New landmark OECD PISA study on 'Students, Computers and Learning: Making the Connection'

Here’s an excerpt from the beginning of a related blog post by the OECD’s Andreas Schleicher:
 

"Totally wired. That’s our image of most 15-year-olds and the world they inhabit. But a new, ground-breaking report on students’ digital skills and the learning environments designed to develop those skills, paints a very different picture. Students, Computers and Learning: Making the Connection finds that, despite the pervasiveness of information and communication technologies (ICT) in our daily lives, these technologies have not yet been as widely adopted in formal education. And where they are used in the classroom, their impact on student performance is mixed, at best."

Press reports today have (unsurprisingly) not been terribly nuanced or sophisticated in their understanding or analysis of what the OECD report actually says. Witness the Irish Times: "Ireland has one of the lowest rates of internet use in schools in the world but, ironically, it may be doing students more good than harm, according to a global study published on Tuesday" or the BBC: "Computers 'do not improve' pupil results, says OECD". The Register concludes that the main message is "Don't bother buying computers for schools, says OECD report". More sophisticated and substantive takes on these findings will hopefully emerge in the coming weeks. (I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that a more relevant, and practical, directive might be to figure out how to make good use of all of this technology rather than simply to avoid it entirely, but maybe I am a biased observer here.)

My very quick summary take on a few of the key findings, for what it might be worth: