Those are legitimate concerns. To further underscore some of the problems school districts are having with technology is the fact that some of them are bonded for 30 years to pay for computer systems which will be obsolete in less than five years. A gradual undercurrent has been developing over the past year or so questioning the extent to which classroom technology needs to be utilized. This fall, the School of Education will sponsor a free evening lecture series with four of the leading authorities on the subject addressing how technology is being utilized in K-12 classrooms. The series will take an in-depth look at technology and its uses and abuses.
Some educators are worried that the art of writing is being lost on computers.
For this reason, the Forum reports that we need to keep a wary eye on the technology frenzy in schools today. Studies revealed that the U.S. fourth graders used computers in school three times as much as their counterparts did in the five countries that achieved the better test results. In the San Juan Unified School District located in the heart of the Silicon Valley, computers sit idle in neat rows in the back of a spacious media center. Years earlier, the room had been part of the highly open classroom system with a sunken common area for middle school teachers. The school district invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in hardware, but the ongoing costs were so significant that we opted out of the contract because the cost was so high and the benefits in terms of student achievement were so low.