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What many people don’t understand however is that it also threatens the uniquely American ideals of democracy and equality.

When classrooms adopt iPads or other tablets in lower grades amongst younger students, the possibility that those students will be left behind in terms of the greater society decreases dramatically

If low-income students are unlucky enough to attend schools which can’t fund technology purchases, the chance that they’ll find a way out of a low income life becomes less likely.

Zitkala-Sa's narrative does not create a unified self integrated into a single world, but must we regard this as a flaw? I would like to posit that instead of adapting or adopting white models, as some Native American autobiographers have done, Zitkala-Sa crafts a w

Last year at MIT, researchers identified a neural circuit that helps the brain to create long-lasting memories, and the circuit was found to work more effectively when the brain is actively paying attention to what it's looking at. Numerous studies have also found that when students multitask while doing schoolwork, they understand and retain less of the information.

The bottom line? If you lose the bigger story, you're likely lose the smaller details, too.

So-called "senior moments" are becoming increasingly common among younger people, recent data has found, and it's thought to be due, at least in part, to excessive reliance on technology. A 2013 Trending Machine national poll found that millennials (aged 18-34) are more likely than those over the age of 55 to forget what day it is (15 percent vs. 7 percent) and where they put their keys (14 percent vs. 8 percent). Gen-Yers even forget to take a shower (6 percent) more frequently than seniors. Rising stress levels (which may also have something to do with constant connectivity) could be a factor as well.

We can’t answer the question “Is tech useful in schools?” until we’ve grappled with a deeper question: “What kinds of learning should be taking place in those schools?” If we favor an approach by which students actively construct meaning, an interactive process that involves a deep understanding of ideas and emerges from the interests and questions of the learners themselves, well, then we’d be open to the kinds of technology that truly support this kind of inquiry. Show me something that helps kids create, design, produce, construct—and I’m on board. Show me something that helps them make things collaboratively (rather than just on their own), and I’m even more interested—although it’s important to keep in mind that meaningful learning never requires technology, so even here we should object whenever we’re told that software (or a device with a screen) is essential.

If you haven’t given much thought to the kind of intellectual life we might want schools to foster, then it might sound exciting to “personalize” or “customize” learning. But as I argued not long ago, we shouldn’t confuse personalized learning with personal learning. The first involves adjusting the difficulty level of prefabricated skills-based exercises based on students’ test scores, and it requires the purchase of software. The second involves working with each student to create projects of intellectual discovery that reflect his or her unique needs and interests, and it requires the presence of a caring teacher who knows each child well.