Results from a recent federal report on the impact of educational software on learning found that the test scores of students using the technology were no better than those of students who did not use it.
Even so, the results are not evidence that technology cannot be a powerful learning tool, writes Henry Kelly in this Education Week Commentary. Though technology is omnipresent in today’s “flat” world, says Kelly, it took some time, and a lot of research and development, for the commercial and corporate worlds to work out how best to use new software to revolutionize business practices.
Technology-based instruction can work in education, says Kelly, but not until the federal government funds adequate research and development to “design effective instructional software and to test innovations to see what works and what doesn’t.”
What do you think? Should the federal government do more to ensure that new technologies in education live up to their promise?