The use of computers connects the world, not only in friendships and families, but also in business. Where once a small company could only reach customers through word of mouth and snail mail, they can know reach literally millions of potential customers through the use of the computer and the Internet. For this reason it is important that even young kids learn how to use the computer so when the time comes they can add their experience to a resume and help land a job in computer technologies. More and more the world is depending on computers for daily life, and kids need to know how to use them.
If kids are going to be using computers on a regular basis, they need to be taught the bad aspects of computer usage as well and how to react when something happens. Kids play a lot of games on the computer at home. Unfortunately, a lot of these sites can include viruses. Teaching kids about viruses and how they can damage a computer is important. Kids can learn to use anti-virus protection just as easily as adults can. Teach them to run the anti-virus about once a week to make sure that their computers are safe and unaffected. Also unfortunately, there are places that kids should stay away from, mainly chat rooms that are unmonitored. Kids need to know about sexual predators out there that just want to harm them. An educated child is a safer child.
The use of a computer can help a child with certain skills. Elementary children can learn to type in the proper way, even if they have thumbs that do a lot of texting. When typing out documents for school projects, children can see where they have spelled words incorrectly and then choose the proper spelling. There are also many educational games on the Internet and that parents can purchase for their children to use. These games are often geared toward one age or another and can help increase test scores when used regularly by the child at home and at school.
When a classroom is full of students, each having a different area of struggle, computers can be beneficial to both the students and the teacher. Assigning different students each day to computer time, depending on how many computers are available, teachers can help students concentrate on their weaknesses while still teaching the rest of the class. So many software companies have made computer programs available for different courses of study that each child can benefit. A few educational software makers include Scholastic, ClarisWorks and Edmark. Teachers can purchase software for their particular class and use it over and over again to reinforce what is taught in class.