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The Computer in the Classroom Essay By Mercedes Maidana
2012
INSTITUTO SUPERIOR
DE
CURUZÚ CUATIÁ
Maidana, Elsa Mercedes
“The Computer in the Classroom”
The entrance of the Computer in the School as a new tool for the teacher and the Educational system didn’t occur in the last decade. This plan started many years ago: Seymourt Papert said in 1980, “to provide children and adolescents with an instrument or tool to manipulate and let them to think their own thoughts”. The first experience that students and teachers had with this new instrument was in the Computer Laboratory, which was implemented during the 90´s and the beginning of the 21 century. The mentioned program let the students to interact with the element, but the computing teacher only teaches them how to use this tool. The learners didn’t have the opportunity to manipulate and explore it. The other disadvantage was the reduced number of computers in the Computing classroom which was the reason why students weren’t capable to touch the pc at least during lessons. At the very beginning schools hadn’t got access to Internet, they made the tasks or activities provided by the teacher and that was all. Nowadays “A Laptop per Child” is a developed program by the different governments in the world; each of them has their own name in the correspondent country: In Argentina is called “Conectar Igualdad”, in Uruguay “Plan Ceibal” and others. The new policy gives students the opportunity to interact with the world using a tool “the Computer”. It provides them all students the same chance. As regards the teachers, they have to be able to manipulate a tool that is well known by their students. That’s why Educators have to learn how to use the tool in a positive an efficient way in order to help and monitor their students activities.
By Mercedes Maidana