One of the many benefits of homeschooling is that you can educate your child anywhere, taking full advantage of all the resources at your disposal.
I’m writing this as I wait in an airport in Miami; ironically, while catching CNN coverage of presidential candidate John McCain’s computer illiteracy. We’re on our way to The Atlantis in the Bahamas for a wedding, and computer literacy is unlikely to figure prominently in our vacation plans.
Instead, we’ll take full advantage of our resort destination to learn about marine habitats. And, we’re going to relax and enjoy connecting with our family.
Nevertheless, I’ll be thinking about our presidential candidates and what it means to be computer literate in the 21st century.
Are your children learning the computer skills they need?
It’s hard to know what computer skills students are picking up in the US, and beyond.
The computer exposure that any child receives in school is heavily influenced by Internet access in an area; as well as, school district policy and teacher interest.
From what I’ve seen, Internet access and interest at home are often the biggest factors determining what computer skills a child learns.
One Child’s Computer Literacy Experience
I can tell you that, despite the Technology Curriculum in a well-regarded suburban American public school, my first child learned most of her computer skills at home.
In 1st Grade, Kayla was lucky to have the only tech-savvy teacher at her school. That class went to the Computer Room once a week to practice going online. By the end of the year, the kids could wield a mouse, log on to websites, and bookmark their favorites.
That was a great start; unfortunately, they didn’t do much more over the following years.
Kayla’s 2nd Grade classroom didn’t have any computers until nearly the end of the school year, after much lobbying and threatened picketing.
When Kayla was in 3rd Grade, there was a lame attempt to introduce the students to PowerPoint. However, computer skills are taught by the Media Specialist, who is also the Librarian. And, in our school district, elementary students only go to the school library once every other week.
Now, 3rd Grade students have a weekly keyboarding class taught by their classroom teacher. But, this program didn’t start until after Kayla moved on.
In 4th and 5th Grade, Kayla used Microsoft Word and Paint in class for a couple of reports. And, the Librarian helped the 5th Graders in researching their state projects.
That was pretty much the extent of the Technology Curriculum in our elementary public school. Fairly paltry, overall.
Do kids learn computer skills on their own?
Mostly, the mind set seems to be that kids will pick up computer skills on their own.
If by that you mean, that they will learn how to Google and IM. Yes, they figure that out pretty quickly.
And, yes, they do find their way onto virtual worlds like Club Penguin, Neopets, and Runescape easily. They may even escape the “Noob” pitfalls to become masters of their online worlds, with little guidance from adults.
A few, who are naturally tech-savvy, will even figure out how to hack sites.
But, how many who think they are tech-savvy, are actually unable to do much beyond logging onto sites? And, how many are surprisingly naive about the online environment?
How many kids are shaped by the Internet, when they could be shaping it?
Are parents computer literate?
I’ve been exploring the Internet since I picked up my first Gateway computer in 1990; not as long as some, but certainly longer than many kids online.
And, while I’m no expert, I’ve noticed that some of my peers, who think they are fairly knowledgeable about the Internet because they know how to send an Email, really have no clue about what is available online.
Often, they fear the unknown, and are blind to the extraordinary potential.
Unfortunately, since many parents know less about computers than their children, they have no way of knowing if their children are learning essential computer literacy skills.
Not you, of course, Dear Reader.
Homeschooling Online
Since Kayla’s unfortunate PowerPoint experience in 3rd Grade, I’ve been investigating what technology skills are important for our children to succeed in the digital age.
As a Girl Scout troop leader, school volunteer, and through our circle of friends; I’ve had the opportunity to observe the computer literacy skills that these middle school students have absorbed.
And, I’ve used this information to craft a homeschooling online curriculum for my son. Of course, this is an ongoing project where we discover new ideas, projects, and resources every day.
There is so much to share about homeschooling online, and computer literacy, that I’ll have to continue exploring this topic in future articles.
