ew skills as they needed them in order to make the computer work for them. The computer could now be viewed more as a partner as opposed to a competitor and could be treated in a more natural manner, allowing it to become more “invisible” in the classroom context. This is the prevailing attitude towards computers today. Computers are now integral parts of the classroom. The information that can be accessed by the students is used to enforce the lesson that the teacher has taught. However, in the schools in rural Newfoundland, the computer and its function in education was still somewhat of a mystery to teachers. In many schools, such as Carbonear Integrated Collegiate, special courses had been designed to introduce students to the computer. These courses consisted mostly of word processing, and database design. Educational software had was marginally better, but the Internet was still not available to the general public. Indeed until the late 1990’s, computers were still being treated as tools by rural schools, and was not used in any sense as a partner to education. At this time the use of computers was centered mostly in Special Needs (what was once referred to as Special Education), classrooms. It was here that computers reached their “pre-Internet” potential. Students which are slow learners, could use the computer and educational programs to reinforce the lesson that the teacher had gone over during class time. As well, with the program’s emphasis on graphics, students now had visual aids to help them in their understanding of the course material. Indeed, in 1991 the Provincial government in cooperation with educators developed a program called the Lighthouse project. The idea behind the project was to develop computer courses for Newfoundland’s schools. About 30 schools were equipped with the latest technology and the teachers were instructed to develop a program. One such s...
