I spent a couple of days last week at a e-Government Conference in Manchester. This was of some interest, despite the useless organisation ( I had a ‘wrong colour badge’ on the first day so was denied lunch - only to see the remains fill up several bins).

Because of this badge bureaucracy I was also denied entry to some, but not all of the sessions ( I could never work out the rationale for any of this). I did however get in to one session which seemed to be mainly about education.

What was depressing about this was the constant emphasis on ‘getting technology’ into the classroom.

I presume no-one who was presenting this fantastic future of technology based education has ever read the book The School Report: Why Britain’s Schools are Failing .