Technological innovation in school: how to pursue a technologically sustainable and effective innovation

Starting out from the document drawn up by OECD on the Italian "Digital School" project for the introduction of technological innovation in schools, the author discusses the criteria to which innovation policies based on the principles of sustainability and maximum pedagogical impact should be subject, in an Evidence Based Education perspective. Historically we tend to overestimate the positive effects of technology on learning, while research has already highlighted their limitations, which are restricted to specific areas, at the same time pointing to the risks related to consequent cognitive overload. Suggestions for decision makers are made, underlining the need to recover the educational relationship with easy technologies, take into account the cognitive balance between reading paper and digital reading and finalize well the use of technology for achieving specific objectives.