But like it or not, there on my desk that Monday morning was my new computer – along with an appallingly thick manual. Much to my surprise (and relief), however, it wasn’t long before I managed to master what I needed to know. And now, with an office computer several generations more sophisticated than that first one, I have to admit that my computer is my friend, obviating the need to retype copy over and over when changes are warranted and allowing material to be shared among writers, translators and designers scattered around the country with just a click of the mouse.

THREE YEARS AGO, Christmas brought a computer to our home. Like many parents, my husband, Doug, and I feared the all-consuming draw of the computer and the power it might exert over our children. But we realized it would be an ever-present reality in the lives of Morag and Gideon and that they needed to develop a facility with it.

As we unpacked the boxes and put all the pieces and cables together, I wondered how we would ever cope with our new piece of equipment on our own – at work there had always been someone to turn to if I really ran into trouble.

Predictably, perhaps, I needn’t have worried, for Morag and Gideon already seemed to know much more about the operation of a computer than either Doug or I, and what they didn’t know they discovered not by painstakingly looking it up in the manual but through experimenting. I had never dared to just try things out, fearing that I might distort all the software or inadvertently send my work off into oblivion. But being computer-age kids, they had no such fears.

ONLY AFTER WE had a computer at home did I come to understand the role it played in our children’s education. Morag, who is now in grade 7, had often talked about Knowledge Forum, a computer program she and her classmates had begun working with in grade 4. It was then that she had told me very earnestly that her class was using it to build "a data base on the giant Madagascan hissing cockroach."

"How interesting," I said, wondering why 10-year-olds needed an extensive knowledge of this huge brown bug. (I later learned that, being slow moving and large enough for small fingers to deal with, it made an excellent teaching vehicle for children.)

Morag went on to explain that she and her classmates would write notes about their area of cockroach research and post them on the Knowledge Forum network. The children would read one another’s notes, add information or ask a question. It had sounded worthwhile, but I can’t say I really had a feel for what they were doing.

The next year, Morag told me that since everyone in the class now had a computer at home with Internet access, they’d be using "KF" to do their homework. One Sunday evening, I decided to sit down with my daughter to find out exactly what this program that had so consumed her was all about. The area of study this time was Canada; each child had chosen a subject related to it, researched it and written notes. This weekend the students were to look at the various notes. Morag had chosen the St. Lawrence Seaway, and when I joined her she was reading a comment from a classmate who was studying Canada’s relations with the United States and was passing on information about the International Joint Commission and its work on border waters. From here ensued a lively discussion of Canada-U.S. relations, with several members of the class joining in. It was compelling; I was itching to get involved in the discussion, which only ended when Morag’s teacher sent a note saying, "Go to bed."

I was impressed. Because children had to write out their thoughts, they refined them. Children shy to speak up in class were heard from. And the students not only learned about other people’s research but thought about it and connected it to their own. And so I began to see that, used well, the computer could be a powerful educational tool.

IT IS APPROPRIATE, I think, that as we mark the coming of the new millennium this year in the Imperial Oil Review, we have begun to put the magazine on line (www.imperialoil.ca), making it available to everyone with Internet access.

Like many people, I much prefer to read a magazine sitting by the fire on a quiet evening or over breakfast on a Sunday morning than from a computer screen, but making the magazine available on line means that many more people will at least be able to read it. And schools, previously limited to one library copy, will have unlimited access in English and French. I hope this electronic edition of the Review will find a place among those useful educational tools. – Sarah Lawley

Illustration by John Etheridge