ABSTRACT
As microcomputers increasingly pervade the classroom, suggestions for their use and software for instructional purposes proliferate. For the most part these applications consist of tutorials, in which the computer is used to drill the pupil in this or that subject matter, much as the teaching machines of old, although the more imaginative kinds of software do provide for a degree of interactiveness rarely encountered in the era of programmed instruction. There is, furthermore, an increasing volume of research on children’s use of and response to computers, to which the present volume, as some others that have preceded it (e.g., Klein, 1985a), gives effective testimony. In particular, computer graphics— which is the focus of the work being reported in this chapter—has been applied by Klein (1985b), Forman (1985a, 1985b), and a few others, to determine its value in furthering children’s comprehension of spatial relations, and their symbolic development, as well as their response to computer-generated feedback. Less attention, however, has been given to applications of the computer for more open-ended responses, where the child chooses and defines the problem.
