Hop, skip... and software?

Jody Spanglet's seventh- and eighth-grade students at Charlottesville Waldorf School in Virginia are studying revolutions.

They dissect the Declaration of Independence, delve into the French rebellion against Louis XIV, and read about the various inventors who sparked the Industrial Revolution.

But this study happens to be profoundly counterrevolutionary in today's cyber age: Not a single classroom in the school - from kindergarten though eighth grade - contains a computer.

Contrast that with the B.F. Yancey Elementary School in the southwest corner of the same county, Albemarle, in central Virginia. Here, computers are considered a rich resource and are used everywhere, from kindergarten through fifth grade.

Third-graders working on oral-history projects, for example, must first pass an online mini-course. They can then take home digital video cameras and download their oral- history interviews onto the school computers, which are later made available on the school's website.

While the computer-less Waldorf school is an exception in a nation that tends to embrace the technology revolution, both schools find themselves on the cutting edge of a debate about if and how computers should be introduced to children at the elementary-school level.

At one end of the spectrum are coalitions such as the Alliance for Childhood, which has called for a moratorium on computers for students in early childhood and elementary schools. Concerns range from health issues to the need for stronger bonds between children and adults and more hands-on, active play in learning.

At the other end are educators and technology enthusiasts, who believe that the use of computers at an early age - even when led by an adult - can open a child's mind to ideas and concepts that will kindle a great desire for learning, and perhaps make a child "smarter."

Parents and guardians stand somewhere in the middle.

Many parents, who brag that their not-yet-3-year-old can type his or her name on a keyboard to enter a computer game, also admit to a grudging guilt that they did not instead send that same toddler outdoors to explore the wonders of blooming crocuses peeking through a layer of snow.

"I don't think an elementary school virtually devoid of technology is necessarily bad," says Gene Maeroff, a professor at Columbia University's Teachers College and the author of "A Classroom of One: How Online Learning Is Changing Our Schools and Colleges."

"Nor do I think a school loaded with technology is necessarily good, or better, at meeting students' needs," he says. "Computers can enhance education. But those possibilities become greater as kids get older, particularly at the secondary level, and absolutely at the college or post-graduate level."

Various studies show different effects of computer use in the classroom.

In the late 1990s, the Educational Testing Service found that middle school students with well-trained teachers who used computers for "simulations and applications" in math class outperformed students on standardized tests who had not used them for that purpose. Meanwhile, eighth graders whose teachers used computers primarily for "drill and practice" performed even worse.

Computer technology is a fact of life in US schools and homes. In the fall of 2000, 98 percent of public schools had access to the Internet in their schools, up from 35 percent six years earlier. And one in five students in public schools overall had access to a computer.

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