen as tools to easily access and retrieve information and not as magic bullets that will reform education.

ED PEREZ

Santiago High School Library

Corona

* The book is a learning tool that offered a former era every possibility and pitfall that the computer offers our era. Book manufacturing utilized the highest technology of its time, and made possible quick access to both educationally useful and recreational information. Previous educators made a wise decision: restrict books to educationally useful information in the classroom, yet give students the ability to use books to enrich their lives outside the classroom. We should profit from this experience and do the same with the computer.

PROF. JAMES D. STEIN JR.

Department of Mathematics

Cal State Long Beach

* Your articles on the ineffectiveness of computers to improve student skills remind me of when I was in high school (a long time ago) and the concerns at the time that some students were not doing as well in school because they had old books. So they were given new books and a funny thing happened, absolutely nothing. The D students continued to get Ds and the A students continued to get A’s.

SHELDON BROWN

Blue Jay