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Computers
ought to come with a mental-health warning, a little sign that hangs
over the front of the monitor and reads: “It’s only a machine,
stupid.” For years, schools have been blundering around in the
dark, trying to answer all the big questions. Are computers more
important than books? If we have the internet, can we get rid of
classrooms? For years, parents have been struggling to fathom the
meaning of the smaller ones. Can you really turn the corner for a
mathematical dunce by buying him a piece of educational software? Does
buying a computer with a faster processor mean he learns more quickly?
The answer to all the above is, naturally, no. Computers are aids to a
good education, not magic bullets to make up for a bad one. If young
Johnny is struggling with calculus, what he needs is an after-school
tutor, not a multimedia CD-Rom.
Teaching tools that go back a couple of centuries - namely
people, books, pens, paper and classrooms - make the smartest computer
program look like a caveman’s adze. The wonderful thing about
children is that while grown-ups have been studiously evading this
truth, most of them twig it from day one.
Look at what kids do with technology - they discover and they
communicate. These are two fundamental human needs, and they represent
99% of the value any computer can bring to most of our lives. The
average young person knows this instinctively by the age of 10.
There is a dead simple reason why the young are more proficient
with technology: they think about it less and use it more.
Agonising over the role of computers in education is, for them, like
staring at a fountain pen and trying to analyse why it is better than a
ballpoint. Who cares? What does it matter? What every young
person needs is equal access to the tools that their peers prefer. That
means a standard Windows PC; Macs do not have the software the children
will work with at school (if the Mac does, it will have a markedly
different version). And forget about Linux, which would be like
buying your child a car that runs on LPG (the Calor Gas so beloved of
greenies) when they pass their driving test.
It means buying Microsoft application software, because, like it
or not, this is going to be what they deal with when they go to college
and, afterwards, when they try to find a job. Fobbing them off with
Lotus SmartSuite is like a Dutch parent insisting his offspring be
taught Latin instead of english. Both are perfectly acceptable
languages, but the poor child will thank you for only one of them when
he turns 18.
The choice, then, is between Microsoft’s (Euro 150) parents’
package, Worksuite 2002, and the discounted (Euro 180) “student
licence” for Office XP. Worksuite is an excellent bundle -
the latest versions of Word and the Encarta encyclopedia, as well as
more general software for photo editing, route planning and finance -
but Office XP may still be the best bet, as it includes the ubiquitous
spreadsheet program Excel and PowerPoint, a package still inflicted on
British children by the national curriculum, in spite of modern
child-cruelty laws.
XP does not have extra software such as an encyclopedia, so
budget another (Euro 45) or so for Encarta, which, as well as being a
valuable reference source, offers great links to related websites and an
internal research organiser for collecting information on school
projects.
Then plug them into the net, sit back and watch them go,
maintaining, of course, the discreet care and support any child
deserves. Help them to learn by asking them to teach you how to
work the software. The worst thing is for a parent to leave them
on their own to flounder.
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