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Here we are, smack-dab in the future -- yet the digital revolution
has hardly even begun. Incredible technical progress has been
made since the invention of digital computers, but we've got a
long way to go before these devices become the transparent tools
for teaching and learning that we want them to be. So as we contemplate
the string of three zeros on the odometer of time, it stirs in
this magazine a yearning to reflect on where we're going next.
Figuring that the bright minds that put technology in the service
of education would be capable of creative leaps into the future,
Electronic School asked nearly 100 leaders in the field to tell
us how digital technologies will change the nature of teaching
and learning in the new millennium. The result was an outpouring
of informed and insightful predictions about the classroom of
tomorrow -- many more than we could publish in our print magazine.
(See Part Two for additional thoughts
and predictions, published exclusively for our online readers.)
Happy New Year, and may your own crystal ball guide your personal
journey of technological discovery.
Roger C. Schank
 The
future of education is online. The old idea that the local expert
on physics (the physics teacher) should teach physics is exactly
that -- an old idea. The best and the brightest can now teach
physics to everybody. The old idea that teaching means standing
up and talking while students take notes is another antiquated
idea. All courses at all levels, from elementary school through
college, can and will be converted into "learn by doing" courses
that take true advantage of the simulation capacity of computers
to provide lifelike "doing" scenarios mentored by the world's
experts.
Naturally, this will cause a big change in what goes on in the
schools. We won't want children staying home, taking courses on
computers, and never having real, live contact with other people.
They need to learn how to communicate with each other, how to
deal with real people problems, and how to grow as people. So,
while the more academic subjects are learned online, we'll need
teachers to help guide students in the more human areas. The introduction
and acceptance of the new online courses will not come overnight.
In five years, students may only be taking a few of their courses
online, but within 20 years the change will be dramatic. Nearly
all of today's academic subjects will be taught in this way because
such courses will be more interesting, more engaging, more individualized,
and more diverse.
Teachers will no longer be content providers. Rather, they will
be discussion leaders, advisors, tutors, field trip leaders --
always helping their students build interpersonal skills while
they pursue their academic subjects. Schools will become more
like summer camps, teaching kids what they need to know about
functioning in society, dealing with issues like teamwork, handling
stress, getting people to like you, and other subjects critical
to adolescents. School will be fun and interesting.
Roger C. Schank is director of the Institute
for the Learning Sciences at Northwestern University and a
leader in the field of artificial intelligence and multimedia-based
interactive training. He is also chairman and chief technology
officer of Cognitive Arts Corp.
Amy Bruckman
 Sometimes
when I tell my mother about my research, she laughs. The "new"
educational ideas I'm exploring sound a whole lot like the ones
behind the progressive elementary school she attended 50 years
ago. Her school was affiliated with Harvard Graduate School of
Education, and the teachers and visiting researchers were inspired
by theorists like Piaget, Vygotsky, and especially Dewey. Half
a century later, we are still struggling to put those ideas into
practice.
Fifty years from now -- maybe even much sooner -- I predict
we will have made substantially more progress. The reason is the
power of computer networks. I don't believe that technology has
any magical, transformative properties, and I don't give credence
to most of the hype about the power of computers in education.
However, I do believe that the problems we are wrestling with
in making Dewey's ideas a reality are fundamentally problems of
human communication. Teachers need to be less isolated; they need
to have easy opportunities to share ideas with their peers. Students
need to exchange ideas not just with teachers but also with peers,
including children of different ages. Adults, especially senior
citizens, can and should play a greater role in the education
system by sharing their knowledge and experience and functioning
as role models.
Computer networks can make these kinds of communication not
just possible but easy. Communication via computer networks has
the potential to make progressive approaches to education more
practical and scalable in real, nonlaboratory settings.
Amy
Bruckman is an assistant professor in the College of Computing
at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She and her students in
the Electronic Learning Communities research group do research
on online communities and education.
John Sculley
 The
Internet has changed everything, yet we are still in the early
stages of what it will become. Every major technology that shapes
society goes through three stages: first, a curiosity phase; then
a useful technology period; and finally it becomes an indispensable
utility service. People in school today can expect to live in
a world where the Internet will become an indispensable part of
their lives.
Schools should think of their students as customers who will
be in as much control of how they learn as e-commerce customers
are in control of what they buy. The issue shouldn't be just when
will classrooms get wired to the Internet, but will these student
customers do most of the learning over the Internet from the institution
of the traditional school or will they access interactive learning
sessions from home, from a library, or on a field trip.
