No Difference

One of the problems with technology is that it is hard to prove that there are actual benefits to instruction, so I am making note of this website:

http://www.nosignificantdifference.org/

I actually think that part of the problem is that we don't really know what to look for or what to measure. I think that technology use does change education because it changes culture, but the problem is how to measure that? If you look at student outcomes using grades and the like or measure simple cognitive tasks or "understandings" then I would argue that a good teacher can use just about anything to do a good job of teaching. Good teaching is what good teachers do, just as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. argued that the law was what good judges do, not what prior principles happened to be. Teaching is a pragmatic activity that has a big toolbox available. It is the art not of what the tools are but how they are used.

But the tools can change culture. They are in fact a reification of culture, so that's what you measure or evaluate and look at for change. A different problem than "no significant difference" type studies can measure. George Gerbner is someone who used this approach for media studies, where again people claimed media use made no difference. So what do I look for?