The Publishers Association ruffled feathers in the educational ICT community last month when it published figures to indicate that books are more effective for learning than computers. The “research” earned a quick retort of “nonsense” from the chairman of the General Teachers Council David Puttnam and a prompt response from the British Educational Suppliers Association (Besa). Besa director Ray Barker responded: “Books do not compete with ICT; they are two completly different media and they do two completely different jobs for different purposes. ICT has been seen to work effectively to raise standards, but never without the help of printed media.” A spokesperson for educational ICT supplier RM said the Publishers Association’s approach to figures was somewhat misleading and added: “It’s a little bizarre, rather like saying that oranges are better than bananas.”
www.publishers.org.uk
www.besanet.org.uk