It is inevitable that the role of teachers will change as Internet-based
curriculum becomes more important. But there is an opportunity
for teachers to have an even more important role in the lives
of their students if they are willing to accept the inevitability
of the Internet as the underpinning of the new economy and appreciate
that students as customers will have great power to determine
how they will learn.
John Sculley is a partner in the Sculley Brothers
venture capital firm and chairman and co-founder of Sirius Thinking
Ltd., a children's entertainment company. He was CEO of Apple
Computer from 1983 until 1993.
Elliot Soloway and
Cathleen Norris
 Technology
needs to get a whole lot more friendly, stable, and effective
before the typical K-12 teacher can use it on a daily, routine
basis. The early adopters, those 10 percent of teachers who have
nerves of steel (to deal with the constant rebooting beeps and
bongs) and thick skins (to deal with cries of "it's not working,
Ms. Marx"), are the only ones really doing daily battle with current
personal computers, networks, and educational software. While
we might call for the integration of technology into curriculum,
it's not going to happen until the technology becomes at least
one to two orders of magnitude better -- in all the senses of
that word.
 First
off, forget the personal computer -- Windows or Mac -- for schools.
As our colleague Barry Fishman observes, "Personal computers in
K-12 are an oxymoron." After being pounded on eight periods a
day, five days a week, they devolve into misconfigured piles of
rubble. The only way to go for schools is "thin clients" -- time-sharing.
A child needs only a monitor and keyboard; centralize the maintenance
and there is a much better chance of having a running set of computers.
Second, schools need to invest in well-trained networking personnel.
Commercial concerns don't understand the problems that K-12 has
with its networks since the companies just hire more techies to
keep things running. K-12 hasn't and oftentimes can't. But, for
the next five years, we don't see the myriad complexities involved
in networking technologies becoming any less of a black art. If
we expect teachers to use the network for curriculum, then it
has to be reliable; without highly expert folks babysitting networks,
they will not stay up with the regularity needed by teachers and
students.
Third, it's time to move beyond HyperStudio as the main educational
software tool for K-12. We need a plethora of learner-centered
software tools to support all ages and all elements of the curriculum.
The key to having such software? Schools need to understand that
they must pay for software just as they pay for textbooks; software
doesn't come for free with the textbook. Until there is real money
in educational software, until schools allocate sincere dollars
for software, we will be stuck with HyperStudio.
Computational technologies have reached past the early adopters
to the masses in essentially all professions except for K-12.
If the impasse isn't broken, here is what will happen: Children
will become comfortable and proficient with technology at home.
But that will just exacerbate the digital divide even further!
Over the next five years, we need to redouble our efforts at truly
bringing K-12 education into the digital age.
Elliot Soloway, a professor at the University
of Michigan's College of Engineering, School of Education, and
School of Information, is currently working in the Detroit Public
Schools through the Center
for Learning Technologies in Urban Schools. Cathleen Norris,
a professor in the Department of Technology and Cognition at the
University of North Texas, is also president of the National Educational
Computing Association, which organizes the NECC
conference.
Saul Rockman
 Whenever
I get depressed about the quality of the educational experience
or the use of technology in schools, I think about the kids. Not
the teachers, who are often well-meaning but unprepared to use
technology effectively, and not the dilapidated buildings that
suffer from decades of deferred maintenance and are more likely
to have a leaky roof than a LAN. But I think of the students who,
if given permission, could master and apply technology in amazing
ways. When offered appropriate challenges and given powerful technology
tools, our students can do marvelous things. But how do we get
educators to give themselves permission to get out of their way?
We ask that all teachers master technology and apply it in the
classroom. Sure, all professionals should learn enough about computers
and other technology to get their work done. But they don't need
to learn more than that. I don't particularly want the people
managing my retirement account to become experts in Photoshop;
the guy who fixes my car doesn't need to master HTML. If teachers
don't need these tools to get the best from their students, why
do we insist they learn them? I'd rather teachers learn to say
yes when students want to try out a new tool and share what they
learn with their peers. Too often we hear, "No, you can't use
that because I don't know how to use it, yet." So what! Give permission.
Let 'em go.
