Teachers Are Lagging Behind in Logging On

TIME Notebook: They say teaching materials are poor
Date: 1999.09.20
Url: http://www.pathfinder.com/time/daily/0,2960,31165-101990920,00.html

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With more computers than ever ready to be booted up in
classrooms across the country, our schools should be
turning out thousands of Bill Gates clones. Not so
fast. It seems half the screens are dark because the
geeks who backed this rush to get computers in schools
forgot one key element - training the teachers.
Education Week magazine has just completed a
comprehensive report on technology in schools that shows
teachers don't know what to do with all that RAM. Almost
50 percent don't use computers at all in teaching, and
only 61 percent use the Internet. And the educational
software that's out there doesn't provide much promise:
70 percent of high school teachers said finding useful
products is nearly impossible, and the software-savvy
give materials that are usable a grade C or lower.

-- TIME CORRESPONDENT SALLY B. DONNELLY