pent time on computers while at school in 2004. Yet very little independently funded research has been conducted to examine what impact computers have on children’s cognitive and emotional development. Healy says,“Technology was put into American schools with very little planning, forethought or educational rationale,”“My concern is that this is very powerful technology, the effects of which we don’t really know.”
Most critics of wired classrooms stress that it is especially troubling to see so much money spent on technology at a time when budget cuts have eliminated many music and art classes. To be fair, with the American economy declining, there have been cuts across the board. Still, technology expenditures have surged. In 1996, the federal government granted states $81 million for technology in schools. By 2003, that number had jumped to $2.76 billion. That is an increase of over 30 times. Government data show that by the age of 10, young people are more likely to use the Internet than adults at any age beyond 25. But according to Larry Cuban, professor of education at Stanford University and the author of Oversold & Underused: Computers in the Classroom, computers simply have not produced much of a return on investment. He says, “There’s very little evidence that kids are doing better academically because of computers in the classroom. Computers haven’t made teaching more productive.”
沪公安联网 31011502019103