Reuters, the chain of family restaurants that doubles as a news organization, has an adorable piece today illustrating the type of impact technology had had on education in the United States. Kids now type answers to math problems on their state-subsidized MacBook in Boston; Google Docs is used to write “What I did during my summer vacation” (“Daddy drank a lot of beer and that upset Mommy but then Daddy called Mommy a bad word”); and so on. The surge in online courses was also noted. Go ahead and listen to a few iTunes U lectures. I’m currently listening to “The Birth of the Modern: Europe and its Others.” It beats listening to Trentemøller’s BBC Radio 1 set for the millionth time in a row (but just barely).
As if computers in classrooms are new. Who didn’t play Math Blaster or Oregon Trail in their computer lab while in school? Show me that person, and I’ll show you one deprived child. Something to that melodramatic effect.