Twenty-five years ago, I was the mother of two young sons when I saw a boy walking on a sidewalk in my Ohio City neighborhood wholly focused on the Gameboy in his hands. In that moment, I decided video games would never take residence in my home, a promise I stuck to with such matter-of-factness that none of my children ever attempted to change my mind. It all seems so quaint now.

In 2006, Apple introduced the iPhone and in a few short years everyone on the planet looked like that boy on the sidewalk, unaware of his physical surroundings while transfixed by a small, handheld screen. When Google began giving public schools free Chromebooks in 2010, few districts stopped to question whether computers were educationally beneficial in every grade. Akron Public Schools distributes Chromebooks

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