The following is a phone interview with a 10 year old girl preparing for 5th grade. She has a 16 year old sister to whom she refers in the script.
She has been fortunate to have access to many types of digital technologies from a young age.
The interview lasted 7:25.
Q: Do you have a computer /iPod/MPC playerWii/ ect....?
A: Yes (computer-laptop). Yes (iPod). Yes (Wii). An XBOX 360. A DSI. A phone. A regular computer. And a Playstation.
Q: What is your favorite thing to do on the computer?
A: Usually I'm playing computer games. I'm on facebook, watching YouTube videos. Either that, or if it's for school work, I'm doing research or if I need to know something - like anything I'm doing if I need to know something, I use Google.
Q: What is your favorite thing to do on the computer?
A: Play games.
Q: How did you learn to do that?
A: When you get a computer, it has the games thing on it and you automatically have games. I click on them and I just learn how to play them. But, when I got my regular computer, my sister (16 years old), she was helping me with the games that I didn't understand. Plus, I've had a computer all my life so I just know how to play games. And you know how to play games because on most of the games they'll help you on the first few levels or whatever, they'll tell you how to do it.
Q: What are some other things you use the computer for?
A: I watch videos and do things on facebook.
Q: What is your favorite game? Why?
A: Tough one. A computer game? From any site? (Yes.) I'd have to say JoJo's Fashion Show - the game that was actually already on my computer. I ran out of free coins so I play it online now. I like doing it because they give you different styles and you have to dress the girls up like that with the right kind of clothes and it tells you the kinds of clothes to use and stuff like that. So, I like that game.
Q: Do you know other people who do this?
A: My sister and I loved that game when we first got it - when we first got our computers that had that game on it. We loved it. I ran out of my free coins on like the first week because I played it like every day - at least the first month. But (my sister) liked to save hers and I would beg her to let me play it on hers. I'm not really sure who else likes the game that I know. She's the one I could first think of.
Q: How do you use the computer at school?
A: At school, in our free time, we're allowed to play games if the teacher lets us. Like, at recess, we play computer games if the teacher will let you. In fourth grade, when we switch math classes, sometimes we have a computer day, so we play on the computer. And, we use them for research for stuff like projects. Things like that. We mainly use it for research.
Q: How would you like to use the computer at school?
A: (The way we use them now.) Like if we were allowed to do that whenever we wanted, that would be nice. The teachers would never let us do that. They let us do that when it's like our free time like when we have recess or when we finish doing research.
Q: Do you think teachers should let you use the computer to do those things? Why? Why not?
A: I think they should let us use them more often for research because sometimes we have to do projects, like we do projects on West Virginia our home state and she let only a few people on the computers at a time so it was more difficult for us to get enough research because we only got about 15 minutes on the computer.
I think it is interesting that young people can't even imagine being able to use the computers more creatively in school.
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