ISTE Classrooms of the Future

Perhaps it's the library student in me, or maybe it's the teacher side, but something always draws me to anything written or spoken about classrooms of the future. This lecture by Holly Jobe and Robin Clausen as presented on "ISTE Vision" detailed the project that Pennsylvania's schools have been involved in for the last three years. In short, this project, which was a $200 million initiative funded by the governor in 2006, aimed to change the teacher/student relationship by getting the teacher out from in front of the class and making students more responsible for their learning in order to better prepare students for the work place of the 21st century. Through increased computer access, coaching, and professional development, the schools involved were becoming more constructivist and authentic. The focus was on high schools and involved 543 schools in 453 districts.

One means to reach the goal of this project was a 1:1 student to computer ratio. This was only partially realized in that 143,000 laptops were purchased, but students were not given laptops to use at home. Further, all classrooms were outfitted as "smart" rooms and included interactive white boards, projectors, printers, scanners, etc.

An outside research company was brought in to collect data, and much of this data was presented in the lecture. One of the more important findings concluded, based on evaluation categories of teacher activities, student activities, technology use, teacher and student attitudes, and knowledge and skill development, that teachers were lecturing less and spending more time with students. The lessons and activities were more meaningful than fill-in-the-blank worksheets and formulaic reports, and students were demonstrating deeper levels of understanding through more authentic activities.

My experience with increased technology in classrooms and adequate professional development in using the resources has been a higher level of student engagement and, thus, higher levels of achievement. There is much talk of how we need to do more as teachers to stimulate our learners than our teachers needed to do when we were kids because kids are more "wired" now than in times past. Our students are often using the computer, texting on their phones, and listening to their iPods simultaneously, so it is not stimulating to sit and watch someone speak. We have a responsibility as educators to reach our learners, to "change with the times," and adjust our teaching styles to fit our students. Outfitting classrooms with the tools to do so is an incredible start.

The largest, most important component of the project in Pennsylvania and an often missing piece of "smart" classrooms in my school district is the professional development that must come with teaching with technology. Simply giving teachers the equipment is not enough. Nor is it enough to know how to use a laptop and a projector. As Holly Jobe mentioned in her presentation, she observed a teacher who had given her students a research project to do on their laptops; but the question of the assignment was little more than "How much can you tell me about the country you're researching?" Further teacher training yielded a project where students were given more options in their research such as comparing the culture of their chosen country to America's culture. I agree wholeheartedly that without effective professional development, technology in the classroom is little more than a dust-collecting toy.

We may be a ways off from transforming our entire country's classrooms into "smart," authentic, constructivist learning centers. The cost for such an undertaking would be astronomical. But the project's success in Pennsylvania gives me hope that we're moving in the right direction. With new teachers being "raised" with integrated technology, and more districts investing in building-wide and classroom equipment, we may yet see our students demonstrate what we know they are more than capable of as we dive deeper into this 21st century.