We need to free children of the constraints that teachers sometimes
impose when they don't know the answer. We need to give students
permission to try -- and occasionally to fail -- rather than preventing
them from gaining access to skills and ideas and information that
will help them decide what work they want to do and how they want
to do it. We have the tools; we use the ones that help us get
our work done efficiently and enjoyably. Let's give the children
the same options and the same responsibility to choose what works
for them.
Saul Rockman is president of Rockman
Et Al, an independent research and consulting firm specializing
in technology and learning.
Dale Mann
 Taboo
prediction 1: Technology may teach better than a real live
human being. The point of technology is that it extends human
capability. So why begin by assuming that we will always
be better than it? The fact of the matter is, in schooling
we have not yet cared enough, or been courageous enough, to organize
head-to-head outcome comparisons of carbon-based versus silicon-based
teaching and learning. Will quality learning always require a
teacher? Gee, I hope not. I don't want to cripple the help that
those of us who teach can expect from a partnership with technology.
And I certainly don't want to keep children shackled to a teacher-centric
past.
Taboo prediction 2: Technology can be integrated into
instruction without staff development. Most teachers freely acknowledge
that training is virtually useless, but they happily endorse district,
state, and even federal plans that worship at the professional
development shrine. Why? Do you do most of your banking with a
real live human being or with an ATM? In order to use the ATM,
did you spend a weekend gazing at someone else's overheads? Why
do we assume that the only way to integrate technology into classroom
teaching is to pay someone to show teachers how to do it and then
to pay teachers to be physically present at the show? Curiosity,
a need for productivity, and professional pride go a long way
and might in schools, too, if we would stop infantilizing teachers.
Taboo prediction 3: Capital can be substituted for labor
in schooling. I don't want fewer teachers in classrooms; I want
teachers freed to concentrate on the things that are best done
by humans. Capital got substituted for labor when women stopped
beating dirty clothes on river rocks and plugged in a washing
machine. We applauded that, but most school people are appalled
at the same prospect in classrooms. You don't have to stuff a
wooden shoe in the expansion slot to understand that children
need adults. The technology should do what the teachers should
not -- attendance, grade reporting, drill and practice, testing
and some diagnostic and prescriptive cycles, even some sorts of
presentation. Those functions can all be done as well or better
by technology, freeing teachers to do what they say they like:
face-to-face and one-on-one with children.
Dale Mann is a professor in the Department of
Organization and Leadership at Columbia University's Teachers
College in New York City. He is also managing director of Interactive
Inc. in Huntington, N.Y.
William L. Rukeyser
 When
parents, former students, and policy makers look back on the turn
of the millennium from the vantage point of 2025 or 2030, they
are likely to see the '90s as a period of naivete and gullibility
as well as intense change and remarkable opportunities in K-12
education.
Historians of American education, such as Stanford's Larry Cuban,
have charted the pendulum swing from outlandish ed tech promises
through disappointing results to finger pointing followed by mass
amnesia. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs did not start that particular
pendulum swinging; it dates back at least as far as Thomas Edison
and the silent movies.
I predict that the massive infusion of education technology
of the '90s will lead to big disappointments in the next few years.
Once the novelty has worn off, the ability to bring large amounts
of information from far away might not seem so marvelous. Instead
we might focus on the truly daunting task of teaching students
how to make sense of information -- a process that occurs inside
the head, not on a screen. And we might, thankfully, do away with
secretaries of education telling gullible audiences that, "the
great thing about the web is that it has all the information of
the world's great libraries."
My hope is that in the new millennium, technology training will
evolve from showing teachers how to use hardware and software
in their classes, into empowering teachers to make professional
decisions about what tools are best for any given educational
challenge -- and that it will give them the confidence to ignore
those products that are stylish but not truly useful.
William L. Rukeyser is coordinator of Learning
in the Real World, a nonprofit information clearinghouse in
Woodland, Calif., with a focus on education technology in K-12
schools and the effects of computer use in cognitive development
in ages birth through 11 years.
Don Tapscott
 I
don't agree with the criticism made by some parents and elected
officials that there is too much emphasis in our schools today
on using computers rather than teaching the basics. Computers
vs. basics is not an either/or proposition. Computers are
the basics. Students don't study basics instead of computing;
students study basics using computing technology.
As they should. Having teachers drill students in multiplication
tables or verb conjugations is a squandering of their knowledge
and talents. Off-loading repetitive or mundane tasks to computers
helps get maximum value from increasingly scarce teaching dollars.
