Myth 1: Providing schools with ICT is enough to improve education

There is little evidence to sustain that investments in digital technologies have significant returns in teachers transforming their teaching practices or producing gains in student achievement.

Myth 2: Students today learn better and more with ICT because they are digital natives

There is no doubt that children and young people, in general, have more affinity with digital ICT than their elders. But while some adults can be fluent in digital technologies, some young people can be naive and unsophisticated in their use. In this sense, the digital natives/digital immigrants dichotomy can be a dangerous myth because it has compelling implications for how educators, scholars and policymakers approach digital ICT in educational systems.

Myth 3: In the information society people are cleverer and better informed because they have unlimited access to information

In this context, educational institutions should play a key role in helping students to decelerate, decode and re-signify the informational deluge. With the current ease of dissemination and access to information provided by the digital media, the educational institutions – hitherto traditionally and essentially information transmitters – should review their functions in the sense that students no longer need so much information, but thinking tools to know how to search for relevant information, evaluate it, select it, structure it and incorporate it into their prior body of knowledge.

adriana ornellas & juana sancho

Ornellas, Adriana & Sancho, Juana M.. (2015). Three Decades of Digital ICT in Education: Deconstructing Myths and Highlighting Realities. 10.1057/9781137476982_8.