Use of Computer Labs

Computer labs were born in the days when people studied computing. That’s why you went to the computer room – to study computing. It was a separate subject. Nowadays people study CALL, or computer assisted accounting, or computer assisted aged care. The predominant use of computers in schools and colleges these days is to use the computer as an aid in studying your area of focus. Your area of focus is not computing. But still we build computer suites as separate entities. What is far more logical, and manageable for the average teacher, is to have a few Internet enabled PCs in every classroom. In much the same way as well resourced schools and colleges have a TV and VCR in every room, there need to be Internet enabled PCs in every room to allow the easy flow from teacher input to computer based investigation and collaboration. Computers should not be located in a separate physical space away from the classroom. They are an essential tool – as essential as pens, paper and whiteboards – and should be available for use by students who have the skills and curiosity to use as part of standard lesson activity. In this model it is not the teachers’ responsibility to have to implement CALL or IALL approaches per se, but computers and Internet are there for those who wish to use them. As long as we have computer rooms as separate physical spaces we’re passing on an implicit message that this activity is not mainstream. And if 12 hours tuition a week is in a classroom, and 3 in a computer room we are marginalising the computer activity. Computers need to be in all classrooms in all lessons. This would go a long way to mainstreaming teaching with technology. (M.Coghlan, Oct 05)