Existing Computers in Homes Projects in New Zealand:

Historical Progression of CIH Projects
Current Computers in Homes Projects
Established Computers in Homes Projects
CIH Projects for Refugee Children and their Families

Porirua Project

Where it all began - Cannons Creek School:

The Computers in Homes project was launched at Cannons Creek School on 30th July 2000, by Mana MP Graham Kelly and Porirua mayor Jenny Brash. Twenty-five homes in Cannons Creek, Porirua received computers and Internet access. Recycled computers for the scheme were provided by the PCRC Recycling Channel at Grenada North. Volunteers from Whitereia Polytechnic, Massey University and Wellington Community Net groups helped to install the computers on the launch day and afterwards to connect the families with the Internet.

The Cannons Creek pilot's major objectives are to provide parents with computer skills and to encourage children to use these new technologies as a learning tool. We have upgraded our own school website to include online resources for pupils to use for homework, targeting literacy and numeracy skills. Cannons

Creek School has established an associated Cyber Study Center, with funding from the Ministry of Education under the School Study Centre initiative. The school will employ a part time Cyber Teacher to set assignments via its website, and mark homework via email. The evaluation of this project is focusing both on parents' skills and children's learning outcomes.

We have a paid Samoan technician in Cannons Creek (Saifoloi Lafaele lafaele@paradise.net.nz )  who the families contact if they have problems with their computer. The families contact Xtra if they have any Internet difficulties.

The parents attend weekly training at the school of one and a half hours. The trainer has been teaching basic techniques with Word, e-mailing and how to use the Internet. Difficulties with childcare and illness have been the main reasons behind parents missing sessions. We have very recently negotiated extended free training for parents provided on site at Cannons Creek School by staff from Whitireia Polytechnic.

Two of the families in the scheme are Laotian and this initially made the training quite difficult for the trainer, we have recently employed a Laotian translator and this has made a huge difference to the families. Through contacts with the multilingual department of VICNET in Melbourne, Australia we are pursuing Laotian sites to facilitate the learning of these families.

The Wellington scheme now includes 26 families as a grandparent of one of the original families has bought a new computer for his daughter's use. We agreed that this family should remain part of the training and part of the research. Their project computer has been passed on to the next family on the waiting list at the school. The waiting list to be part of the scheme is growing and the Principal has had tearful parents in the office wanting to be part of the scheme.

Families not in the scheme have been talking to the Computer in Homes families and hearing about these parents' aspirations for both their futures and their children's. Some of the unsolicited comments from the families that have been e-mailed to the 2020 Trust and Cannons Creek School:

Comments from participants: e-mails sent to the 2020 Communications Trust and Cannons Creek School

Cannons Creek parent: "First of all I like to say a special thanks to your office about this great opportunity that you have giving to my family, especially my children, we never thought of this to come into my family in this early but not only that I am very happy to see my kids have another stage of their life, different from the way they have been brought up in the island. It is also give my family a big opportunity to get a good job in the future (employer needs people can use computer).

I like also to thank you for your time and corporation in any time we need you or when we have problems or difficulties with the computer.

Clare, God bless you and your department"

Cannons Creek parent: "You already know how glad am I, so I do not have to explain. Thank you for your help with this project. I only studied computer in one year and I owed $3,000 and more on a student loan, but I still need more practices. So when this project was first introduced I thought to myself this will be the opportunity to update what I learned. Not only that I like to know what is going on out there on the Internet. It is also an interesting way for the children to learn to read and write their stories. I hope we will keep in touch if we need more help. Please send me those photos. Thank you very much and have a good night."

Cannons Creek student: "Thank you Mr Blair for the computer we are really happy of using it and having it in our home. We really enjoy going on the computer and going on the Internet and helps us with our homework. THANKS YOU VERY MUCH FOR WHAT YOU HAVE DONE THANKS."

Cannons Creek family: "Dear Sir, even though last has gone but we still have to say malo lava to you and your staff for taking important concern about the Samoa community. It was a lovely day that was clearly reported on the Samoan Radio Station. We talked happily with the Minister Fiame Naomi about Computer in homes and the importance to Samoa families in particular. They were impressed about sending computers to families that let the parents also have a chance to learn. All they wish is for the Samoan people to have good use of the project.

