Having too few computers in one place makes it difficult to orchestrate activities for an entire class of students. Most teachers believe that computers are accessible to them at school. But most school computers are not located in teachers' classrooms, and most use of school computers does not occur there either. Exactly one-half of the school computers that are used for instruction are located in computer labs. The rest are in other special instructional rooms, libraries, or offices.
Most schools place a majority of their computers in computer labs.
This is particularly true in the middle grades. It is true that about one-half of all teachers have at least one computer in their classroom. But most teachers with computers have only one or two in their own room. This is quite a contrast with the number of computers available in computer labs. So teachers most often have their students use computers in the computer lab anyway.