All teachers and students will have modern multimedia computers in their classrooms Every classroom will be connected to the information superhighway Effective software and on-line learning resources will be an integral part of every school's curriculum. Since most schools have hardware, let's look at what they are doing with it. The Office of Technology Assessment, at the request of Congress looked at this issue and came up with some interesting figures. This really limits teachers in the use of the information gathering technologies that can be quite useful in education. Access to computers is another stumbling block.
Most computers are in labs, where scheduling time is an issue.
Classroom do not have the space to house 10-15 computers. The OTA says that most computers are used about two hours per week per student. The most common use of computers is for word processing and basic skill practice at the elementary level. These statistics were gathered in 1993, and I'm sure they have not changed much. There probably is an increae in the use of the Internet to do research about topics taught, but for teachers to use the Internet, with it's vast amount of information, it takes time and training.