You're right, sort of!

First let me state that I am a teacher (primary age)and I use computers in school a lot.
There is much in your article that is true (I love Lego, meccano and all those types of kit).
I can remember this sort of comment about the use of calculators in school. Why use them when you have perfectly good log books full of sines and tangents and cosines, square roots etc. etc.
What you say about interaction and play is very true.
However times change and while computers may not actually teach much, does that mean we should ignore them, even at a young age.

Often the children are practicing the skills they have learnt in lessons or applying the ideas to problems. In these cases computer programs can provide a very useful addition to our catalogue of resources.
So what is the difference between doing a sheet of sums on paper or completing a computer program? ultimately none, except that many children will happily complete them on computer with immediate feedback on accuracy rather than having to wait for teacher to mark the work. Neither does it mean teacher is not discussing problems with children, showing them how to work it out etc. I do it all the time whether on computers or not. Even traditional teaching is often close ended, it has to be to achieve given aims and objectives.
Quite often computers can be used to display work and techniques in a way that no amount of board work, posters, verbal description and over head projector transparancies ever can.

We (teachers) use computers in two main ways. The first is to teacher computing skills- spreadsheets, word processing, DTP, powerpoint and so on, which are arguably nothing more than modern versions of writing, drawing, text editing etc. The other way is to support the classroom learning. Actually putting the children on the computer and expecting them to learn how to add or multiply, to write a story or understand a text is not what we do (nor should it be).

We do not teach programming skills or how to build a web site, photo editing or video editing. And yes you are right, these should be seperate classes or clubs.

Above all, and this is what I point out to colleagues all the time, computers should not be used as a replacement, but in addition, to 'traditional teacher learning'. Sentences still need capital letters to start and a full stop to end whether on computer or paper.

And let's not forget all those children with visual, hearing and other difficulties that find computers invaluable simply for communicating let alone learning.

Computers in education should be a tool to assist the learning and teaching -AT ALL AGES-, not replace the teacher.

The problem I see with computers in classrooms is that you are giving teachers an incredibly powerful tool which can easily be mis-used. Your basic argument seems to be that a computer is a potentially helpful tool to teachers - I agree. The problem is when teachers don't effectively use the tools they have. I've heard way too many stories (from my own experiences growing up, my friends growing up, and my friends who are now teachers) about other tools that are abused or not used.

A specific example is textbooks. I remember teachers who simply regeratated whatever textbook the school system had decided to use - they did not teach at all. Other times, the textbooks would not be used because the teacher did not like them - that's fine and often resulted in better classes, but it's a complete waste of tax money to buy books that are never used.

If computers are used, the programs they run will replace textbooks in many traditional roles. However, it seems more difficult for teachers to contradict them, skip parts of them, or use them differently than they were intended. It also seems highly likely that many programs will never be used and simply waste our tax money.

(I would love to see computers be just as prevelent in classrooms as calculators and paper, but for now I think it would be a huge waste of time and money with very little postive net result.)

Very true, but that is a problem with training and developing the use.
Unfortunatly we are the cross roads and until schools are filled with teachers who are confident, happy and aware of how to use computers then we will not always see the best use of this equipment. It will take time unfortunatly but unless we start (which it already has in leaps and bounds) then it will never happen.

Neither does it help when the curriculum we teach is constantly 'modified' by the government (certainly here in the UK). Every time they do it renders many of the books (and now, increasingly, software) we use less useful or completely useless. And I do not see this fact ever changing sadly.