his story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet based at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Annie Murphy Paul is a fellow at the New America Foundation and the author of the forthcoming book Brilliant: The Science of How We Get Smarter.

The two were especially interested in how the introduction of computers might “level the playing field” for the neighborhoods’ young people, children of “concentrated affluence” and “concentrated poverty.” They undertook their observations in a hopeful frame of mind: “Given the wizardry of these machines and their ability to support children’s self-teaching,” they wondered, “might we begin to see a closing of the opportunity gap?

Many hours of observation and analysis later, Neuman and Celanano were forced to acknowledge a radically different outcome: “The very tool designed to level the playing field is, in fact, un-leveling it,” they wrote in a 2012 book based on their Philadelphia library study. With the spread of educational technology, they predicted, “the not-so-small disparities in skills for children of affluence and children of poverty are about to get even larger.”

Neuman and Celano are not the only researchers to reach this surprising and distressing conclusion. While technology has often been hailed as the great equalizer of educational opportunity, a growing body of evidence indicates that in many cases, tech is actually having the opposite effect: It is increasing the gap between rich and poor, between whites and minorities, and between the school-ready and the less-prepared.

According to a Nov. 2013 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) study, most Americans are not at college-level proficiency in literacy, math, or technology skills--not even the average US college graduate.

In 2011 and 2012, the OECD administered a standardized test, the Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), to 166,000 adults aged 16-65 in the 24 OECD countries to compare the literacy, math, and technology skills of adults.

he OECD found that 41.77% of Americans hold a bachelor's degree, lower than the OECD average of 42.01%. The United States ranked 14th out of 23 (the UK and Northern Ireland were tested together) in percentage of 25-34 year olds with "tertiary education." Korea was first with 61.63%, followed by Canada (57.26%), and Japan (55.84%). Austria ranked last with 20.34%.

, I will share some of the findings of my group and explain how they impacted me and can impact all educators.

Negative Effects: Spell-check: Through our research we discovered that many students rely too heavily on spellcheck to correct their spelling, and as a result, have poor spelling skills.  In the following video, a high school girl describes her spelling problems from dependency on spellcheck.  It also addressed the problems that arise from text speak.

Other negative effects of technology on learning: -Technology makes it easier to cheat and plagarize -Decrease in critical thinking -Decrease in analysis skills -Decrease in imagination -Don’t process as much during class, easily distracted

As technology has played a bigger role in our lives, our skills in critical thinking and analysis have declined, while our visual skills have improved, according to research by Patricia Greenfield, UCLA distinguished professor of psychology and director of the Children's Digital Media Center, Los Angeles.

Learners have changed as a result of their exposure to technology, says Greenfield, who analyzed more than 50 studies on learning and technology, including research on multi-tasking and the use of computers, the Internet and video games. Her research was published this month in the journal Science.

Reading for pleasure, which has declined among young people in recent decades, enhances thinking and engages the imagination in a way that visual media such as video games and television do not, Greenfield said.

GRANTING teenagers access to computers can actually diminish their reading and maths results, according to a new study. e Sunday Telegraph reports a survey of more than half a million children reveals technology is counter-productive in improving student achievement.

It found that introducing children to computers from 10 years of age could have a detrimental effect and was associated with "modest but statistically significant and persistent negative impacts on student maths and reading test scores".

The study, published by the US National Bureau of Economic Research, flies in the face of popular belief and shows that expanding computer access does not reduce the digital divide.

In The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (Norton, 2010), Nicholas Carr notes that after years of digital addiction, his friends can't read in depth anymore. Their very brains are changing, physically. They are becoming "chronic scatterbrains... even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb."

Carr continues: "For the last five centuries, ever since Gutenberg made reading a popular pursuit, the linear, literary mind has been at the center of art, science, and society. As supple as it is subtle, it's been the imaginative mind of the Renaissance, the rational mind of the Enlightenment, the inventive mind of the Industrial Revolution, even the subversive mind on Modernism. It may soon be yesterday's mind."

Because our brains can no longer think beyond a tweet, we can't write well. And we can't read well either. The idea of reading—let alone writing—War and Peace, Bleak House, or Absalom, Absalom! is fading into an impossible dream.

Let’s take a look at the top 4 ways that overuse of technology has influenced our children in an adverse manner:

1. Elevated Exasperation These days, children indulge themselves in internet, games or texting. These activities have affected their psyche negatively, consequently leading to increased frustration. Now they get frustrated whenever they are asked to do anything while playing games or using internet. For instance, when their parents ask them to take the trash out, they get furious instantly. This behavior has shattered many parent-children relationships.

2. Deteriorated Patience Patience is a very precious virtue and its scarcity could deteriorate a person’s Will. Determination is a necessity that comes with patience and without it no individual can survive the hardships of life. According to studies, tolerance in children is vanishing quite increasingly due to the improper use of technology. For example, children get frustrated quickly when they surf internet and the page they want to view takes time to load.

Like reading, writing, and arithmetic, web literacy is both content and activity. You don’t just learn “about” reading: you learn to read. You don’t just learn “about” arithmetic: you learn to count and calculate. You don’t just learn “about” the web: you learn to make your own website.

No one would have believed that peers could contribute knowledge and advice, helping one another to learn through YouTube videos, Wikipedia, or other sites. In fact, if you go back to 2000, before any of those things existed, you cannot find accepted theories of human nature, economics, or earning that could predict that those things could and would exist in less than a decade. No one guessed Wikipedia’s success, not even its founders. We simply didn’t know that, without a work plan, a lesson plan, or a taxonomy of what “counts” as knowledge, without leadership or payments or designated roles, people--non-experts--would build the largest encyclopedia the world has ever known, because we love to share what we know with others, and we’re even willing to spend endless hours creating our own community standards, editing, and making it right.

Six basic skills comprise early literacy and help determine whether a child will be ready to learn to read and write.

PRINT MOTIVATION: includes being interested in and enjoying books.

Kids who enjoy books and reading will be curious about reading and motivated to learn to read themselves. Motivation is important because learning to read is HARD WORK!

Definition: Literacy skills are all the skills needed for reading and writing. They include such things as awareness of the sounds of language, awareness of print and the relationship between letters and sounds. Other literacy skills include vocabulary, spelling, and comprehension

Literacy skills help students gain knowledge through reading as well as using media and technology. These skills also help students create knowledge through writing as well as developing media and technology.

Information literacy involves traditional skills such as reading, researching, and writing; but new ways to read and write have also introduced new skills: Consuming information: The current excess of information requires students to gain new skills in handling it. When most information came through official publications like books, newspapers, magazines, and television shows, students encountered data that had been prepared by professionals. Now, much information is prepared by amateurs. Some of that work is reliable, but much is not. Students must take on the role of the editor, checking and cross-checking information, watching for signs of bias, datedness, and errors. Students need to look at all information as the product of a communication situation, with a sender, subject, purpose, medium, receiver, and context. Producing information: In the past, students were mostly consumers of information. When they produced information, it was largely for a single reader—the teacher—and was produced for a grade. It was therefore not an authentic communication situation, and students felt that writing was a purely academic activity. Now writing is one of the main ways students communicate. It has real-world applications and consequences. Students need to understand that what they write can do great good or great harm in the real world, and that how they write determines how powerful their words are. Students need to take on the role of professional writers, learning to be effective and ethical producers of information.

Media literacy involves understanding the many ways that information is produced and distributed. The forms of media have exploded in the last decade and new media arrive every day: