Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Style from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Pelette
Speaker 1: and I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Singing across from me as always as senior writer Jonathan Strickland,
Speaker 1: we don't need no education, we don't need no thought control,
Speaker 1: says who exactly hit a wall with that one. All right,
Speaker 1: so we're going to talk today about technology used in
Speaker 1: the classroom and what the school classroom of the future
Speaker 1: could look like. Uh. Technology in classrooms is kind of
Speaker 1: a big deal. I mean, we've we've heard about a
Speaker 1: lot of different initiatives to try and bring more technology
Speaker 1: into the classroom, and about how the emphasis on the
Speaker 1: importance of technology and daily life dictates that we have
Speaker 1: to introduce students to technology earlier and uh and more effectively.
Speaker 1: The more effectively, as it turns out, is the really
Speaker 1: tricky part, because it's not to not to diminish how
Speaker 1: difficult it is to raise the money and purchase the
Speaker 1: the the materials and the equipment necessary to to allow
Speaker 1: students to have access to technology, but it's way easier
Speaker 1: to throw tools at someone than it is to teach
Speaker 1: them how to use them. But we're really not focusing
Speaker 1: on that in this episode. This is going to be
Speaker 1: one of actually a series where we thought we'd do
Speaker 1: it like an educational series of episodes, similar to our
Speaker 1: movie making series. So in this one, let's just talk
Speaker 1: about some of the tech you find in classrooms today
Speaker 1: and what we might see I don't know, ten, fifteen,
Speaker 1: twenty years in the future. It's really hard to protect
Speaker 1: that kind of thing because technology is notoriously difficult to you,
Speaker 1: you know, be clairvoyant and sit there and say this
Speaker 1: is exactly what's going to happen in ten years. Not
Speaker 1: to mention the fact that UM budgeting being what it
Speaker 1: is right now in the current economic downturn, that's that's
Speaker 1: slowing down some things like R and D plus you know,
Speaker 1: the ability to add new technology to the classroom. UM
Speaker 1: now the schools are strapped for cash to pay teachers with. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we really we're gonna try and focus on what the
Speaker 1: ideal situation would be, you know, like, let's let's assume
Speaker 1: that the schools have the funding necessary to implement the technology,
Speaker 1: what would a classroom in the future look like. Um,
Speaker 1: but yes, uh, you make a really good point. The
Speaker 1: the classroom of the future relies just as much or
Speaker 1: even more so upon political and economic uh factors than
Speaker 1: technological factors. But let's we're gonna try and take a
Speaker 1: shiny happy look and assue whom that that the schools
Speaker 1: get the support system they need in order to implement
Speaker 1: the classroom of the future. Well, there are all kinds
Speaker 1: of things that that people can do, and they're already Uh,
Speaker 1: there's already been a lot of development along those lines
Speaker 1: with the technology in the classroom, things that that are
Speaker 1: already in place today, um, that I think will be
Speaker 1: refined in the next generation of technology and classrooms. Now
Speaker 1: I'm coming at this at at a real disadvantage actually,
Speaker 1: And the reason why I say that is because when
Speaker 1: I attended school back in elementary school and high school
Speaker 1: and even college, uh, technology was pretty much the same
Speaker 1: as it had been from all the way back to
Speaker 1: the fifties. I mean, you're talking about the fact that
Speaker 1: the most technologically advanced thing that we had access to
Speaker 1: in a general class was usually a television and VCR, which,
Speaker 1: of course does you know that is after nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: obviously the VCR, But but that was about as far
Speaker 1: as we got as far as advanced technolog was. We
Speaker 1: did have computer classes where we had access to computers,
Speaker 1: but that was not one of the tools that was
Speaker 1: used throughout the school like that wasn't every classroom did
Speaker 1: not even have a single computer, much less multiple computers
Speaker 1: for students to use. And of course when Paulette went
Speaker 1: to school, they had just recently discovered fire, so he
Speaker 1: also is coming at this from a different Please put
Speaker 1: down the hammer. Yeah, you'll get what's coming to you. Actually,
Speaker 1: we we we do have, uh to give you all
Speaker 1: the listeners perspective. We do have quite a few younger
Speaker 1: listeners who are in school. UM. So you may laugh
Speaker 1: at this, but you think about this, Um, Jonathan and
Speaker 1: I are both in our thirties. Um, and it really,
Speaker 1: you know, if you think about it, that's a really
Speaker 1: short time for the advances in technology to have come
Speaker 1: as far as they have. I mean before, you know,
Speaker 1: when we were in grade school, we had you know,
Speaker 1: film projectors in the classrooms. Still you know, I we
Speaker 1: bird projectors, overhead projectors, you know, with the transparencies. Uh,
Speaker 1: TVs in some cases VCRs. Um, you know, now everything
Speaker 1: is completely different. There were there might have been a
Speaker 1: computer or two in the media center, but I mean
Speaker 1: just a few years before, you know, in in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties and early seventies, that was that was really rare.