It was funny that she read my daughter's Samoan story and she asked whether Isabel was a New Zealand born and Isabel said no, I was only here for two years now. Isabel answered all the questions in Samoan that was another happy thing because she could find out that our language is still using at homes.

Anyway, thank you very for that day and have a nice day."

Cannons Creek family: "The computer is very useful to our family in many things especially it is very helpful to my husband's assignments that he is not going to school to type his work as usual. I had my interview last Friday for the Early Childhood Teaching Program for next year, so if I am accepted, it will be a great help for me as well. We are going well on the Internet and email".

Cannons Creek family: " Hello Mr Blair. First of all I Want to say sorry for not telling the people who were in the meeting last night about what I know from the Computer at home. It's hard to say but inside me I'm very happy of having the computer"

Ashley Blair has also received research projects and stories from children in the scheme via e-mails. Families also see the fortnightly school newsletter via the school's Internet site.

First research report on the Cannons Creek pilot project

(Research into the results of the Computer in Homes project is being carried out on an ongoing basis by Barbara Craig, School of Education, Victoria University.)

Within a month of the computers going into the homes we interviewed parents in their homes. This gave parents the opportunity to reflect on the possible uses of the computer in their particular family situation and to set some beginning goals for its use for both the parents and the children. The researcher collected information about members of the (extended) family who would have access to the computer, any prior knowledge the family had of computers and information about what the family hoped to gain from the scheme and any hesitations they had about the scheme. Both parents and children were present for this interview.

We have since held two meetings at the school with the children involved in the project and got them to share stories about what they have been doing. We have held two parent meetings in the evenings and collected information from them as a group. We have also evaluated each of the training sessions to ascertain the technical needs of the parents.

Both parents and children regularly communicate by e-mail with the school principal, the trainer, the researcher and the 2020 Trust director. These e-mails are another source of information about the project is going.

Three months after the official launch of the project parents have responded to a short questionnaire about computer use in their home.

We plan to interview parents, children and classroom teachers at the end of the first six months. Panmure research is proceeding according to the same plan a month later as it was launched in August.

Findings from the parent questionnaires.|
This is the picture we have gained of family use of the computer. These questionnaires were administered to participants as a group on the evening of October 31 in the school staff-room. Project members and interpreters were available to help fill out the forms.

Time spent on the computer
The parents are spending more time on the computer than the children. Our assumption is that these are the parents who are at home during the day with more free time than other family members. We realise children are limited to after school slots and the weekends. Children in some of these families must share the computer with a number of siblings and often cousins as well between the hours of 3.15 and 8.30PM.

Half the parents spend more than an hour a day on the computer without their children and using the computer to accomplish things for themselves. These activities range from learning to touch type, writing letters, playing games, looking for information on the internet, checking bank balances, writing minutes for community group committees and sending e-mails.

There are only three parents out of the twenty-five who are using the computer for less than thirty minutes a day.

Half the children spend between thirty and sixty minutes a day on the computer on their own and 75% of them spend between 30 and 60 minutes a day doing things with their parents on the computer. These activities include e-mail, story writing, playing games and using the Internet. The children were using e-mail mostly to write to their friends at Cannons Creek School. Many also sent a lot of e-mails to local family, just a few were writing to family in the islands and a few were writing to friends at other schools, friends they had met on kids' websites, writing to their parents at work, entering competitions from cereal boxes and writing to the school principal and classroom teacher. Some families are concerned about the children's use of the Internet and restrict Internet use until the parents are present.

When parents and children spend time together at the computer there are two distinct views from parents on how this time should be used. About half the parents use this time to teach skills that they the parents have learnt at training. The other half of the parents use this time to get their children to teach them how to use various computer applications.

"Stories and drawings"

"First thing we do is play games and have fun on it. Then we do schoolwork and we look up something that we didn't know before."

