Students taught in high-tech classes do not necessarily fare better than those taught in the traditional way, with chalk and pen.

Educators asked if technology has failed education.For Dr Yong Zhao, the answer is "yes".Dr Yong, director of the Centre for Teaching and Technology and the US-China Centre for Research on Educational Excellence, said that in every industry in which it has been adopted, technology has "helped to save costs and increase productivity".

"Everywhere except education."

Dr Zhao gave five reasons for the failure at the Reinventing Education summit held in Shanghai last week.

#1: Rush to invest

Excited by tech successes in business, educators rushed to invest in computer hardware and software for schools. In most cases, it was "throwing in a solution that was looking for problems to solve".

And in just as many situations, the real problems lay in getting good textbooks and finding effective teaching methods, and not in learning how to use computers.

#2: Left in the wrong hands

That is, with teachers.

"Many teachers did not welcome the introduction of computers into classrooms," said Dr Zhao.

New tech tools and methods was just one more thing they had to cope with.He is convinced that computers should have been left to the students to discover.

"We should trust kids with computers instead of having this museum syndrome when we keep saying,'Don't touch this. Don't touch that'."

# 3: Wrong things measured

Educators placed too much emphasis on "student-computer ratio and percentage of computers connected to the Internet".

This focus was misplaced because access depends on what the computer is used for.

"In some cases, you only need one computer for a whole class".

Instead, educators should have looked at how many teachers were trained in technology and how much course content was available.

#4: Lack of holistic thinking

The mistake was to "put a jet engine in front of a horse". Technology is constrained by the horse wagon -the traditional way schools are run, the tools teachers use to teach, teaching methods and how intelligence and talents are evaluated.

Many education systems, for example, do not value a child who can compose a ring tone with the same enthusiasm as a child who has good language skills.

#5: No one anticipated transformation

The rise of the Internet, blogs, podcasting and even the creation of Internet economies has altered learning radically. Teachers were unable to advise or tell students what to do when faced with these new phenomena.

"Technology is too important to leave to teachers. It is an issue that must be addressed by decision makers of our education systems."

"We made teachers gatekeepers of technology when they are not equipped to deal with all this emerging trends.

Technology is too important to leave to teachers. It is an issue that must be addressed by decision makers of our education systems."
- Dr Yong Zhao, director of the Centre for Teaching and Technology and the US-China Centre for Research on Educational Excellence