Speaker 1: We didn't have electronic calculators in the classroom until probably
Speaker 1: second or third grade for me. And you know, we
Speaker 1: weren't really allowed to use them as part of our
Speaker 1: studies until high school when we got into things like
Speaker 1: chemistry and physics where you actually needed to do pretty
Speaker 1: complex calculations quickly. So you know, now in in most
Speaker 1: modern classrooms, I think, uh, at least in in schools
Speaker 1: that are that can afford them, there are you know,
Speaker 1: PCs pretty much you know, in most classrooms, I think,
Speaker 1: and at least in the United States. Um. Of course,
Speaker 1: it varies from school to school, school district, school district
Speaker 1: money has a whole lot to do with that. Um.
Speaker 1: But computers are pretty affordable now, so it's not nearly
Speaker 1: as unusual to see them as it would have been
Speaker 1: just a few years ago. Yeah, I mean, even even
Speaker 1: some things that are are incredibly simple from a technological
Speaker 1: point of view have made a big impact in the
Speaker 1: way that uh that teachers teach and students learn. For example, again,
Speaker 1: when I attended school, um, the chalkboard was still very
Speaker 1: much the most common form of of display that you
Speaker 1: would see in a classroom, and white boards really weren't
Speaker 1: around at all until I think, I think when I
Speaker 1: got to maybe my junior or senior year in high school,
Speaker 1: our school started to switch over from chalkboards to white boards, which,
Speaker 1: you know, of course, we're just easier to maintain and
Speaker 1: much easier to write on. And you also didn't have
Speaker 1: to worry about someone going crazy and doing the fingernails
Speaker 1: down the white board thing because it just didn't didn't
Speaker 1: have the same effect as the bone chilling sound you
Speaker 1: would get from the chalkboard. Please, whoever is doing the
Speaker 1: sound effects for this podcast, please do not include that,
Speaker 1: because I personally can't stand it and I definitely don't
Speaker 1: want to listener mail about it. Yeah. No, brief brief aside. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had one my pre calculus teacher would be covered
Speaker 1: from tip of finger to elbow in chalk dust. I mean,
Speaker 1: the chalk dust in that room was pervasive. It was
Speaker 1: it was very, very bad. I'm kind of glad to
Speaker 1: see the chalkboard go away. Definitely, on the downside, you
Speaker 1: can't You can no longer punish students by making the
Speaker 1: bad ones go out and bang the erasers together to
Speaker 1: get all the chalk dust out. We can make them
Speaker 1: bang the eracers together. There's just not gonna get any
Speaker 1: chalk dust test the racist racers together for no reason.
