The personal computer is the latest educational technology to fall short of its original promise. Although U.S. public schools now possess 5.8 million computers, roughly one for every nine students, they are not widely used in classroom instruction. Why not? This article argues that the most popular explanations mistakenly fix blame on recalcitrant bureaucracies and stubborn teachers. By enlisting technology in the cause of educational reform, computer advocates overlook some of the real obstacles to the use of computers in classrooms, obstacles rooted in organizational constraints of the school system and the nature of teachers' and students' work.
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