Describes the experience of a bilingual kindergarten teacher who, in an effort to improve students' writing, used color-coded symbols familiar to students on specific key functions of the computer keyboard. Familiarity with the keyboard functions facilitated the children's understanding and consequent use of software, and allowed the children to…

Examined the effectiveness of a nonbiased computerized language screening test, the Kidtalk Interactive Diagnostic Test of Aptitude for Language Knowledge (KIDTALK), in differentiating children on basis of diagnostic category but not ethnic/linguistic background. Found a significant difference between scores of the language learning disabled and…

Assessed 32 kindergartners' prior knowledge of left and right, then exposed experimental group to software program "Jellybean Hunt" from Edmark Corporation's "Trudy's Time and Place House." Found that students exposed to the software significantly increased their scores on the posttest measure of their understanding of the concepts of left and…

Examined whether use of robotics had a greater effect on elementary school children's achievement in science concepts and problem-solving abilities than use of battery-powered motorized manipulatives or no manipulatives. Found no significant difference in achievement from use of robotics except in programming language problem solving. Both…

Used ethnographic methods to examine, over six months, the relationship between gender and open-ended computer software use to compose stories for 36 first graders. Found that females in mixed-gender groups were more likely to have their competence or work laughed at or criticized than when working alone or in all-female groups. Females used…

Examined the extent to which kindergartners used computer speech during narrative writing and the relationship between this use and the linguistic properties of their written products. Found that length of text, grammatical cohesion, and lexical density were strongly associated with use of computer-generated spoken feedback. Narrative types and…

Two studies compared the process of authoring non-linear or linear stories with HyperCard by inner-city primary school students. Found that, with minimal support, primary school students were capable of constructing hypermedia stories with complex non-linear structures and that the use of non-linear structures appeared to encourage the integration…

Teachers received guidance and direction from elementary-education university students for using telecommunications to allow third and fourth graders to practice literacy skills in authentic contexts. As a result of the project, the university students gained insight into teaching and learning, and the elementary students enjoyed reading and…

A series of computer tutorials provide opportunities for education students in an elementary-mathematics-methods course to explore a topic in depth. Tutorials cover content discussed in class and offer classroom situations for student response and reflection. At the end of each tutorial, students have a choice of assignments to complete in…

Used children's drawings and interviews to examine the impact of age, gender, and school setting on elementary children's thinking about computers. Found that younger children drew computers much larger than themselves and set computers in home or school settings, whereas older children drew computers in proportion to themselves and placed…

Investigated second graders' ability and motivation to create and manipulate simulations using KidSim software. Found that using KidSim was a motivating experience and the students were able to develop complex simulations. The dominant motivational factors were the freedom to create original characters and the rules to direct them. Other…

Studied how toddlers respond to interactive multimedia. Found that 2- to 3-year olds can engage in computer interactions, but that purposeful and meaningful interactions may not begin until children are about two-and-a-half years old. Prior knowledge plays a strong role in toddlers' computer experience. Human interaction is vital to help…

Examined the effects of using Logo or problem-solving oriented simulation software on the spatial and critical thinking skills of fifth graders. Found that the Logo group had a significant pretest-posttest change in spatial scores, and the Simulation group had a significant pretest-posttest change in critical thinking scores. No significant change…

Videotaped six groups of preservice teachers, each of which was solving the same mathematical problem but with different sets of materials, to determine whether videotape could be used as a reflective tool in elementary mathematics education courses. Found that using videotape influenced preservice teachers' conceptualizations of the effect of…

A two-year, follow-up teacher survey to a 1993 study was conducted in 1994-95 to learn how changes in hardware and software markets have changed computer use in early childhood classrooms. Assessed what teachers viewed as important software characteristics, software market perceptions, and future software market directions. Found shifts in kinds…