Speaker 1: But there are classrooms today that have gone beyond even
Speaker 1: the white whiteboards where you can have projectors and either
Speaker 1: project against the screen or a wall or whatever UM
Speaker 1: and use that as a display. And I've even seen
Speaker 1: a few now granted this isn't a very few select
Speaker 1: schools because it's clearly an expensive um UH investment, but
Speaker 1: I've seen some some using UH flat panel displays or
Speaker 1: or even multi touch sort of surfaces to UH to
Speaker 1: display lessons and and show concepts and UH that's something
Speaker 1: that I would expect to see more in the future
Speaker 1: as a combination of factors converge. One, assuming that that
Speaker 1: we get our our priority straight and we invest in
Speaker 1: education to the extent that that's really necessary to that
Speaker 1: that the prices continue to drop on the technology, so
Speaker 1: things like multi touch UM displays end up going down
Speaker 1: in price because right now, like let's say you wanted
Speaker 1: to get a Microsoft Surface, which would be a useful
Speaker 1: educational tool at least potentially could be Um, that's around
Speaker 1: ten grand. You know, that's that's a pretty expensive interracy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and of course technology does break down over time,
Speaker 1: so your make an investment that you know is not
Speaker 1: a one time investment. It's going to be a continuing investment.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to maintain that upgrade and things of
Speaker 1: that nature. So um, but let's assuming we get there,
Speaker 1: that kind of of display would be something I would
Speaker 1: expect to see in the classroom of the future. And
Speaker 1: I can think of a dozen different ways to use
Speaker 1: that technology to to help expand a lesson so that
Speaker 1: it goes beyond the simple here's a fact and uh
Speaker 1: and even here's the context of that fact. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: the whole skill and drill approach to teaching would not
Speaker 1: necessarily even come into play, which is great because skill
Speaker 1: and drill is really not that effective. I mean, it can,
Speaker 1: it can teach you a very basic approach to do something,
Speaker 1: but it's it's not the kind of thing that usually
Speaker 1: lasts in a in a student's mind. Right. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's pretty well established that people learn by doing, which
Speaker 1: is one of the things that I think makes touch
Speaker 1: screens such a good The fact that they are becoming
Speaker 1: more affordable. It makes it such a good thing because
Speaker 1: it will allow you know, assuming that people are you know,
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to purchase this for their schools. It's
Speaker 1: going to give students the opportunity to get their hands
Speaker 1: on the project and actually dig in a little bit. Um.
Speaker 1: And the more pervasive technology gets in the classroom, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's gonna be a good thing too,
Speaker 1: to have computers on desktops and things like that. Um.
Speaker 1: Of course, those things can be distractions just as just
Speaker 1: as easily, um, you know, speaking as uh. Well, actually,
Speaker 1: by the time you're listening to this, I will no
Speaker 1: longer be a college student and only a recent graduate.
Speaker 1: But time of recording this, I have a couple of
Speaker 1: days left. Um. Yeah, I mean people, I've heard stories
Speaker 1: from professors. UM. Now this is primarily higher education, but
Speaker 1: people bring their laptops to class and theoretically you could
Speaker 1: be taking notes, you could be recording the lecture for
Speaker 1: a later Um, you could be playing mind sweeper when
Speaker 1: the when the professor is not looking, and I have
Speaker 1: ends a lot. Yeah, if you're in you're in congress.
Speaker 1: Solitaire is the game to play. Really you didn't hear
Speaker 1: that story? No I didn't. Yeah, yeah, let's not go
Speaker 1: into it. It's depressing. But yeah, I mean person having
Speaker 1: personal technology on the desk UM can be a boon
Speaker 1: and in a hindrance to the teacher as well. You know,
Speaker 1: we have to be have to be careful about it
Speaker 1: with regard to that as well. So really, the technology
Speaker 1: I mainly focus on for things like that's currently in
Speaker 1: schools and stuff that needs to be more pervasive, especially
Speaker 1: once we're looking at things like the classroom of the future. UM.
Speaker 1: Internet connectivity is definitely way up there. And uh and
Speaker 1: ideally you should have both wired and wireless connectivity. Uh.
