Computer Confidence: Everything You Need to Know to Use Computers Effectively in the Classroom!

Client:

The Instructor Publications, Inc.

Audience:

K-8 teachers

Goal:

Help teachers understand what computers are, how they work, and what they can and cannot do to make the teacher's job easier.

Role:

Writing

So computers are tools. What kind of tools? They are tools for working with symbols and logic - numbers and number systems, words and languages, pictures and presentations, sounds and music - everything from guiding a space shuttle to counting hamburgers, from making television commercials to talking with dolphins. If the job involves symbols and logic, people have found ways to make the computer useful.

But this is the other thing that has scared teachers. Because the computer deals with symbols and logic, they asume that it has a mind of its own, some kind of malevolent consciousness. Some teachers even fear that computers will take over their jobs.

Sorry. A computer is just a machine - more versatile that a food processor; less intelligent than a newt. Behind every computer with designs on the world there's a hack writer with a feverish imagination or a computer user with delusions of grandeur. As far as your job is concerned, David Ahl, publisher of Creative Computing magazine, has said that "any teacher who can be replaced by a computer probably should be."