Perhaps more has been written about software than any other topic in educational computing. At the time of our study, many observers held that existing academic or educational software led children to engage in nothing more than “electronic page turning.’ Others argued that while most software was inadequate, useful packages did exist.

The literature on software at the time of our study convinced us that the bulk of commercially developed instructional software did have serious limitations. It also indicated that a good deal of software was useful, and that educational computing in the home was worthwhile for children. We therefore concluded that there were far fewer Type III and Type IV families than Type I and Type II families not because of the unavailability of good software. Instead, the reasons, then and now, have more to do with family educational practices, family knowledge and attitudes about software and computers in general, and the conditions shaping families' knowledge, attitudes, and practices.

In this chapter we look closer at the quality and quantity of academic software present within the families in our sample and compare the results with observations about software in the literature. We then show how family awareness and appraisals of software affected the presence or absence of software and its use when present. We also raise some hardware and ergonomic issues contributing to software usage at home. We end the chapter with a brief look at what has happened to instructional software since our study.