Speaker 1: And either you're using you know, however you're getting the
Speaker 1: Internet access, whether it's satellite or through cable or whatever. UM,
Speaker 1: it needs to be reliable and fast so that you
Speaker 1: can actually the access the tools that you're using to
Speaker 1: to teach, or if you're a student, so that you
Speaker 1: can access the tools you need to learn. Um. And
Speaker 1: uh so that's that's pretty much a given. So we
Speaker 1: need to make sure that that we have broadband connectivity
Speaker 1: to the school systems so that they can take advantage
Speaker 1: of the tools. I mean, when you think about it,
Speaker 1: once you get past that initial investment, that's something that
Speaker 1: that pays for itself very quickly. Because now when again,
Speaker 1: when I went to school, my resources were limited to
Speaker 1: whatever was in the school building. You know, I didn't
Speaker 1: there was no internet for me to connect to if
Speaker 1: I were to, if I needed to, They just not
Speaker 1: for me to connect to. Right, Um, there was an
Speaker 1: Internet that I could not connect to, or at least
Speaker 1: there was a network at the time when I first
Speaker 1: going started going to school, there was Urbanette. But at
Speaker 1: any rate, the the idea here being that that you
Speaker 1: were limited to whatever it was in the school library
Speaker 1: and your textbooks, that kind of thing. So if you
Speaker 1: were doing a project, you might make a trip all
Speaker 1: the way out to the nearest public library, which would
Speaker 1: expand your your resources a little bit. Or if you're
Speaker 1: lucky to live near a college, you might go to
Speaker 1: the college library, which expanded it extensively, but it still
Speaker 1: was you were still limited geographically by you know, how
Speaker 1: much information you could access. Now with the Internet, that's
Speaker 1: no longer an issue. A lot of schools have agreements
Speaker 1: or even a database where students can use it to
Speaker 1: research scholarly articles and uh and journals and things of
Speaker 1: that nature that you physically could not store within the
Speaker 1: school's building. So uh so, obviously internet connectivity is of
Speaker 1: vital importance if if a student is to have the
Speaker 1: same advantages in one district as a student and another. Now, um,
Speaker 1: we are our headquarters are in Atlanta, so we've got
Speaker 1: kind of accustomed to the whole city life lifestyle, right,
Speaker 1: so we have we're used to having lots of resources
Speaker 1: at our disposal. Now, I grew up in a more
Speaker 1: much more rural part of Georgia where those resources were
Speaker 1: not as close at hand. So it's also important to
Speaker 1: make sure that the connectivity extends out to the school
Speaker 1: districts that aren't in cities that you know. Those are
Speaker 1: just as important. You never know where the next you know,
Speaker 1: brilliant mind's gonna come from. It's not necessarily going to
Speaker 1: be the heart of the metropolis. It may come out
Speaker 1: of the middle of nowhere. But unless you give that
Speaker 1: person access to the right tools, he or she may
Speaker 1: not be able to reach full potential. So Internet connectivity.
Speaker 1: We're talking, so we need devices for students to to
Speaker 1: access the Internet. We need the Internet connect connectivity or
Speaker 1: else the devices are pretty much, you know, just a
Speaker 1: dead weight. Um. Theoretically, you can then move to a
Speaker 1: paperless school classroom, although we've seen how difficult it's been
Speaker 1: to do that in business. But you know, you could,
Speaker 1: in theory move to an environment where you no longer
Speaker 1: needed to turn in paper assignments or hand out paper tests.
