How Computers are Used in United States Schools: Basic Data from the 1989 I.E.A. Computers in Education Survey

American schools steadily increased their stock of microcomputers during the latter half of the 1980s, but made only modest changes in their pattern of hardware and software use between 1985 and 1989. Early in the decade, computers were valued for providing highly motivational skills practice and for enriching the curriculum with the subject of “computer literacy,” and late in the decade those two activities still dominated school computer use even though the range of skills practiced and the range of computer literacy activities expanded significantly during the decade. Moreover, computer-using teachers, although twice as numerous as five years ago, still only rarely provide a computer-centered classroom where students use computers for a large fraction of the time they spend on any one type of learning activity. A hint that computers will begin to take on new functions as general intellectual and information resource tools is visible in the increasing portion of computer time being spent on word processing; but most student word processing time is spent learning how to use the software rather than using it as a matter of course to draft and revise papers and essays.