Rather than the teacher trying to drill 20 students with different
skill levels simultaneously, computers can work with all students
at their own pace and determine areas that need further study.
The interactive software tailors the learning experience by evaluating
the child's abilities, learning style, and social context.
But this is just the first step in the proper use of computers.
With the arrival of the Internet, the computer has also become
the student's most powerful ally in an unprecedented voyage of
discovery and learning, with the teacher playing the critical
role of copilot.
For centuries education was built around the broadcast model
of learning, with the teacher transmitting information to kids,
who are supposed to absorb it and regurgitate it on demand. The
assumption is that through repetition, rehearsal, and practice,
facts and information can be molded into knowledge.
But with the new Internet-enabled media, the center of the learning
experience is fundamentally transformed, shifting from the teacher
to the student. And the learning process in the classroom is much
more active, with students discussing, debating, researching,
and collaborating on projects.
In the digital economy, such skills are essential elements in
a student's modern toolkit of "basics" -- just as necessary as
reading and writing. The economy and society these kids are growing
into is very different than that of their parents and grandparents.
Their destination is different, and so is the route they must
take.
Don Tapscott is chairman of the Alliance for
Converging Technologies, a Toronto-based think tank that is investigating
how the Internet and new media are transforming business, government,
and society. He is also the president of New
Paradigm Learning Corporation. His latest book is Growing
Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation.
Tod Machover
 Music
is one of the activities that can engage the complete child, from
intellect to emotions, from body to soul, literally from head
to toe. In fact, children are capable of enormously creative activity
in music -- exploring the natural world and discovering the music
in sound, thus reinventing music from first principles. Yet such
activities are seldom offered in our culture. I think it's time
to bring creative musical expression back into a child's development,
starting at the earliest ages. Interestingly, new technological
developments may make it possible to bring music to everyone.
Children should start by creating music, rather than by recreating
it; in other words, they should be experimenters and composers
before they are performers. Some of this can be done -- as I was
luckily led to do by my mom when I was a kid -- by making music
out of ordinary objects around the house. But new instruments
-- new toys -- are needed to let the child touch and squeeze music,
getting at the expressive core of sound without physical or technical
boundaries.
One of our major research endeavors at the MIT Media Lab is
to find tactile, playful, visceral, stimulating ways for children
to experiment with music. We have been working on three categories
of such "Music Toys": Music Shapers, which allow the child to
create music by manipulating a soft, touchable interface, made
out of fabric, foam, or even Play-Doh; Simple Things, which can
be held in one hand and have simple videogame-like controls for
storing and manipulating simple sounds, melodies, and rhythms,
but which interconnect wirelessly with other such devices, allowing
complex music to emerge from a group of five, 10, or even 100
kids playing together; and a Big Thing, which is like a Lego construction
set designed for music, which enables children to compose their
own pieces by building a large-scale sculpture, which in turn
can be performed.
We are developing a pedagogy for these new Music Toys that will
allow children to be mentored by teachers and by expert musicians.
We are developing a project called Toy Symphony, which will bring
children, symphony orchestras, and famous soloists together to
create and perform music using traditional instruments and Music
Toys.
It is essential that we recognize the powerful role that music
can have in a child's growing up and accept the responsibility
of completely reimagining the ways of developing a lifelong love
of music, along with a new set of tools, instruments, and experiences
that allow each of us to get to the heart of musical creativity
with the smallest number of detours.
Tod
Machover is a composer and professor of Music & Media
and director of the Hyperinstruments
Group at the MIT Media
Lab.
Bob Hughes
 Fasten
your seat belt; the new millennium is showing signs of a wild
ride. I wish we weren't going to leave people behind, but that's
turning out not to be the case. There are people who will make
the trip and those who won't. A troubling question is, "Will our
schools be ready to travel with us?"
Schools are a snapshot of today's attitude toward the future.
New invention has occurred faster than we can assimilate it. We
are on overload. Only the young have the time and energy to keep
up, and they look to us -- the older generations -- to fund what
they need to know to succeed. We don't know what to fund because
we haven't kept up. We are caught in a Catch 22, spiraling down.
The application to education is obvious. Considering that the
primary role of public education is to level the playing field
-- that is, to allow all children an equal opportunity to be prepared
for the world ahead -- and considering that the gap in society
is widening, then I'd say we have an even more challenging road
ahead than we previously thought. It's one we'd best begin to
travel and find solutions to early in the next century, rather
than later.
