NYT Article vs. HASTAC "pointed response"

In the process of searching and reading for my research paper focused on the use of ipads in the instruction of reading, I came across a somewhat “heated” discourse between a published New York Times article http://hastac.org/blogs/cathy-davidson/pointed-response-nyt-article-ipads-schools that apperently celebrated a Long Island High School’s distribution of ipads to a group of humanities students and teachers in January of 2011 and a “pointed response” to that article by HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory http://hastac.org/blogs/cathy-davidson/pointed-response-nyt-article-ipads-schools ). Cathy Davidson of HASTAC stated, “If you change the technology but not the method of learning, then you are throwing bad money after bad practice.” WHAT??? Is what I asked myself. She also made some comment about ipads as “babysitters” and I just think that this is WAY too extreme. I think that there is much more good than bad to come out of students’ access to digital learning such as the use of ipads in the classroom. What Davidson failed to consider is that the mere presence of the technology in the classroom will inevitably change the method of learning, just by being there. Talk about collaboration, when facilitated effectively teachers and students will learn from each other. Shame on you HASTAC for being so unjustly critical of a school’s efforts to “bridge the gap” between the students who were “born to be wired” and the teachers who are trying to make connections with them.