Speaker 1: Everything could be done over a computer. UM, I know that. There.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I was going to say that that that
Speaker 1: might raise questions in some people's minds about cheating, which granted,
Speaker 1: happens whether you're using a hard copy or soft copy
Speaker 1: of anything. Uh. My argument is that I think I
Speaker 1: think a lot of kids know how to use technology
Speaker 1: and very specific niche ways, without really understanding how it
Speaker 1: works and how to take advantage of it. No, that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean they can't learn it, but uh, there seems
Speaker 1: to be this perception, at least among adults, that kids
Speaker 1: are technology iCal whizzes, and because they've grown up in
Speaker 1: the era of the Internet, they are Internet savvy and
Speaker 1: capable of navigating it in ways that we can't imagine, right, right,
Speaker 1: I'm not convinced that's reality. Well no, um, I think
Speaker 1: what Jonathan is speaking of is I sent him an
Speaker 1: article that was in dirsh Bagel, the German news magazine,
Speaker 1: about in which they had done a study on on
Speaker 1: German kids, and they said, oh, well, you know, these
Speaker 1: German kids, they've grown up with the Internet. They're familiar
Speaker 1: with it, they know how to find the best information,
Speaker 1: they know how their way around. As it turns out,
Speaker 1: they pretty much chat and watch video and listen to
Speaker 1: music and really other than that, they really aren't all
Speaker 1: that interested in it, nor are they comfortable, you know,
Speaker 1: digging around for information. They don't they can't maximize the Internet.
Speaker 1: They just sort of use it for recreational use and
Speaker 1: only when it's convenient for them. So it's not the
Speaker 1: indispensable tool for uh that it is for people who
Speaker 1: are you know, thirties, forties. You know, we are all going, wow,
Speaker 1: this is really neat, and the kids are like, yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's been around, Yeah, it's it was here when
Speaker 1: I got here, So therefore it's just normal that to us,
Speaker 1: it's still new to them, it's what has always been
Speaker 1: there because their their age so, so part of the
Speaker 1: classroom of the future isn't just that you know, you
Speaker 1: have all these technological advances. It's also adjusting your your
Speaker 1: teaching methods so that you take full advantage of them.
Speaker 1: But uh, let's let's talk a little bit more about
Speaker 1: some of the other elements we might see in the
Speaker 1: classroom of the future. Okay. Um. One of the things
Speaker 1: that that I was going to mention just a minute
Speaker 1: ago was, um, the virtual classroom tools that I've been
Speaker 1: personally that I've been using over the past two years,
Speaker 1: UM and pursuing my master's degree. And uh, you know
Speaker 1: those are tools like uh, those of you are college
Speaker 1: students probably may WinCE when I say the following word
Speaker 1: blackboard or web ct Uh. Those two merged actually a
Speaker 1: few years ago. UM. There's an open source competitor, which
Speaker 1: I understand is really excellent called moodle. UM. Even those
Speaker 1: those have been used in higher education for several years now. Basically,
Speaker 1: for those of you who have been out of academia
Speaker 1: for a while or aren't an academia nut Okay, maybe not, um,
Speaker 1: you you may not necessarily be familiar with this. Um
Speaker 1: damn man nut. Um. Basically, what what this is is.
Speaker 1: It gives UH people an opportunity to pursue distance education.
Speaker 1: It doesn't even necessarily have to be at a distance,
Speaker 1: but it does give you an opportunity to. It's sort
Speaker 1: of like an intra net for students because you can
Speaker 1: gather together participate in a lecture where the the professor
Speaker 1: or teacher can put up slides like a PowerPoint presentation
Speaker 1: for example. UM, he or she can show you the
Speaker 1: desktop on the computer so they can walk you through
Speaker 1: what it is that they're doing. UM. You can share assignments,
Speaker 1: post discussion board postings, and basically start an online discussion. UM.
Speaker 1: You can see your grades. UH should the teacher UM
Speaker 1: be willing to post them? But you know it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of UM. I used to lose my assignment book
Speaker 1: all the time when I was a kid. And tools
Speaker 1: like this, you know, everything's posted on there. You don't
Speaker 1: have an excuse if you're out sick. You know what
Speaker 1: the day's assignment is, you know where you're supposed to be.
Speaker 1: You can see what other people are doing that the
Speaker 1: teacher can track your progress through the course. I mean,
Speaker 1: these kinds of tools there, I would I would say
Speaker 1: they're probably still in their first maybe second generation, but
Speaker 1: I think in the future there'll be a lot more refined. There.
