KIRKLAND, Washington—In the life of a young child, exploring comes as naturally as breathing. An experienced teacher like Tracy Ferries knows that her first-graders learn by doing, so she arranges her classroom to give them plenty of opportunities to engage with interesting materials.

In her classroom at Lakeview Elementary, overlooking Lake Washington near Seattle, technology is just one more tool that students can use to make sense of their world.

For instance, Ferries organized an active-learning time called "The Work Plan" that allows students to rotate among five activity stations. "This is not a playtime," Ferries says, even though students have plenty of fun doing the hands-on activities. "It's a thinking, doing, and learning time."

Ferries divides her class of 17 into smaller groups, depending on their reading levels. Each group begins at a different activity station, one of which is a set of four computers loaded with language arts and math software. After 20 minutes, the groups rotate. "Children learn to be flexible, but also to stay on task and to think for themselves," she explains.

Before she turns students loose to work at the stations, Ferries makes sure they understand the tasks at hand. She connects one of the four classroom computers to a larger monitor, so she can demonstrate to the entire class how to use a particular software application or find a specific site on the Web.

First-graders at Lakeview vary widely in their understanding of technology, even though nearly all of them have computers at home. While students are using the activity stations, Ferries often sees more savvy computer users coaching their less-experienced peers. "The ones with higher skills and more experience help the ones who need it," she says. That kind of cooperative learning also boosts students' language skills along with their sense of competence. "And best of all, in the eyes of a first-grader, it's fun!"