BA>It's funny how thing have changed this last month , a parent had a
BA>meeting with the principal and he (the parent) will build some pentiums
BA>for us 
That's great... Allows you to do a lot more....
RM>I don't think looking for some immediate gain is practical or 
RM>adviseable)....
BA> Why not now? It seems most useful when it's used for a real
BA> purpose to me.
You misunderstand... Of course it's important to have context
for what they'll be doing; they have to accomplish something
real... What I'm getting at is that I think that you have to 
focus mostly on skill development and not expect too much
too quickly.  There are so many fundamental understandings to
acquire, and so many little factoids to pick up, that it may
be difficult or impossible for the kids to pull these things
together and integrate them into some kind of really useful
whole...
RM-->The average kid is not going to use a spreadsheet for
RM-->anything that is remotely fun, so, sans fun, not worth doing
RM-->at this point...
BA> The fun will come as they use the thing, in the creation of
BA> charts, graphs ect, from data they collect over projects of inquiry
BA> they are assigned or generate (usually a combination of the two)
I find that an awful lot of kids at the high school level do
not understand charts, graphs, etc and what they imply... I'm
not sure that 6th graders are going to "get" this....
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