Elementary School Students' Computer and Internet Use at Home: Current Trends and Issues

Abstract

For the past decade, the number of computers in the home have been steadily increasing. Yet relatively little is known about how children are actually using computers at home. This article elaborates on the results of a survey in which 291 parents of an urban elementary school (K-6) participated. Parents reported on their computer equipment at home, the type and frequency of their children's educational software and Internet use, and shared their ideas how better connections between computer use at home and school might be created. The results indicate that most of students' computer use was dedicated to game playing followed by various other software activities. Students reported more limited Internet activities. While home computer ownership is not necessarily contingent upon gender, some software and Internet use tended to be gender specific activities. Many of the parents' suggestions for connecting school and home focused on the ways in which information about students might be obtained from the school and support through exchanges with teachers. In our discussion we address in which ways these results replicate earlier observations of children's academic home computing. Furthermore, we discuss problematic issues and potential directions in academic home computing.