A day in the life of a computer-using classroom - activities in a fourth-grade classroom in Lawrence Intermediate School - Illustration

Instructor, May-June, 1994

of a computer-using classroom

Meg Fitzpatrick's classroom, room #4, at the Lawrence intermediate School in Lawrenceville, N. J., is not unlike the thousands of fourth-grade classrooms across country. Three clusters of eight desks each are the main focus of the room. Bright paper balloons decorate one wall. A bulletin board features Meg's "sick and tired words." These words (such as "cool" and "nice") have been used so often in student writing that Meg has publically put them to rest.

A plastic hamster cage sits on a shelf near the coatroom. Its occupant, the class mascot, made an unauthorized exit the day before, and as Meg's students arrive and hang up their coats, they look to see if he returned during the night. The cage remains empty.

On shelves that border the classroom are four Macintosh LC computers. The class was selected by Rebecca Gold, district technology coordinator, to be the first of a few in the district to pilot a program of placing more computers in the classroom to see how their presence will affect student learning.

The clock on the wall shows it is time to begin the school day, and Fitzpatrick calls her class to order. Instructor was there to record a photographic diary of one day in the life of a computer-using fourth-grade classroom.

As the day ends, Meg says farewell to her students, reminding them they are a field trip the next day. Before to a curriculum meeting, Meg takes one last tour around the classroom. The computers are off and the chairs are on the desks. As her students did earlier, Meg glances at the hamster cage in hopes he has returned. Seeing it empty, Meg thinks about how good her students have been, and how, if the hamster doesn't show up soon, she'll get her students another mascot.