remind101, is a private “Twitter for teachers,” providing educators with a “safe” way to broadcast messages like test reminders (hence the name) and notes of encouragement to their students; With remind101 no participant has any access to any other participant’s personal and sensitive contact info like social networking profiles, phone numbers or email addresses.

“It’s not that we don’t trust teachers. It’s that teachers don’t have a good way to communicate because there are potential assumptions people can make,” says Kopf. In three weeks since the service’s launch, the product has been used by 1,500K teachers, 15,000 students and parents; cumulatively sending over 130K messages.

Apple officials say they know of more than 600 districts that have launched what are called "one-to-one" programs, in which at least one classroom of students is getting iPads for each student to use throughout the school day.

Nearly two-thirds of them have begun since July, according to Apple.

New programs are being announced on a regular basis, too. As recently as Wednesday, Kentucky's education commissioner and the superintendent of schools in Woodford County, Ky., said that Woodford County High will become the state's first public high school to give each of its 1,250 students an iPad.

The HMH Fuse online app is free and gives users an idea of how it works, and the content can be downloaded for $60. By comparison, the publisher's 950-page algebra text on which it was based is almost $73 per copy, and doesn't include the graphing calculators, interactive videos and other features.

In Classroom of Future, Stagnant Scores via NY Times

To be sure, test scores can go up or down for many reasons. But to many education experts, something is not adding up — here and across the country. In a nutshell: schools are spending billions on technology, even as they cut budgets and lay off teachers, with little proof that this approach is improving basic learning.