OT-Age for computer

[mericletwins]

At what age did your child start using computers for school projects and such? I don't mean for games and recreation, but for school. Our twins are going into third grade and my mom is getting them EACH a laptop.

A gift for going into the next school. Anyway, it got me to thinking. I know in our school district, the kids are doing Power Point presentations for homework and school projects in fifth grade. To do that, they must learn Power point in third or fourth grade. Also, I know some of the fifth grade teachers have students doing mini research papers. Anything else that you have found that your child needs the computer for? Does this seem the norm for these types of projects compared to other schools? I teach middle school in the same district and I know the students come in knowing how to do a lot on the computers, but never really gave much thought to when they started.

 

[devalsam]

In our school district, the kids start working on the computers in kindergarten! It's just an introduction to computers but they take computers once a week. My DD just finished first grade and her teacher had them type up their spelling homework every week and print it out.

 

[toystorymom]

In our school district the kids also take a computer class once a week starting in about 1st grade. When my son was in 3rd he used the internet briefly (and heavily supervised) for research. Last year in 4th grade he made a complete Power Point presentation on his own - text, pictures, music, animation - quite impressive actually. He's now going into 5th so I'm sure there will be more use and more research.

Having said that, I can't imagine an 8 year old would need his own laptop though! 2 laptops - you could probably go to Disney for that money!

 

[mericletwins]

Having said that, I can't imagine an 8 year old would need his own laptop though! 2 laptops - you could probably go to Disney for that money!

The word "need" doesn't apply to mother. It is what it is and I'm sure that they will have them a good long time. I know in the middle school where I teach, the sixth graders do a considerable amount of work on home computers and since I will have two in the same grade and one in the grade behind, I see computer time being an issue in the coming years. Do they need them now? No. Will we need more than one computer in the future? More than likely.

 

[patchchild]

I'd thank your mother kindly but ask her to hold off for a couple of years. Yes, even third graders will be asked to use computers for some assignments, but by the time they'd really need the laptops for more frequent school use, they'd be out of date and need replacing.

 

[tripplanner]

I second the "hold off for a few years reply". My kids had the same types of elementary projects. Even though we have a couple of computers at the house, they did most of those projects entirely at school in the school labs. Occassionally we'd help them type a paragraph or report. Middle school is another story. They have lots of occassions where they look up defintions, do research on the internet, type up reports, and other project stuff. I'm not sure what we'd do if we didn't have a couple computers in the house for their homework and projects. The kids complain loudly at using the old (only 5 years) computer or the old laptop (only 3 years old). Technology changes fast.

 

[pednurse]

At our school, they start working with the computer in Kindergarten (not online at that point, just programs already loaded onto the computer to get them used to working with it). Starting in 1st grade they have computer lab time 2x/week, doing research online (using links pre-set-up on the school's homepage and with constant supervision). Last year (3rd grade) DS started doing PowerPoint presentations on the computer (he's in the gifted class so I don't know if the other 3rd grades were doing this as well). In fact, this summer he taught my MIL (an elementary teacher at a different school) how to do PowerPoint so she could use it in her classroom.

I agree with holding off on the laptops. Most everything DS has done has been at school, with only a few projects done at home. We frequently update our home computers (have to for DH to keep up with stuff at work....he's a computer engineer) and I'm sure that by the time DS gets to middle school in a couple of years the ones we have now will no longer be optimal for his use for school projects. It's amazing how quickly computers get outdated with how fast technology is moving along!

 

[momz]

wow, we are lucky. at our school, each child is issued their own laptop to use throughout their time in that school. they work on them in class for grades k,1,2 . But then at grade 3, they start bringing them home for homework assignments. they are only allowed to bring them home monday-thursday and are not allowed to keep them over the weekends (too much risk of losing them). I might add that this is a public school as well.

 

[DisneyRockStarMommy]

My daughter age 12 just recieved her own laptop for the upcoming school year going into 7th...she just used my computer too often..her bat-mitzvah was coming up in October so her grandmother bought her the laptop as part of her gift..by the time they are in 6th grade they bring home at least one (must be typed up) assignment plus the other 10 assignments.

But Heck no would I give my third grader a laptop, my son and daughter are extremely polite, careful, and intelligent children but noo way would I give a laptop to an 8-9 year old. Just My Humble Two Cents

 

[queenarmadillo]

I have had the same laptop for 5 years now, and certainly in that time nothing has changed to make it unsuitable for any kind of school/ work project type activities. The only thing that it is not 100% suitable for is some of the latest graphics intensive games, which in this case is presumably not the intended use for the computer anyway. There is nothing I can imagine kids being asked to do for schoolwork now that I could not do with the computer I had 10 years ago.

That said, I would carefully consider whether you want your kids to have laptops. On a home desktop computer, internet useage and games can be monitored by you to ensure age suitability. With a laptop you surrender a significant amount of that control as kids are increasingly unsupervised.