New Evidence on Classroom Computers and Pupil Learning

How technology affects learning has been at the centre of recent debates over educational inputs. In 1994, the Israeli State Lottery sponsored the installation of computers in many elementary and middle schools. This programme provides an opportunity to estimate the impact of computerisation on both the instructional use of computers and pupil achievement. Results from a survey of Israeli school‐teachers show that the influx of new computers increased teachers' use of computer‐aided instruction (CAI). Although many of the estimates are imprecise, CAI does not appear to have had educational benefits that translated into higher test scores. That small miracle can be replicated in every school, rich and poor, across America ... Every child in American deserves a chance to participate in the information revolution. President Clinton, at the East Somerville Community School, 5 June 1998. We could do so much to make education available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, that people could literally have a whole different attitude toward learning. Newt Gingrich talking to the Republican National Committee, quoted in Oppenheimer (1997). Netanyahu explained to a group of politicians and computer professionals how he wanted to provide a quarter‐million of his country's toddlers with interconnected computers. Recounted by MIT computer scientist Michael Dertouzos, September 1998.