Chap. 3

Will the internet have a major impact on grade school students?
I think the internet will be a part of elementary school curriculum for a long time to come. The work world runs on computers, everything from working at McDonalds to being president of a major company, to owning your own business. All of these undertakings have computers attached to them, payroll, writing memos, e-mail, sending documents as attachments, ringing up a sale, setting up meetings the list goes on and on. People have to learn how to accomplish these tasks.. that falls on the schools. The little kids have leap frog, play stations, and Sesame Street. As they get older the "toys" get more expensive but the learning to manipulate them still lies with the schools. So keyboarding, typing memos, excel spreadsheets, database applications, cad programs will all need to be taught. It is very unlikely that a K -12 learner is going to sit down, by him/her self, at a computer and learn excel. It may not be a human being standing in front of a class that does the teaching though, it may be a computer tutorial program. Either way the learning will go on in an educational setting. Even though learning about computer games will take place outside of school, the education of business type programs will be taught in school. The progression will start with the little kids learning to navigate programs and servers, saving, opening, adding file names etc. and will progress to the upper grades where they will learn the current programs for business use. I suspect the need for classes like the one we are currently taking will also remain a necessity... the teachers after all have to stay one step ahead of the students. The more they learn in the early grades the farther advanced they will be in the higher grades. Teachers will not be able to rest on their laurels.. they will have to keep their skills current also. Hence the need for ongoing professional development.
While there are some excellent computer programs available for student learning I don't foresee the end of having human teachers standing in front of kids. The personal connection that teachers have with students is irreplaceable. So the computer becomes another learning tool instead of a replacement teacher.
As students get older the internet can become a source of income, or give people the ability to work at home. Teleconferencing, email, placing orders over the web all allow some individuals the ability to work from home. This is a huge change from the old days when everyone had to leave the house and go to work. As we are experiencing high gas prices imagine how nice it would be to leave the car in the garage and work from the living room couch.
Training and testing is also convenient on the internet. One example is the Federal Aviation Administration testing. The FAA can administer its flying tests to anyone in the country over the internet. This is a huge time and money saver. Students who need to take an exam simply sit in front of a computer take the test, it is scored immediately and the results sent to the FAA all without a human test overseer. The student knows immediately if he/she passed, and the FAA has the information needed to issue the appropriate license. This is one area where our tax dollars seem to be operating efficiently.
It will be interesting to see where the technology leads us in the future.