On the 3rd of March, we went back to Vartan Gregorian to observe the kids in a computer environment. At 10:15, they all lined up and went to the computer room where there is a special computer/technology teacher. It is important to note that the actual room in which the children spend most of their time has 3 PCs that they can use at any time at the discretion of the teacher. They also have a Mac, but Ellen Lynch, the teacher, prefers not to use it. Unfortunately for us, we did not get a chance to observe the children actually use the computers themselves. The teacher showed them a PowerPoint presentation about traveling around Rhode Island which served several purposes including the understanding of the 4 directions: North, East, West and South (N.E.W.S.). The majority of the time, the children spent paying attention and interacting with the teahers by answering questions. They were mostly obedient and interested in the material and the flashy stuff in the presentations such as sounds and the images. Though we were a little disappointed with the fact that we didn't get a chance to see the children actually interact with the computers, we had the opportunity to talk both to the computer teacher and Ellen Lynch about the children's interests and capabilities with computers. Here are some of the things we learned:
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