For me this gets at the crux of the question of the place of technology in the classroom, it almost always seems to replace regular paper and textbooks, without actually adding anything. I had teachers who would handout "transparencies" and we'd draw/right and them and then hand them back and the activity was exactly the same... only with $0.00001 pieces of disposable plastic. I really struggle to understand the benefits of a "smartboard" and any computer in the classroom, it really feels like we're just doing this because we can, without asking, "why?"

I'm currently learning a foreign language in school. Apart from the occasional use of a TV screen to show pictures, everything is taught by voice, whiteboard, and paper handouts.

I personally use spiral-bound notebooks and erasable pens (friction) as my medium of choice. Yes, with some sort of technological device I could maybe type faster, sort things into lists, make indices, search and replace, have a builtin dictionary, and so on. But would I really be learning more? Or would I just be more distracted in class?

I use technology all the time, including "spaced repetition" apps on my phone, to exercise my memory as much as possible. But I strongly feel the classroom is not the right place for fiddling with that.