Paired Keyboards as a Tool for Internet Exploration of Third Grade Students

Abstract

This study focuses on the use of paired keyboards attached to a single microcomputer as a means to facilitate internet exploration. A classroom teacher with nineteen years experience and an educator worked with an intact third grade class of twenty-nine public school students. Children worked in pairs, with one child considered as the knowledgeable other who, through interaction with a partner, might extend the partner's Zone of Proximal Development. This type of learning environment allowed for selective intervention among groups which facilitated and accelerated internet exploration and made the experience a much more successful and rewarding one. Interviews along with ongoing weekly observations were employed to examine this scaffolding approach while the students were on-line. The use of paired keyboards become, in a Vygotskian sense, a tool in children's learning. Review of the process indicated that this approach enabled students who were unfamiliar with either computers or the internet to be successful in their quest for information and global collaboration. The implication is that meaningful learning takes place when educators are creative in the way that computer hardware/software is used in support of facilitating education through internet exploration.