Posted on 07/02/2002 12:49:27 PM PDT by chance33_98
Program raises questions about the mix of preschoolers, computers By BENJAMIN WALLACE-WELLS Knight Ridder News
PHILADELPHIA - The idea made the best sort of policy pitch: at once flashy and simple.
Stick a free computer, wired to the Internet, in every day-care center in Pennsylvania, and let children, rich and poor, start handling technology as soon as they are introduced to blocks and pencils.
But three years after the CyberStart program of former Gov. Tom Ridge administration hit preschools and in-home day care around the commonwealth, some educators and others still have questions about the program's training provisions and whether the program is appropriate for 3-year-olds.
It is a crucial moment for CyberStart, which has a new federal grant and is looking to triple the number of participating day-care centers to 3,000 by September, as a technology-hungry nation looks on to see whether programs for children this young can work.
In many cases, some say, day-care providers have not had the training they need to be able to work with their small charges. And, on a more basic level, they wonder: Should 3-year-olds be sitting in front of computers instead of painting and playing with their pals?
The Pennsylvania program is in the vanguard nationally. Computers for 3-year-olds are an educational idea that is catching on fast, experts say, but CyberStart is still the most comprehensive program in the country - any licensed day-care center serving seven or more children can get a computer from the state - which means it will be watched closely.
"For a program like this to be successful, you absolutely need extensive training, ongoing professional development, and a way for educators to bounce ideas off of one another," said Lisa Bouillion, an assistant professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania.
CyberStart promises 12 hours of training - spent, for most people, watching videotaped lectures - with no provisions for ongoing training. Most teachers complete only the first six-hour session by the time the computers arrive, and experts are saying more training is needed.
"That's ridiculous. That's not nearly enough," says Dara Feldman of the National Association for the Education of Young Children.
Says Bouillion: "You're not going to be able to sit down and learn something in a few hours and then go away and do something meaningful. If there's insufficient training, you could end up with ill-structured, unsupervised use of technology. It's not going to make the kids any dumber, but it could be a waste of resources and a wasted opportunity."
The program's administrators say that, for the moment, they are satisfied with CyberStart's provisions for training. But the program, they say, is still developing.
"I think we've made some very good progress, and I think we're going to have to continue to look at those issues - whether the training's been adequate, and how to help drive new development in content and curriculum," said Matt Tunnell, the deputy executive secretary of the Department of Community and Economic Development, which runs CyberStart.
CyberStart has been dogged by problems from the start. For its first two years, some day-care providers who had signed on complained that the computers did not work, and that when they did, they had not been given enough training to use them. Often, day-care providers have said, they knew less than the children.
Tunnell calls the program "a terrific bargain," and by governmental standards it may well be. This year, even as the state is providing free-of-charge Internet access, computers, and support to 2,000 new and 1,000 existing customers, CyberStart (with a full-time payroll of two) has a budget of $9.8 million, $8.4 million of which is paid for by a federal grant.
Not a bad price, Tunnell says.
But some state legislators, who call CyberStart educationally dubious, think that money might be better spent.
"I don't think it's developmentally appropriate to be paying to put 3-year-old kids in front of screens. I'd rather have them working with paint or clay, interacting with one another. Some of the experts agree with me," said state Sen. Mary Jo White, R-Venango, who has opposed the program since its introduction.
"The money could be better spent opening day care to everyone."
But experts today say most research shows that putting computers in classrooms for 3-year-olds can be valuable.
"There's a tendency to underestimate what young kids can do and to over-constrain their environment," said Kenneth Tobin, education professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
"Even very young kids can figure out what to do and use computers as tools, and when they get through, the results can be fairly astonishing."
At the Creative Play Day School in Toughkenamon, outside Philadelphia, students are limited to 10 minutes at a time on its four computers. The children rotate throughout their free-play periods. Usually, the computers are all being used.
A yard from the spot where her classmate stands visibly stumped by the prospect of putting her feet through a fuzzy pink jumpsuit, a 4-year-old clicks ably through a computer program that challenges her to match cartoons with lists of features.
"This is really my favorite program. It helps kids identify characteristics, sort them, and they need to do it," says Joanne Collins, the co-owner of the school.
Collins squints tentatively at another nearby screen, where a 3-year-old is playing a fast-moving, colorfully animated game, complete with princesses, secret keys, and trapdoors. "I have no idea what that game does, or how it helps kids," Collins says. "In a lot of ways, the kids are still teaching us."
Despite such moments of confusion, she is upbeat about the program, and not alone in that. The state has a thick stack of testimonials from day-care providers.
"This is the most amazing thing I've seen in seven years of working with preschoolers," Collins said. "My one wish is for even more computers."
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