Experts Question Effectiveness Of Some Classroom Technology

The Washington Post (6/11, McCrummen) reports, "Under enormous pressure to reform, the nation's public schools are spending millions of dollars each year on gadgets from text-messaging devices to interactive whiteboards that technology companies promise can raise student performance." However, a growing number of experts are arguing "that the money schools spend on instructional gizmos isn't necessarily making things better, just different. Many academics question industry-backed studies linking improved test scores to their products" while some even "argue that the most ubiquitous device-of-the-future, the whiteboard...locks teachers into a 19th-century lecture style of instruction counter to the more collaborative small-group models that many reformers favor."