Bob Hughes
is a member of the board of directors of the Lake Washington School
District in Kirkland and Redmond, Wash. He is the president of
the Educational Technology Exchange, a consulting firm located
in Kirkland, Wash.; a frequent speaker on the topic of technology
and schools; and a retired executive from the Boeing Company.
Donald A. Norman
 I
have long been struck by the power of the computer game to mesmerize,
to hold the attention of otherwise restless children for hours
and even days. I have watched otherwise unruly children focus,
study, collaborate, and solve problems. They read hint books and
save checkpoints, the better to be able to try "what-if" scenarios.
They consult; they create; they solve. They do all the activities
we wish them to do in pursuit of an education: What a shame that
what is being learned is so trivial, so worthless.
Now imagine a time when we transform education. When we can
craft educational problems as cleverly as the game creators create
theirs, allowing students to delve into the complexity of topics
as deeply and as thoroughly as they delve into the games. Excite
them to dive into the task, voluntarily working hard to learn
the skills necessary to succeed. Only this time, the skills learned
will be the ones necessary to be successful, well-educated citizens
of society: mathematics, history, writing, science, art, and so
on.
Technology is not the answer to the ailments of education. All
of us succeeded in an educational system that was mainly empty
of technology. But technology can help. It can motivate, it can
make visible what is otherwise not, and it can allow for the study
of the complex, taking care of the drudgery and allowing for concentration
on the profound. It can be patient. It can give endless rewards
and challenges. It continually engages the mind. And it provides
a new, more rewarding role for the teacher as a guide, mentor,
and fellow explorer of knowledge.
The proper technology, coupled with proper teachers, can indeed
transform. Learning is through doing, or though what I once proclaimed
was a state of "critical confusion." People learn best, I argued,
when challenged -- just enough to be confused, just enough to
be motivated to search, to struggle, and to achieve.
We learn not by having our heads filled with the great thoughts
and ideas of others, but by constructing them within our own conceptual
structures. But this construction works best when the scenario
is rigged so as to lead us to the ideas, to force us to confront
them and understand them. This is what the successful game designer
does. This is what the successful educator must do.
Technology is not the answer, but proper technology coupled
with informed pedagogy, coupled with teachers who are coaches,
guides, and mentors, can lead the way.
Donald A. Norman
is president of UNext Learning Systems and professor emeritus
of cognitive science and psychology at the University of California,
San Diego. Formerly a researcher and executive with Apple Computer
and Hewlett-Packard, he is the author, most recently, of The
Invisible Computer.
Dave Hughes
 Communities,
school boards, and educational leaders should already be looking
forward to the diminishment of the classroom -- the edifice called
a "school" -- in formal K-12 education. The classroom was originally
designed to emulate the workplace, where people gathered and did
what the foreman (teacher) told them. Only a small proportion
of future work will be done that way; instead, a huge part will
be done remotely, collaboratively, with self-discipline, and in
teams of people who come together and part after a task is done.
Education should model this trend, using telecommunications
to link students with the school and each other across the world.
That does not mean that students should not attend much smaller
-- and less expensive -- physical schools at least two days a
week, where socialization, normal human face-to-face communications,
athletics, and the use of resources that can't be taken home can
take place. And they can learn how to take the next technological
leap. Even today, advanced wireless technologies exist that give
very high bandwidth at no cost across school district boundaries
and that can facilitate this for all students, not just some.
School can in large part be a place where one learns how to learn.
That can and should also lead to K-99 education, where K-12
and college are but formal interludes in a lifetime of learning
-- and teaching -- by everyone, using the coming untethered, personally
affordable, always-mobile global communications devices that will
connect people to the rest of the world and each other.
Dave Hughes is a partner in Old
Colorado City Communications, an Internet and digital wireless
company that has pioneered the use of wireless digital communications
for education and community networking in remote areas.
Lowell Monke
For a century now we have witnessed progressively more impressive
inventions being heralded as the great reformer, if not savior,
of education. Perhaps it is time for a bit of sober reassessment.
For many of us who have spent a good portion of our lives teaching
in public schools, the legacy of educational technology may be
best summed up by Theodore Roszak in his book The Cult of Information,
in which he observed that "we live in a time when the technology
of human communication has advanced at blinding speed; but what
people have to say to one another by way of that technology shows
no comparable development."
