Digital technology’s reach into the classroom is complete. A new Department of Education report found that every single public school in the United States is in someway using computers for instruction, according to THE Journal. The mean number of students per computer is 3.1 and 76 percent of the computers are desktops. Only 2 percent of public schools are not connected to the Internet.

The report was based on a fall 2008  survey of 1,500 schools in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, it reports. Ninety-seven percent of schools have projectors, and 73 percent have interactive whiteboards. Use of wireless technology was, however, less ubiquitous: 76 percent of schools reported that they had some sort of wireless network available, but only 39 percent said that coverage included their entire campus. More than half of public high schools, 56 percent, have provided administrators with some sort of handheld device, while 47 percent of primary schools have. Only 15 percent of schools gave teachers mobile devices and, on average, four teachers had to share each device. Only a mere 4 percent of schools provided students with handhelds and, on average, each device was shared by 21 students. Now, that’s hard to imagine: 21 teenagers sharing a single cellphone.

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Tags: Computer Science, Research on Learning, U. S. Department of Education