The full 200+ page report from the OECD is below. I recommend skipping to the executive summary on on page 17:
The BBC article is below:
A balanced response from Cat Scutt in the TES below:
www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/yin-and-yang-using-mobile-technology-classroom
Tom Bennett is absolutely right – deployed without critical reflection and purpose, mobile devices in the classroom will have little impact on students’ achievement, while potentially creating unnecessary behaviour management challenges. However, when used in the pursuit of broader pedagogical and educational goals, there is potential for them to be used effectively to improve and even transform learning outcomes and the learning experience for our students.
And not surprisingly the OECD's own press release mentions the potential of technology in schools.
Moral of the story: powerful headlines sell. I'll let you come to your own conclusions as to what life would be like without technology in our everyday lives, including appropriate use as a tool to augment the learning process of our students.
Update May 2016:
A study by researchers from Michigan State University and the University of California, Irvine has found that one-to-one laptop initiatives have positive effects on students. The study, "Learning in One-to-One Laptop Environments: A Meta-Analysis and Research Synthesis,"reviewed 96 journal articles and doctoral dissertations published from 2001 to 2015 to understand the effects of one-to-one laptop programs in K-12 schools. Of those papers, researchers conducted a meta-analysis of 10 studies and found that the one-to-one programs improved students' test scores by .16 standard deviations, a statistically significant number, in English, writing, mathematics and science, according to EdWeek.