Today we have magnificent means for communication in place.
Our students have more information than they can deal with. In
fact, we have reached the point where these powerful tools of
learning have begun interfering with -- more than helping -- our
ability to teach and learn how to say meaningful things to each
other.
Perhaps the most important lesson we can carry with us into
the new millennium concerning educational technology is that it
has far less to offer us than its promoters promised, and much
more to challenge us. The great irony of so many futuristic visions
of education is that they are based on a 19th-century faith that
the unfettered development of technology will automatically result
in improved human welfare. If the 20th century has taught us anything
it should be that this faith is no longer credible. If we are
to really prepare our youth to determine, rather than be determined
by, the direction technology takes, then we have to reverse the
trend of teaching children to rely on high technology and start
helping them understand the Faustian relationship we have with
it.
Given the advances in medical, genetic, and computer engineering,
it seems to me that the most crucial educational task of the 21st
century will be to develop within our children the insight and
strength, the ethical and moral sensibilities, to determine when
and how to say No to technological "progress." As never before,
our children will be confronted with the questions of what it
means to be human, what it means to be "real," even what it means
to be alive. These are issues that can't be left to technicians
working in laboratories or media moguls sitting in boardrooms.
They are fundamental to the character of civilization itself and
ought to be at the center of our educational efforts for all young
people right now. But today's youth will have no hope of even
understanding the significance of these issues if, throughout
their educational careers, this same technology is invisibly infused
throughout their learning environment, as so many educational
technologists would have us do.
Entering the new millennium we are faced with a new irony: In
order to truly understand and control our ever more powerful technologies,
it is imperative that we learn to better understand ourselves
as human beings, an age-old quest for which high technology is
now the problem, not the cure.
Lowell Monke is assistant professor of education
at Grinnell College. For
nearly two decades he taught high school and elementary youth
with and about computers. He is coauthor of a forthcoming book
titled The 'Net Effect: Of Telecollaboration In Our Classrooms.
Nancy Willard
 When
Pandora opened the box of knowledge, she paved the way to greater
freedom and individual rights because she broke through the locks
of centralized control that had restricted access to that knowledge.
Access to knowledge, and the freedom it brings, can lead to destruction
or to hope.
Our children are growing up in a world that is being transformed
by interactive communications technologies. These technologies
provide individuals with access to a wide range of information
and the ability to interact with others in digital global communities.
Such access and interactions are largely outside any externalized
control mechanisms. What will make the difference in how individuals
behave when they have such freedom?
The path that leads to hope is the path that is walked by people
with personal integrity and the strength of character to do what
is right, even though they have the freedom to do otherwise.
As adults seeking to prepare our young people for success in
their future, we have to recognize that their future is one that
will require a high level of internalized control to engage in
responsible behavior in environments where external control mechanisms
are not present. We must be diligent in instilling in young people
a strong sense of justice, caring, and respect for the rights
of others, and an understanding of the importance of behaving
in accord with the common good. It is important also to recognize
that young people will learn not through our words, but through
our actions.
Nancy Willard is project director for the Responsible
Netizen project at the Center for Advanced Technology in Education
at the College of Education, University of Oregon.
Barry Kort and
Nancy Williams
Technology offers the education community an unparalleled opportunity
to create virtual worlds and simulations in which children may
immerse themselves. It's the playfulness of this learning environment
that makes it so enthralling, fascinating, and compelling to students.
It lets them exercise their senses, emotions, cognition, and creative
problem solving -- all in a setting that looks more like fun than
work. But there is no substitute for kind, caring, one-on-one
attention from a teacher to a student.
What does the future hold? We think the best technology will
blend the power of computer games with educational content drawn
from science, math, literature, history, and the arts. In the
short time that computers and computer networking have been available
to schools, some pioneering educators have provided ingenious
resources that are revolutionizing the way children learn, supplanting
the obsolescent classroom model with highly individualized project-based
learning.
The next big push will introduce affective computing -- in which
the computing system and software will recognize and evaluate
the affective emotional state of the learner and adapt the pace,
complexity, and direction of the learning adventure accordingly,
to keep the learner maximally centered in the "zone of flow" --
neither bored, anxious, frustrated, nor bewildered, but optimally
enthralled and engaged with successful learning.
Barry Kort and Nancy Williams are collaborators
on the MuseNet Project,
a Multi-User Science Education Network of Internet-accessible
text-based virtual communities where participants collaborate
to build their own world in the constructivist model of learning.
