hi everyone . I am writing this to let you know that i bloged something , and Wiki is working well . therefore, i hope we share our comments here . thank u all

good luck guys .

I'm glad you got this started. I hope the rest of your group will join in soon and give it a try. . . Mary

Ok, guys, here's some of my info for our presentation that I thought was pretty cool. I think that we should break up our presentation by the following: statistics of how many computers are found in the homes and contrast them among our countries then see how many computers are usually found in schools. This will give us a launching point for our presentations.

I think that the handout should be in three columns one for China, Saudi Arbia, USA and then the rows will be statistics of computers in homes and computers in schools to show first where the deficiencies are.

Ok I'll start this out.

USA In 2003, 70 million American households,or 62 percent,had one or more computers (http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p23-208.pdf)

In 2003, 70 million American households,or 57.4 percent, were connected to the internet at home. (http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p23-208.pdf)

These surprising statistics about American homes, while they are from 2003, show the rise of technology, but they are not nearly 100% of the population benefiting from technological access at home because of economic reasons (primarily poverty).

There is also a direct correlation between computers at home and internet access due to education level and income level. (http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p23-208.pdf)

Lack of Internet in Home Reasoning: The three most common reasons were “don’t need it, not interested” (39 percent), “costs are too high,” and “no computer or computer inadequate” (each at 23 percent, Table B). A few households had “access elsewhere” (2 percent). “Language barriers,” “concern that children will access inappropriate sites,” and “privacy and security concerns” were rarely given as reasons (each 1 percent).7 Among households without the Internet, more than 4 out of 5 also did not have a computer (83 percent). (http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p23-208.pdf)

Among schoolchildren enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade (K–12), about 8 in 10 used a computer at home, and about 9 in 10 used a computer at school in 2003

Among children who used a computer in one location, more used a computer at school than at home, 24 percent compared with 6 percent. Adding all three groups (at home, at school, in both locations) together, more than 9 in 10 schoolchildren used a computer somewhere, leaving 7 percent who did not use a computer in any location.

The highest and lowest rates for computer use at home differed by 33 percentage points, with 80 percent of non-Hispanic White children using a computer at home, compared with about 48 percent each of Black children and Hispanic children. At school, the differences diminished, with 89 percent of non-Hispanic White children and about 85 percent of Black and Hispanic children using computers there. (Include the graphs from this cite to clarify data!)

I think that this has a lot to do with the aspect of community and the role of a school in society. Having more access in schools is definately about the equal access, but I don't know if other countries feel that they have to be more individualistic or more community centered in their schools. That would be interesting to check up on. (Put in handout and slideshow)

Saudi Arabia.

Using computers in schools is really important for students. Therefore, schools should apply this technology due to the changes that we face now, and we should adjust ourselves with these changes. Through the times that I have studied in my country the computers were useless in classrooms. The computers were used in classrooms just by teachers, but there were labs for students.

I have started using computer when I was in high-school, and it was one class a week. The class was taught in the lab. I was not be able to use the computers in the classrooms because the schools did not allow us to use them, and we could not bring them too for many reasons such as the equality between the students who have and who do not, the concentration that should be on class, and the lack of computers users.

Later, when I went to the university, I found there was no different between schools and universities except for students who were studying in computer science major. The computers were allowed in the labs, but they were not allowed in classrooms.

Nowadays, time and people thought are changed by different technologies. Also, the technology opens people minds via regarding to the education that we learn. Therefore, most of schools and universities provide more labs and networks especially for private schools, and thy allowed students to use the computers in classrooms.

Computer and Internet Use at Home:

People started use the internet in Saudi in 1999. And it was like 5%

Saudi Arabia in 2005 , 6300000 Saudis have personal computers, which means like 35%.

In 2005 , the users of the internet became like29% of Saudi population.

Computer and Internet Use at School:

Actually, in our schools it just computer labs without connecting to the network.

However, nowadays schools tend to develop their designs by providing more labs and connect to the networks.

But there are some private schools have the facilities to serve students and provide them with computers and connection.

Date Approximate users December 2000 200,000 users April 2001 690,000 users December 2001 900,000 users July 2002 1,110,000 users December 2002 1,453,000 users September 2003 1,462,000users December 2003 1,500,000 users December 2005 2,540,000 users December 2006 4,800,000 users

http://www.internet.gov.sa/resources/statistics/tbdinternetuserstat/

China

Computers play a very important role in Chinese school, special in university. University has three kinds of computers. They are teachers' computer, students' computer and public computer. Teachers' computer was used for teacher check schedule and make PPT; Students' computer is the most important tool in their university life. Students use it to study , read news and check e-mail in their dorm. Public computer usually is placed on classroom and library. In China, most of classes have one computer connected slide projector for teacher to teach class. There are several computers for students searching the information of books in every floor of library.

In china, the difference between country and city is really great. The condition of most country is poor,so I want to talk about the situation of city schools. There are three groups: elementary schools, middle-high schools and university. Elementary: most children have their own computers at home, but seldom use computer to study while to play games. In school, although schools set some subjects to teach students some simply computer technology, most of them are interested in some cartoons from website. therefore, in elementary schools, the usage rate is very low. middle-high schools: in China, some of middle-high shools order student to live in dormitory, so most of students are at home just on weekends. In other side, because of the limited resource on space and facilities, schools do not allow students to carry their own computers to schools. Therefore, in school, just teachers use powerpoint to show their lectures and student use computer to collect some information for their study from library. university: the situation in university is very different from the above. because they have more available time to study by themselves. although almost students still live in dormitory, some of students begin to bring their computer to school. In school, they study by using computer in library and labs, also they could use computer in classroom to show their lectures. At the same time, they will write email to each other, collect information from website, learn some software in the dormitory. Therefore, the time student using computers in school and dormitory are nearly the same.

I found some paragraphs which are useful for our presentation.

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