What do you think? Do you agree that computer literacy is important for our children? And, which computer literacy skills are essential today, and in the future?
Do you think that our schools are doing an adequate job of imparting technology skills? Would you like to see schools doing more, or is computer literacy best learned at home?
Please tell me what’s on your mind by posting a comment. I’d love to hear your opinion, and learn from your experience.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Here in Australia, we’ve recently dumped a leader partly because he was too backward looking. It’s kind of scary that you have somebody aspiring to be your leader who doesn’t know anything about computers.
My now 12 year old self-educated son has been out of school for more than five years, so I can’t say what the state of teaching computer skills is in our local school now, but certainly when he was there it was wholly inadequate. Nothing at all in Year 1; in Year 2 he got about half an hour at a computer a couple of days a week and played silly little ‘educational’ games that he might have enjoyed when he was three. I was very glad to have him out of there. The discrepancy between what he was allowed to do on the computer at school and what he was learning and doing on the computer at home was too ridiculous for words.
Btw, I discovered your blog via the 30 Day Challenge. If you’re looking for product ideas, you might consider getting your Digital Natives team to put together a handy ebook explaining ‘digital nativism’ to people like John McCain. As a child of the 1950s with a 12 year old Digital Native son, I’d be most interested in an intelligent overview myself.
That sounds like a fun project!
By the way, I have noticed that Aussies are usually the only other country represented in the distance learning classes that my daughter has taken. It’s interesting that Australians have a high regard for progressive thinking.
Hopefully, we’ll find that there are more American forward-thinkers, than not.
My son’s elementary school experience sounds very similar to Kayla’s. He actually learned the most in his homeschool enrichment program for Kindergarten, where he was allowed to explore drawing programs on his own. In first grade the school’s computers were hit with a virus and were down for almost the whole year. For the rest of the grades he did a bit of “Type to Learn” and simple Powerpoint presentations. At home he taught himself Google Sketchup and Adobe Illustrator, because he likes to draw.
The sad thing at the elementary school is that a close friend of mine who is an IT teacher/expert offered to give enrichment computer sessions for free. The school principal turned her down flat, because it would mean our school “wouldn’t be conforming to district standards.” Translated that means she couldn’t send the students from her school to middle school knowing more than what was offered in other schools in the district, because that would make more work for the middle school teachers.
One other thing: think of all the programs you’ve have had to learn and then relearn as newer versions have come out. My first computer class was back in the 1980’s. I quickly transferred out when I learned I had to get all the cards punched, fed into the machines and programs run on my own time, because I was just too busy. Now I look back and laugh. What good would it have done for me to stick that out? So, is it really going to be useful to teach the students specific versions of programs on out-of-date computers, because when they get to the place where they need to use the computers for work, the computers and software will be something else entirely? Just a thought…
Good point! I do think that teaching computer literacy isn’t so much about learning how to use a particular program, and more about learning guidelines and resources for figuring things out on your own.
The more comfortable one is online, the more you’re willing to explore and figure things out for yourself.
Take a look at the International Society for Technology in Education’s IT standards and profiles of a technology literate student:
http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForStudents/2007Standards/NETS-S_2007_Student_Profiles.pdf
Unfortunately not many schools that I know of are actually encouraging students to master concepts at these levels.
My own kids have been doing almost all of their tech learning at home through family projects or suggestions I make for technology alternatives to classroom assignments. In the Gifted Kids Network http://www.giftedkidsnetwork.com all of our investigations utilize technology in some way and encourage students to work to these technology standards. The world of technology is moving so fast, being able to text, IM or search the internet is not going to serve our students as well as being able to create and collaborate.
Sandra, you are doing a great job infusing technology into the experiences your family shares. Thanks for sharing your experiences with us.
Michelle,
Thanks for the resource link. I’m going to look at it closely when we get back from vacation, so that I can be sure to incorporate the guidelines into our academic plans.
Thank you so much!