Kort develops educational technology and carries out research
in learning theory in Cambridge, Mass. Williams teaches and does
research in electronic journalism at Utah State University.
Howard Rheingold
 If
technology is not thoughtfully integrated into schools, adding
computers and Internet access could add to educational problems
rather than solving them. We face two separate problems that must
be approached in parallel: Educational institutions are in need
of reform, and computer technology is both an essential component
of contemporary life and a potentially powerful educational tool.
Computers won't solve the problems of the educational system,
and ignoring the need to integrate technology into education will
exacerbate those problems. We can't afford to do nothing. We can't
afford to do the wrong thing. We need to start by thinking about
what we are doing.
Even if computers, Internet connections, and unlimited Internet
access could be donated to schools, support and training constitute
a significant ongoing expense -- some experts say that over the
life of the infrastructure, support costs are 10 times the cost
of the hardware and software. Unless training and support are
planned and budgeted, the latest "computer revolution" could fail
for the same reason the personal computer revolution failed to
revolutionize education in the 1980s.
Access to inappropriate material such as pornography and hate
literature, and ethical challenges such as software piracy, plagiarism,
and collaborative work that shades into cheating, are issues that
must be dealt with at a community level, through a dialogue among
students, teachers, and parents. These dialogues should lead to
acceptable-use policies that parents and students must sign before
Internet access is granted to students.
Using computers and networks simply as new tools for delivering
information is a strategy doomed to failure. Instead, computers
can be used to amplify the social aspect of learning, make abstractions
visible and concrete, and engage students in constructing projects
that capture their attention. Teachers should have access to recipe
books of best practices, and access to the pioneers who have already
explored the territory. And they should be paid for the time they
spend learning how to use technology to fit their own teaching
practices.
The issue of school reform is crucial. If the costs and practices
associated with introducing educational technology interfere with
the goals of reducing class size, increasing incentives for effective
teaching, and establishing standards and benchmarks for teaching
and learning, then the new technologies could make old problems
worse.
It isn't too late to think about the right way to bring computers,
students, teachers, and communities together. If we don't, we'll
miss opportunities, doom hopes, and waste money.
Howard Rheingold,
founder of the Electric Minds
web site, is author of The Virtual Community, Virtual Reality,
and Tools for Thought.
Brenda Laurel
 My
most immediate hope for the future is that programs like Elliot
Soloway's work in Detroit get broader support and better funding.
The software that Elliot's group has designed and the way it has
been used with children are the best of what educational technology
has to offer, in my view.
I would also hope that online mentoring will find a place in
our culture. The Internet and its successors may provide ways
to recapture the energy of apprenticeship and duplicate, in some
ways, the resources of extended families. Elders have much to
teach children, and vice versa, and it would be a good thing to
create online architectures where such discourse could become
a regular part of life.
Brenda
Laurel is a designer, researcher, and writer whose work focuses
on interactive narrative, human-computer interaction, and cultural
aspects of technology. She was one of the founders and VP/design
of Purple Moon, a company
formed to market products based on her research activities at
Interval Research Corporation exploring gender and technology.
Chris Dede
 Emerging
digital technologies enable educators to complement face-to-face
classroom instruction with students' participation in virtual
communities of learners. Just as teamwork across barriers of distance
and time is becoming routine in today's workplace, teaching in
the future will incorporate online student groups that collaborate
to create, share, and master knowledge. Both in and out of school,
these learning communities will supplement conventional class
instruction with virtual interactions involving distant resources,
peers, and experts.
The reasons for making this shift go beyond simply aiding more
students to reach a higher standard of achievement in today's
curriculum (e.g., having all pupils take more advanced math courses,
or raising everyone's scores on standardized tests). While these
objectives are desirable, such improvements in traditional educational
outcomes are not enough to prepare pupils for 21st century civilization.
Children also need to master higher-order cognitive, affective,
and social skills not central to mature industrial societies but
vital in a knowledge-based economy. These include "thriving on
chaos" (making rapid decisions based on incomplete information
to resolve novel situations); creating, sharing, and mastering
knowledge by filtering a sea of quasi-accurate information; and
accomplishing tasks via collaborating with a diverse team -- face-to-face
or across distance. These are no longer capabilities that only
"gifted and talented" students need to master; sustaining prosperity
and justice in a knowledge-based economy governed by democratic
political methods requires that all citizens in our society be
adept in these higher-order skills.
