Charger News

Keyboards replacing chalkboards?

Alison Palmer, Charger Staff

What would you call a place where students could instantly send messages to teachers and principals, ask world-renowned experts any question with the simple click of a button, and where notebooks and textbooks are obsolete? This is the classroom of the future, and it may be coming sooner than you think. Many believe that in a few years technology will be used in practically every aspect of our lives, including education.

Using laptops, students will be able to facilitate group work, analyze data immediately during a lab exercise, and conduct scientific investigations in the field rather than in the classroom. Turning in homework will be done routinely via floppy disks, or it might be saved in a central file server connected to the school network where a teacher would have access and could grade the assignment.

Teachers would take on more of a coaching role by finding and directing students to the resources they need rather than conventional instructing. Information from around the world will be instantly available at any time of day. Students will have the knowledge they need when they need it.

Laptops are already appearing on the scene in several schools with great success. Several studies show many educational benefits tied to laptops in the classroom, such as increased student motivation, a more student-centered classroom environment, and better school attendance. At Brewster Academy in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, SAT scores have improved 90% since their transition to the use of student laptops.

Pupils using laptops usually have more communication with administrators. Microsoft chief Bill Gates says that with personal laptops in the classroom there is a “sense of involvement where there’s no boundary.  There’s connected learning, where it’s parents, students, and teachers, not isolated from each other the way we are today.”

Along with a greater sense of community in the classroom, students will also become part of a wider global community through communication with other students of different cultures in several countries.

Many believe that this is key to ending hate and prejudice.  Professor of education at Stanford University Linda Darling-Hammond says that with personal laptops, students “will be keenly aware of events, places and the experiences of people not only in their own community, but in communities from Europe and Africa to the Middle East and Asia.”

Some doubt the effectiveness of higher technology in the classroom claiming that it is superficial learning and will cause a person to lose social skills since he or she will be spending all of their time in front of a screen. 

The question is, will Cookeville High School ever take this leap into the “classroom of the future?” The answer is that it might be sooner than you think.

Technology Director of Putnam County Schools Anthony Robinson said that in the near future at CHS “laptops will play a very significant role. Technology doubles every six months....it’s mind boggling when you think about it.”

In about four or five years a major movement towards the “classroom of the future” should be seen according to Robinson.

Does this mean that next year we will be carrying laptops home instead of books and turning in floppy disks to teachers for our homework? Probably not. Students have to learn how to use the technology available to them before they can independently work with it.

Technology is improving at an ever-increasing rate with many exciting new developments coming our way both at home and at school.

Embrace change or stick to the status quo? That’s the choice. Look forward to advances to come as we ease into the future.

~Article prepared for web by Steven Linger and Joy Wheeler~