Technology and Education

 Talking with a colleague (PG) at a faculty meeting the other day and we both kind of communally articulated the following observation about modern education and technology:

The efficiencies of technology that are so valuable in the workplace are exactly antithetical to education.  Learning is a necessarily inefficient process; attempts to make it more efficient actually interfere with learning. Students must experience cognitive dissonance, wrestle with new ideas, and messily create new schemas over repeated attempts at understanding.

As a school we are considering a ban on cell phones, but I think we go one step further and ban the use of laptops during the school day too.  All these tools and crutches that are so useful to adults are just distracting students.  I feel foolish even suggesting this as my entire pedagogy has become dependent on student access to laptops through the years, but that doesn't make me wrong for suggesting it...