We have the technical and economic capabilities to develop technology-rich
learning environments for children that prepare them for life
as adults in a world very different than we have known. Whether
we have the political and cultural will to accomplish innovative,
equity-enhancing shifts in learning and schooling remains to be
seen.
Chris Dede is a professor in the Schools of
Education and Information Technology and Engineering at George
Mason University in Fairfax, Va.
Tim Comolli
 JR
was one of the most disagreeable characters ever to have walked
the halls of South Burlington High. Thirty years ago his father
had also attended our high school. A mean-spirited man with the
beginnings of a serious drug problem, he went on to marry his
high school sweetheart. JR was the first child of that union.
Dad's drug problem escalated, and one night when JR was a very
small boy, dad came home high on a variety of drugs and alcohol.
JR was sleeping with his mother when the father proceeded to shoot
her up with a lethal dose of heroin. JR watched her die.
The father was sent to prison and the youngster became, as one
might imagine, a serious problem child. He became unmanageable.
He was assigned a personal teacher as he traveled throughout the
school day. His violence became legendary throughout the school
district. By the time he reached high school, most counselors
and teachers had given up on him. Most people were certain that
he would never be able to survive in a "normal" world and would,
indeed, "end up like his father."
One day as he and his case manager passed the Imaging Lab, he
was attracted by the flurry of animations playing on the screens.
He quietly walked into the room and found himself in the company
of students who were headed for major careers in animation and
computer science. He sat down. He became enthralled with the computer.
He made emotional contact with the kids, and they helped him learn
the basics.
This one moment of interest and success translated into a passion
for the Imaging Lab and his work. His grades improved; his work
became acceptable, and then went on to become praiseworthy. Teachers
were amazed at the transformation. His caseworker still lists
JR as the greatest success story of the decade. JR went on to
help teach computer courses for both students and teachers alike.
He was asked to present his material by the state of New Jersey
Education Department for its Education Summit. Today, JR is attending
college and will emerge as an excellent computer graphics animator
and move into a world willing to pay him top dollar for his skills.
Tim Comolli is director of the Imaging
Lab at South Burlington High School in South Burlington, Vt.
He is the 1999 Technology & Learning magazine's Teacher of
the Year.
Carol Simpson
 Ownership
of intellectual property will gain new importance in the upcoming
millennium. Copyright owners, recognizing that ever-improving
technology makes copying, adapting, distributing, performing,
and displaying their materials child's play, will take a more
aggressive role in asserting their intellectual property rights.
This development will mean more cease-and-desist letters, more
threats of legal action, more cases to set an example. As a result,
schools will become "gun-shy" -- they will fail to exercise their
legitimate rights under fair use for fear of nuisance suits entered
by aggressive materials producers who have an unlimited supply
of in-house legal expertise.
With congressional testimony and federal judges making comments
questioning the viability of fair use because of the ease of licensing,
failure on the part of schools and educators to assert their fair-use
rights will contribute to a generation of information have-nots,
especially in poorer school districts. Those who cannot afford
to license materials, even in modest amounts, will find that they
have returned to a pencil, paper, and textbook model of education.
New technologies of instructional delivery, such as web-based
and video instruction, will bring ownership of intellectual property
to light in schools. Schools that once only consumed intellectual
property will now discover that they own it and will want to convert
it into a revenue stream. Teachers who once would have created
and freely shared instructional materials in print format will
recognize that they have contributed to a valuable commodity (electronic
course materials) and may resist "work for hire" rules, or at
least bargain for some compensation. Expanded and extended rights
of copyright holders will reclaim some materials that have traditionally
been public domain as electronic publishers fight to increase
revenues from heretofore unprotectable materials.
In sum, copyright will be a buzz word -- and possibly a word
to take in vain -- in the coming years, especially as declining
fair use and increasing revenues reinforce the idea that free
use of intellectual property -- no matter small the amount or
how altruistic the purpose -- is bad business.
Carol Simpson is an assistant professor in the
School of Library and Information Sciences at the University
of North Texas in Denton. She is author of Copyright for
Schools: A Practical Guide and a frequent speaker on copyright,
privacy, and ethics issues for schools and libraries.
(Don't miss Part Two of this feature,
which contains additional thoughts and predictions published exclusively
for our online readers!)
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