Introduction

The scene is a pay-as-you go after-school computer learning center that promises better school achievement and test scores. A seven-year-old girl sits at a computer screen. She reads a four-sentence story on the screen about a doctor giving a hospital patient an exam. To test her comprehension, the computer then prompts her to fill in the blank: “The ______ gave the patient an exam.” The girl accidentally types the word “doctor” as “dictor” and proceeds to the other three questions. The computer displays her score at the end: a disappointing 75% because “dictor” was wrong. The girl takes her hands off the keyboard and says, “I want to go home. I thought this was reading, but it’s typing.” She adds, “I hoped I would learn, but it was just like school except on a computer.”