"Stories and songs but most of the time my children teach me to use a computer and their little sister"

"We look at other school websites and look at other cultures and countries. National Geographic is excellent for projects"

"We do games and typing tutorial and Internet Explorer together Oldest helps teach us to use it"

"Together we put everything into folders and label the folders and I show the children how to drag messages into different family members folders without opening them"

"Most of the time we spend on the school website and doing some homework"

"They show me usually"

Parents use of the computer
Parents are using e-mail, Internet, word processor, spreadsheet (1 parent only), games provided by the project as well as games and some software downloaded from the Internet.

" I have learnt to download typing tutor. My son always looks for games and tries to download them"

E-mail
Almost all of the parents are using e-mail as a regular way of communicating with their family in New Zealand and with the other parents involved in the computer in homes project. Most are also writing regular emails to various friends in New Zealand. A few are starting to make regular e-mail contact with family overseas (mostly the Pacific but one family has found relatives in Canada).

All but one parent had sent one e-mail to the school principal but this was in response to an e-mail he sent out to them. Two families had sent enormous numbers of e-mails to family, friends, community and Government organizations and were using it as their regular way of communicating rather than the telephone. All families had sent e-mails to resources they had found on the Internet to request information that children needed for school projects. Other uses of e-mail were:
* Office staff at the school
* School nurse
* School social worker
* Children's teachers
* Project personnel
* Other local schools
* Work or polytechnic friends
* Government agencies such as WINZ
* Entering competitions that gave e-mail addresses in the newspapers

Parents' comments on e-mail

"It is a fast way of letting other people know what you want."

"Love it! Especially the information that can be saved and we can refer back to it at another time. Very easy and fun."

"I like email because it's usually inconvenient to talk to other mums so it's good to write my news and then get their news when they are ready."

" I think it is the cheapest way and simplest way and an easy way of communication."

"Emailing is great. The kids e-mail family overseas and it helps their spelling and they get photos that would otherwise take so long to get."

"Quicker and cheaper. Enjoy sending quick messages or sending attachments to people. Find it easier to email information from hoe to work on for my work."

"Communication overseas is a good thing."

"Internet and email is quite faster and it is surely like having evidence that the person I email to can reply back to me about my message. Telephone is not so good because if I don't find you don't get my message."

" I find it a lot easier to say what I want to say without having to talk to people face to face. It is also cheaper if you have friends who live overseas and in other parts of NZ than making a phonecall."

" It doesn't cost me any money."

" Convenient way of communication in the way of cost and means."

"I think the telephone is the best way to communicate with people anywhere, the computer is just cheaper."

"Its fun to exercise your brain and hands."

Parents' use of the Internet

More than half of the parents used the Internet as their major source of information for news, current events, sports and the weather. Many of them have signed up to receive newspaper top stories and they log into this service least once a day. Other uses of the Internet were for banking ,for shopping (both clothes and books were mentioned), for finding information about jobs and courses at polytechnics, finding phone numbers and addresses, organising travel and accommodation for holidays, visiting music sites and downloading music, looking for graphics and photos to put into stories, searching family history and family names, looking for cartoon and jokes to send on, going to online church services in Samoan and some parents have joined chat rooms and discussion groups on a range of topics.

Each family has found a way of pursuing its own family interests through the Internet.

Family use of the computer as a writing tool
All the parents had written a letter on the computer and all the children had written at least one story. Four parents had used the computer to put together a job application and two parents were writing assignments for their polytechnic courses rather than go back to the college to write their assignments at night. Other uses parents found for the computer were writing buy and sell ads to put in the local supermarket, learning to do a CV, for job applications, designing covers for their CD's (one family has access to both a scanner and a CD burner through relatives), putting the family budget on a spreadsheet, writing up family biographies, composing songs and prayers, typing and distributing minutes of meetings and just using the computer to practice their touch typing and getting up their speed.

" The kids have added a greeting card site to their favourites folder. They send cards to members of our family who are on email for different occasions. My daughter has joined a joke club site for kids and recently had some of her jokes published on it." (Mother from Cannon's Creek)

Family use of the school website
Half the families were using the Cannons Creek website for a variety of purposes. All these parents liked to look for their own children's stories, artwork and photos. More than half of these families also read the BOT minutes, school newsletters and notices from the Principal. More than half also used this site for links to notices about happenings in the community. Other uses were to find out about homework and to look at the library.

