By far the most common research-type question I am asked today is some variation of: What is the impact of (this type of) technology on education? This is a fair question, to be sure. I often find that my reflexive reply to this seemingly simple question ("it depends: what are you trying to accomplish?") is often not viewed as tremendously satisfying by many people. While I increasingly come across academic papers which attempt to identify the 'impact' of the use of a particular educational technology or technology-enabled approach, I remain quite frustrated that there is comparatively little interest in a related but, from the perspective of the people who make huge and often very costly decisions about such stuff, far more important and practical questions related to understanding how or why this 'impact' occurred
Via Nik Peachey
Well worth reading if you are involved in any kind of decision making or research regarding the implementation of educational technology.