Computers Are a Tool, Not a Solution

I read an article by author Kevin Kelly recently about their adventure in home-schooling their son during this past school year:

"One day our student would dissect and diagram the inside organs of flowers; the next he'd write short stories or poems and then revise them; and the next day we'd solve logic problems with algebra, then he'd work on plans for a chicken coop and maybe we'd do a field tip to a car factory. He also went through eight-grade textbooks in history, grammar, geometry and the like. This type of home-schooling is really nothing special. Our son was merely one of more than a million students home-schooled in the United States last year. Our reasons were not uncommon, either. We wanted to create an ideal learning environment. For the previous seven years, our son was enrolled in challenging schools. His grades were excellent, but the amount of homework was grinding him down. The intense high school he was planning to attend promised even more work. He asked if he could be home-schooled his last year before high school, and by a quirk of life, this was a year our schedules would permit or role as home-school teachers."

He adds in closing:

"Now that the year is done, I am struck that the fancy technology supposedly crucial to an up-to-the-minute education was a major factor in its success." (He goes on to note that technological literacy WAS part of their curriculum, but that it didn't DOMINATE the curriculum.)

What tools are getting in the way of your thinking right now? Has technology made you more productive or become a shackle around your neck? Where do you need to get back to putting chalk on chalkboard? When do you need to turn the phone or the computer or the ipad off?