The computer revolution has transformed education over the past quarter century. PowerPoint, greatly improved graphical and multi-media capabilities, e-books, Wikis, online student collaboration, flipped classrooms, clicker quizzes, open-access online courses (MOOCs), and the inexhaustible wealth of material available on the internet have opened up all sorts of interesting possibilities. (At the same time, discretely hidden smart phones, college-essay mills, and the inexhaustible wealth of material available on the internet have raised new challenges to teachers worried about academic dishonesty.)
The possibilities opened up by the revolution have educational administrators excited. But we need to separate two quite distinct grounds for excitement: