So, here's a post from Slate The $100 Distraction Device: Why giving poor kids laptops doesn't improve their scholastic performance. Wherein the author suggests, that computers alone do not = scholastic achievement, that often computers waste time and are detrimental, if not to intelligence then to manifestations of intelligence such as doing your homework. IWhat the author is missing is that much of the literature around technology and learning is about how playing on a computer is often a learning process that is just not recognized as such.

Also as one commentor noted:

Homework is the most catastrophic innovation ever to blight Western education. In academic terms, homework grades measure absolutely nothing. What they measure is the suitability of a child's post-school environment for doing homework.

So while the (eternal) techno-grump in me wants to say: "Technology is useless, let's get those kids some awesome textbooks and a cute learning assistant that they can all have a crush on." Another part of me is a bit more inclined to say that it is difficult to assess learning on a computer using traditional metrics like homework completion or grades. People are often not being marked for what media and technology teaches them, and this is somewhat the problem, because along with a lack of "markability" comes a lack of accountability, even of recognizance. As far as I can see kids are learning stuff from GTA4, that the learning they do f**king around with their xbox 360 is not recognized as learning is the problem.

The sneaky part is that when young people learn from playing it is important that they *not see it as learning either* or else it turns into work and then unless they are total keeners it stops being fun. So as a youth media facilitator that is more or less the devil's bargain. Media/Technology learning has to be fun or they don't want to do it. We want it to be somehow *improving* which makes us not only like VIctorian Nincompoops but also disappointed when the youth we are working with clearly do not enjoy the parts of the workshops that are too obviously pedagogical in nature.

I don't know why technology and learning is like this, no-one expects math to be fun, it just has to be gotten through and if you don't get through it you end up in an arts stream (yikes!) or serving donuts.