Re: [school-discuss] Study: Internet use can lift poor kids

[Jennifer Dozar <jennifer@orange.zorcat.com>]

This story reminds me of the Computer lab we had set up in Staten
Island. We had a lab of roughly about 20 Debian boxes in a poor area of
Staten Island, setup in the downstairs area of an Apartment building. We
taught people about the hardware, mostly adults, and we taught a
couple guys that went on past that more about linux, and we had one guy
that became quite  good. :)  We also had visits from children after
school and we even had a whole 4th grade class come in to play with the
computers. I really enjoyed doing that.

Thanks :) i know someone else sponsered that project, but just brought
back memories that were not too distant for me of a project similar,
just not scientific...

On Thu, Jul 31, 2003 at 12:35:59PM +0530, Frederick Noronha (FN) wrote:
> STUDY: INTERNET USE CAN LIFT POOR KIDS
> 
> A 16-month study by Michigan State University shows that low-income children
> who spent more than 30 minutes a day on the Internet saw improvements in
> their grade point average and their scores in standardized reading tests.
> Researchers also found that the Internet did not detrimentally influence
> kids' psychological well-being nor the amount of time they spent with
> families and friends. These findings contradict a controversial 1998 study
> by Carnegie Mellon University which concluded that spending lots of time on
> the Internet led to increases in loneliness and a decline in overall
> psychological well-being for children and others. The study, funded by the
> National Science Foundation, provided computers, Internet access and
> technical support to 90 low-income families in the Lansing, Michigan area.
> Researchers tracked their Internet usage and conducted periodic surveys and
> home visits. While kids apparently spent some time looking at p0rnography,
> playing online games and downloading music, their biggest uses of the
> Internet were for researching school projects or hobbies and interests.
> According to Michigan State psychology professor Linda Jackson, the Internet
> forces all early-readers to read more, regardless of how much money they
> have.
> SOURCE: The Arizona Republic; AUTHOR: Cox News Service
> http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0728netkids-ON.html
> View the research study's homepage:
> http://www.HomeNetToo.org

-- 
Jennifer Dozar
http://seul.org/~jennifer/osschools/