Technology doesn't make school pupils smarter: study-gctid161899

[Ajamu]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/connectedworld/technology-doesnt-make-school-pupils-smarter-study/ar-AAeiJsE?li=AA54ur

 Technology doesn't make school pupils smarter: study

                         AFP            
    12 hrs ago            

Computers do not noticeably improve school pupils' academic results and  can even hamper performance, an OECD report said Tuesday that looked at  the impact of technology in classrooms across the globe.

While  almost three quarters of pupils in the countries surveyed used computers  at schools, the report by the the Organisation for Economic Cooperation  and Development found technology had made no noticeable improvement in  results.

Conversely, in high-achieving schools in parts of eurasia,  where smartphones and computers have become an integral part of people's  everyday lives, technology was far less prevalent in the classrooms.

In  South Korea, students used computers for an average of nine minutes at  school and in Hong Kong, only 11 minutes -- just a fraction of the 58  minutes spent in Australia, 42 in Greece and 39 in Sweden.

"Where  computers are used in the classroom, their impact on student performance  is mixed at best," OECD's education director Andreas Schleicher said in  a foreword to the report, the think-tank's first on the topic.

"Students  who use computers very frequently at school do a lot worse in most  learning outcomes, even after accounting for social background and  student demographics."

The report measured the impact of  technology use at school on international test results, such as the  OECD's Pisa tests taken in dozens of countries around the world and  other exams measuring digital skills.

It found that education  systems which have invested heavily in information and communications  technology have seen "no noticeable improvement" in results for reading,  mathematics or science.

The OECD urged schools to work with  teachers to turn technology into a more powerful tool in the classroom  and develop more sophisticated software for experimentation and  simulation, social media and games.

"The real contributions ICT can make to teaching and learning have yet to be fully realised and exploited," it concluded.