Concerns about the impact of the computer on family life
About 2/3rds of the parents voiced some concerns at this stage. One concern voiced by several parents was the problem of neighbours or members of the extended family visiting and using the computer without regard to the family rules. These families have resolved this problem by putting a password on their computer so that non-family members can only use it when there is someone at home. The other side of this is a more humorous story where the child keeps changing the password on the computer and the parents cannot get into any of the software!

Other worries voiced by several parents are that their children spend too much time playing games when they should be doing their homework. Some parents have resolved this by putting strict time limits on time spent on the computer. Parents are worried about children accessing pornography accidentally on the Internet. Many of them have restricted Internet use to times when the parents are in the room. There was also concern about the language some of the older children were sending out to some of their friends. One parents was concerned that their child was trying to use the Internet for shopping and trying to use their Visa card number without them knowing.

Some parents did not like all the junk mail that came through with the e-mail. Some parents found that they had got on to some listings so they were getting continuous junk e-mail.

One interesting comment from a parent showed us that some of the families maybe worried about the cost of the electricity to run a computer for several hours a day.

The following are comments from parents in the open-ended question at the end of the questionnaire. The final question asked parents to share a story about their computer of interest to the other participating families.

• Mums who cannot afford babysitters are joining chat rooms to talk to their friends from home

• Families have commented how little the TV is now being used

• Pre-schoolers making good use of the computers

• The sister of one of the mothers in the project got a job, as she was able to show that she had computer skills. She is thirty-four and not previously worked. This job involves using the computer. She had been living with the family and using the computer during the day.

• One parent has a promotion at work as she can use a computer

• Husband is a student he now works at home which has changed family life. "Pleasure to have computer at home and husband at home." The mother has been accepted into a diploma in teaching programme and it was the reference from the Computers In Homes project that she thinks help her be accepted.

• The mother has got over her fears to use a computer. Now when she gets stressed she goes to the computer and plays the games.

• One family have been more confident in their reading because they like to find stories that their cousins have published on the web. They like to find stories that other children their own age have written.

• One parent says he is not stupid anymore and he knows now how he can information to help his daughter. The computer has given him a lot of self-confidence.

• Families have noticed an improvement in behaviour as the time these children have on the computer is limited and they have learnt to value that time and use it carefully.

• The family was able to look up where they lived in Samoa and show their children.

• The family can access the church websites and make contributions.

• One parent has found "a 90% improvement in her daughter's spelling."

• One family is helping to organise a sports trip overseas with the local High school and has been able to source funding agencies via the web.

• The grandmother was getting the kids to write emails to all their uncles and aunties to send money to the grandmother, but the grandmother will not use the computer herself.

• Some families have questions about when it is appropriate to use a computer. One father could not see the point of playing solitaire on the screen when there was pack of playing cards on the table next to the computer.

After a meeting with the Computers In Homes children at Cannons Creek school the children were asked the kinds of things that they had used the computer for. Some of the findings are listed below:

• Making folders

• Writing stories and poems

• Making screen savers

• Using the Internet to find out information

• E-mailing relatives in Canada, Australia and the Islands

• Looking at Cannons Creek Website

• Using the Cannons Creek website for spelling resources

• E-mailing each other and emailing attachments to friends

• Teaching parents how to e-mail and use search engines

• Teaching grandparents how to e-mail

• Showing grandparents how to enlarge text so they can read documents.

• Some of the Computer in Homes children are helping Ashley to load software in the classrooms and computer suite.

Barbara Craig also had a session with the pupils to explain who she was and why she would be visiting their homes to help them with the research for the project.

Some of her findings were:

• Students did not know what a university was and what it could provide

• Only six of the thirty students from Cannons Creek had been to Wellington

• Some of the facilities in Porirua were not accessible to Cannons Creek families because of cost e.g, Porirua Aquatic centre

From this session we have proposed that additional funding should be sought to bring parents and families in the project to a tertiary campus and introduce them to opportunities available and what is expected of students at that level. It is hard to promote the ideas of bettering yourself through higher education if the families are not familiar with that system.

 

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