Screen 6 -- From the Flickering Mind?

On this particular day, a social studies class was working on reports about the powers of Congress, constructed as Power Point presentations . . . [T]he teacher . . . steered me to a young man whose report she felt was in particularly good shape. Sure enough, as the student clicked through the presentation, I was immediately struck by the clean graphics, the strong colors, and the digestible writing. Then, suddenly, he was done. This was the extent of his report. But its content was no deeper or more complex than what one commonly sees in civics papers done elsewhere, with pencil and paper, by seventh and eighth graders . . . Later, as diplomatically as I could, I asked the teacher if she ever worried that the computer's multi-media appeal is distracting the students from studying the subject matter at hand. "Not at all," she said. "I use technology as a tool. This is their first Power Point presentation. Next time, we'll incorporate video. So it's like a building block." (http://www.booknoise.net/flickeringmind/excerpt/index.html)