The computer was being used as a publishing tool, not as a writing tool, and nothing about the underlying mentality of teaching writing had changed. It's clear that people just have to live with these tools for awhile before it dawns on anyone that basic shifts in approach are possible, and before ways of putting new approaches into practice emerge. It sounds as though it's too soon to say that technology in schools has failed, but a lot of money has been invested and a lot of time has gone by. There's been tremendous impatience with technology in schools. But this really isn't fair.
Any business needs a good chunk of time to reengineer itself.
Most businesses have spent a lot more money on technology than schools have, and put a lot more effort into integrating it, and you could argue that the results in many industries have been no better. There are just fewer people complaining because the results are less visible. It's nice to be able to say that on the educational front things have picked up remarkably in the last few years. In the 1980s, we were dealing mostly with teachers who had never used computers before. Today, it's much more common to find teachers who have used computers.