Speaker 1: The reason I said people might WinCE when they hear
Speaker 1: blackboard is um. As good as blackboard is, a lot
Speaker 1: of people complain about its stability and reliability. Um. And
Speaker 1: I think as as time goes on, it's like any
Speaker 1: technology product, it's going to get more refined. It's going
Speaker 1: to get more sophisticated, and there will be more technology
Speaker 1: that you can more things that you can do with it,
Speaker 1: video chat and other functions. Yeah, that's that was the
Speaker 1: word I is looking for and trying not to look
Speaker 1: like I was looking for a ward um. But you know,
Speaker 1: the moodle thing actually brings up a good point because
Speaker 1: I think open source technology is going to make a
Speaker 1: big difference because open source, you know, may offer more
Speaker 1: cost effective alternatives and get technology into classrooms. Right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Some of the things that that I looked into when
Speaker 1: I was really looking at the classroom of the future
Speaker 1: have very little to do with technology directly, um, and
Speaker 1: more to do with adjusting the the whole paradigm, if
Speaker 1: you if you will, Yeah, the paradigm of how we
Speaker 1: go about educating students. So again, when I mentioned that
Speaker 1: you know, the technology hadn't really changed much. If you
Speaker 1: look at the method of teaching, the just the average
Speaker 1: method of teaching in schools across the world really um,
Speaker 1: I think more often than not, you're going to find
Speaker 1: the classic teacher behind a big desk, maybe there's a
Speaker 1: whiteboard or chalkboard or something behind him or her, and
Speaker 1: then the students are seated at desks that are in
Speaker 1: rows that go to the back of the room, and
Speaker 1: so you have the teacher as a lecturer in front
Speaker 1: of everybody presenting information. This is not necessarily the most
Speaker 1: conducive environment if you're especially if you're trying to incorporate
Speaker 1: things like technology, especially and particularly if you want to
Speaker 1: try and foster a sense of collaboration among students. I mean,
Speaker 1: collaborative software is becoming more and more important. Things like
Speaker 1: you know, you just to throw out an example, Google Docs,
Speaker 1: you know, having a program like Google Docs where you
Speaker 1: can or service I should say, a service like Google
Speaker 1: Docs where you can go and collaborate with other authors
Speaker 1: and create a document. Um. That's becoming more and more important.
Speaker 1: So clearly that's something that needs to be taught as
Speaker 1: well in school. So you have to you have to
Speaker 1: teach how to collaborate. Well, that traditional teacher the front
Speaker 1: students in rows is not really conducive to that. So
Speaker 1: a lot of the sources I was looking at focused
Speaker 1: not on on, you know, what technological advances should be there,
Speaker 1: although that was did play a part. It focused on
Speaker 1: things like breaking that up a bit and changing that.
