"Lots of time and money have [been spent] to retrofit technology to teach traditional subjects," he said. "Let's not ask the question whether laptops are effective, but how can they be effective?" Margaret Honey, the director of the New York City-based Center for Children and Technology, echoes Mr. Zhao. She emphasizes that laptops should be used to help develop workplace skills such as problem-solving and effective communication. She argues that the metrics aren't in place to gauge the efficacy of one-to-one school laptop projects, and that the United States has fallen short in measuring the skills in information-communication technology that students must acquire to be competitive with their counterparts in other fast-evolving countries. "Just because you speak English doesn't make you an effective communicator," she pointed out. "So just because you use technology doesn't make you an effective communicator with technology. That's why we need effective assessments to judge how students are developing 21st-century [information-communication-technology] skills."