The district tries to accommodate all students now by giving them computer time in the classroom and in labs. This year Cherry Hill stopped using computer teachers to teach technology skills in elementary school and instead has the regular classroom teacher take children to the computer lab once a week. There are at least one or two computers in most of the classrooms in the district. Ellen Specter, a kindergarten teacher in Cherry Hill, says that the students who gravitate to the two computers during free time are often those who have computers at home. Every class starts with Mrs. Specter giving instructions to point to the monitor, point to the keyboard, point to the mouse.
Some children point to a rabbit icon on the screen instead.
Calif. They get a list of words to click on and can change the border on their screen. Two of them still don't know how to put their hand on the mouse. I see a wide range of skills depending whether they have a computer at home and whether they are allowed to use it. A computer teacher, Rita Mitchell, at Lindenwold Elementary in southern New Jersey, has classes where usually about half the children come from homes without computers. She sees a gap when teaching in a small room off the school library.