Focusing on the story to be told, the child will attempt to draw anything. Unfortunately, it is easy to undermine this natural confidence. In addition to the many attitudes and pressures that have in the past eroded our confidence in our drawing, computers used thoughtlessly could cause further erosion. This is better. The irony is that usually the clip art, stamps, or other images that are bundled with software are not as expressive as the child's own drawing.
Students can use computers as empowered creators or as thoughtless consumers.
These students had become so dependent on clip art they weren't even thinking of alternatives. They could probably draw a light bulb faster than they could find one and they certainly didn't have to substitute a picture of something else because they couldn't find a picture of a light bulb. These students had so little confidence in their ability to create an original image that they didn't even consider the possibility of doing so. Without thinking, they sacrificed some of the precision of their message rather than try a drawing of their own. Then teach them to draw.