Speaker 1: So it's no longer what we think of when you
Speaker 1: think of classroom, you don't think big teacher's desk at
Speaker 1: the front and students in rows. So one of the
Speaker 1: suggestions was that you create little workstations, um where you
Speaker 1: see maybe four students at a station together, and those
Speaker 1: four become a work group, and you do you could
Speaker 1: have a docking station for each whatever device you want
Speaker 1: to use, whether it's a tablet kind of device or
Speaker 1: a laptop, something like that, UM, and that these workstations
Speaker 1: would be scattered throughout the room, uh, preferably using furniture
Speaker 1: that's easy enough to to move if you want to
Speaker 1: change the setup, and the teacher, instead of being behind
Speaker 1: a big desk, would have a mobile workstation, so the
Speaker 1: workstation itself would be easy enough to move throughout the room,
Speaker 1: and the teacher would be more more like someone who
Speaker 1: would walk through the classroom and help guide discussions and
Speaker 1: answer questions and lend assistance and and uh would wouldn't
Speaker 1: be so much standing in the front of the room
Speaker 1: and reciting facts and figures. Uh personally, Now, when I
Speaker 1: think about how that would have affected me back when
Speaker 1: I was a kid, uh, I think that maybe I'd
Speaker 1: be a multimillionaire by now because I'd be way smarter. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm smart despite the way. I had great teachers, but
Speaker 1: these were teachers who were all following the very traditional
Speaker 1: method of teaching, standing up at the front and giving
Speaker 1: out lessons. Some of them were really good at engaging
Speaker 1: students despite that. But um that yeah, that definitely does
Speaker 1: put up a wall. So a lot of the focus
Speaker 1: on the classroom of the future, or isn't necessarily you know,
Speaker 1: what kind of cool gadgets should students be using? Should
Speaker 1: we be giving them all? You know, MP three players
Speaker 1: and laptops? It was more about how can we create
Speaker 1: an environment that both supports that technology but also makes
Speaker 1: it an effective teaching tool? Right right? Well, I mean
Speaker 1: that that is the the procedure that some of them are,
Speaker 1: some of the higher education UM organizations. I should say
Speaker 1: are are approaching because um, a lot of them have
Speaker 1: been giving out an MP three player to their students,
Speaker 1: to incoming freshmen for years or sorry, first year students. UM,
Speaker 1: but uh, you know in other cases, you know, and UM,
Speaker 1: I read of one university that's giving out iPads, And
Speaker 1: I do think tablets might have an effect, assuming that
Speaker 1: there are more people going to adopt the tablet metaphor um,
Speaker 1: you know or yeah, so there are there other options.
Speaker 1: I think that you could use UM to do that,
Speaker 1: but I think that having a device of that size
Speaker 1: gives you a different set of options because it's not
Speaker 1: just listening to and watching podcasts, although you know many
Speaker 1: universities are offering that to their students now. UM. There
Speaker 1: are also there's also the ability to use electronic books
Speaker 1: UM in that form factor, which would save a lot
Speaker 1: of wear and tear on the spine when you're trying
Speaker 1: to carry all that stuff around, especially again when when
Speaker 1: you have big, thick, heavy textbooks in high school and college. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we did point out one distinct disadvantage to the electronic
Speaker 1: book format, which is you cannot sell your book back
Speaker 1: to these bookstore at the end of whatever class you've taken.
Speaker 1: That's true, and considering that electronic books, especially textbooks, tend
Speaker 1: to be the same cost or sometimes even more expensive
Speaker 1: than the physical books. UM, that is a bummer. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're one of those college students who you know,
Speaker 1: you're really you're really stretching it to be able to
Speaker 1: pay for your education. First of all, my hats off
Speaker 1: to you, keep up the good work. You know we
Speaker 1: need you. But second of all, it is it's it's
Speaker 1: one of those things that really you have to take
Speaker 1: into consideration. Assuming that the school does not issue you
Speaker 1: the device upon which you will read e books, you
Speaker 1: have to invest in that. You have to invest in
Speaker 1: the device, um, and then you have to purchase the
Speaker 1: electronic books knowing that you will not get any of
Speaker 1: that money back at the end of the term. I
Speaker 1: should also go ahead and add for those of you
Speaker 1: who are not familiar, for those of you in middle
Speaker 1: school or high school or even younger, um, in college,
Speaker 1: when you do purchase a book, it is really really
Speaker 1: expensive and when you sell it back, you get a
Speaker 1: fraction of what you paid, like a sometimes like one
Speaker 1: around there, of what you paid for it. So it
Speaker 1: might be an eighty dollar book when you bought it,
Speaker 1: and you might get eight dollars back when you sell
Speaker 1: it back, but that's eight dollars more than you would
Speaker 1: get if you've got the electronic version. Yeah, these books
Speaker 1: have a tendency, of course. You know, professors are encouraged
Speaker 1: to write new versions of their old books with updated
Speaker 1: information in them. So invariably when I bought my textbooks,
Speaker 1: I would buy them used and by the time it
Speaker 1: was time to sell it back at the end of
Speaker 1: the semester, there was a brand new version which completely
Speaker 1: which meant that mine useless, meant that you couldn't sell
Speaker 1: your spec anyway because there was Yeah, um, yes, that
Speaker 1: is also a possibility. And it would have been worse
Speaker 1: if you had bought those books new, because you would
Speaker 1: have spent even more money. Well, E book readers dedicatide
Speaker 1: book readers, of course, have come down in price considerably.
