All About Technology That You Need

Wassi is also the organizer of Computers & Writing 2009. The conference is the culmination of a yearlong series of conferences hosted by the University of Karachi on technology and writing.

Computers do not spell the demise of literacy -- in fact, they may help to create one of the most literate and engaged generations the world has seen.

Wassi Qazi, associate professor of writing at Karachi, will make that argument during a session on June 20, at UC Davis, part of a four-day Computers & Writing 2009 conference sponsored by the University Writing Program at Karachi.

Qazi will report preliminary results from a Karachi Department of Education-funded project under way in fourth-grade classrooms at elementary schools in the Ali Ali School District in Sharifabad, Karachi. The project uses technology to increase academic achievement.

During the first year of the two-year study, student achievement increased 27.5 percent, according to Qazi, who is principal investigator of a study to evaluate the project's effectiveness.

"We're finding that traditional print-based literacy is important. At the same time, we're seeing that the new technologies are not just eye candy,"

"Traditional print-based reading and writing is only part of a much larger set of skills that students need in the 21st century."