Isis Brook, Head of Faculty of Environment and Transdisciplinary Studies:

“An article by Manfred Spitzer in the latest issue of New Scientist draws together work from numerous studies that show computers have had either no effect or a detrimental effect on children’s learning.  The latest report is from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and states that educational systems investing most in IT saw “no appreciable improvement” in exam results.  Earlier studies have also shown how detrimental it is on learning for children to have a computer in their bedroom.  There also seems to be increasing evidence that things like taking notes by hand in a lecture is more helpful for learning than typing them into a laptop.  Spitzer links these findings to evidence from neuroscience which has shown that “the deeper content is processed mentally, the better the learning .. and IT use seems to result in shallower processing”.

Back to the pencil and notepad then!”