In case you missed it in Sunday's paper (or MyAJC.com ) the AJC's Daarel Burnette II delivered an insightful story on how some Georgia school kids are leading the way in using iPhones and tablets to learn. But the biggest takeaway for me from the article was debunking the "if we buy it they'll automatically learn" mentality we usually associate with computers in the classroom. 

As noted in the full story :

For years, educators have spent millions of dollars buying fancy gadgets, software and lightning-fast computers to impress parents and their children.

But often those devices were used in ways that only replicated traditional forms of teaching and learning: read an opinion article on an iPad instead of in a textbook and then write an essay in a Word document instead of a composition book, for example.

While students were wowed by the new devices, test scores barely budged, several studies showed.

“Technology can be used in ways that don’t really change teaching and learning substantially or it can be used in a transformative way,” said Craig A. Cunningham, an associate professor in the Technology in Education Program at National Louis University in Chicago. “Is there a way of changing the learning activity so that it’s deeper learning using various forms of media? That’s a very difficult question to answer” for educators."

But it seems like the kids interviewed already know the answer: 

When asked how they do it, the students shrugged it off.

“I just went into the app and played around with it a little bit,” said Taylor Carter, a 10-year-old, after showing off a game he created to practice his arithmetic. “We’re working with stuff we’re used to using.”