The Classroom of the Future: Student Centered or Device Centered?
A basic question is emerging as our schools are urged to embrace the Common Core and the computer-based learning systems aligned to the standards. Are these digital devices becoming central to the classroom -- and coming to dominate the way we teach and learn? And how will this serve our students?
"If you have 50 different plug types, appliances wouldn't be available and would be very expensive," he said. But once an electric outlet becomes standardized, many companies can design appliances and competition ensues, creating variety and better prices for consumers, he said.
In the classroom, these "appliances" are the tablets and other digital devices now being aggressively sold. Gates explained this model of device-centered "personalization" last year:
Teachers have not had these tools before. Fragmented standards that differ from state to state and district to district have made it hard for innovators to design tools to reach a wide market. The common core will help change that.In the classroom of the not-too-far-off future, kids will have computer devices with phenomenal interactive content. This will allow teachers to do what they call "flip the classroom." Instead of learning a concept in class and applying it at home, students would learn