Speaker 1: There's been a price war recently that's driven the cost
Speaker 1: of nook or a kindle um. And there are schools
Speaker 1: that have toyed with the idea of of a special
Speaker 1: universities and colleges mainly, but I toyed with the idea
Speaker 1: of purchasing them and giving them to students and their
Speaker 1: affordable Yeah, I'm sorry, um, but they you know, they
Speaker 1: live about you know, the dollar price point. Now, Um,
Speaker 1: tablets have an advantage though, because the e ink and
Speaker 1: those dedicated readers only shows you black and white. A
Speaker 1: tablet device, you know, assuming it's running Windows or Android
Speaker 1: or the iOS um, you'd be able to look at
Speaker 1: the book in color, so you can see charts and graphs, uh,
Speaker 1: photos in full color movies. That's the neat thing about
Speaker 1: the electronic book format, as you could embed and some
Speaker 1: of them are already doing, is embedding rich media in
Speaker 1: their audio files, video files, um, you know, things that
Speaker 1: you can't do with a traditional textbook. So that's sort
Speaker 1: of the thing. You have the cost in the factor
Speaker 1: where you can't sell your books back versus you know, Well,
Speaker 1: this is a pretty neat and immersive experience, more so
Speaker 1: than reading black and white words on a page. Well,
Speaker 1: we're coming up on the half hour mark here, so
Speaker 1: let's just kind of sum up what we think of
Speaker 1: as the classroom of the future. We think of it
Speaker 1: as having access to devices, computational devices, whether that's a
Speaker 1: computer or a tablet or some other form factor that
Speaker 1: we don't even we can't even conceive of right now. UM.
Speaker 1: We think of it as having internet connectivity being very
Speaker 1: important so that you can have access to the wealth
Speaker 1: of information that's out there. Uh. We think of it
Speaker 1: as having some sort of large display, whether it's a
Speaker 1: projected display or a panel display, where a teacher can
Speaker 1: show lesson plans, can show videos to the class, uh,
Speaker 1: and demonstrate principles in a in a visual medium. And UH,
Speaker 1: really it's it. It comes down to building the techniques
Speaker 1: that make this technology effective. That's that's what really will
Speaker 1: have to focus on. Because the technology is going to
Speaker 1: get there. I mean, there there are enough consumer demands
Speaker 1: and industrial demands for this technology for for it to exist. UM.
Speaker 1: The question is can can education leverage that and use
Speaker 1: it effectively to teach students right now? UM, just to uh,
Speaker 1: just to sort of put that all together in one place. UM.
Speaker 1: One one effort I think that is going sort of
Speaker 1: in that direction, UM is the one Laptop per Child initiative,
Speaker 1: which is there to provide low cost laptops two kids
Speaker 1: in countries where you wouldn't necessarily be able to get
Speaker 1: this kind of technology because it's so you know, price,
Speaker 1: so far out of their reach. That they can't even
Speaker 1: have it. And these are you know, basically an inexpensive,
Speaker 1: low powered laptop that's very very rugged to withstand being
Speaker 1: used outside. Many of those students in those conditions, their
Speaker 1: classroom isn't a room they go outside to to study. UM.
Speaker 1: But it's got Internet connectivity, it's got speakers, it's got
Speaker 1: a game controller so the kids can play on it, UM,
Speaker 1: and a camera and it runs on an open source
Speaker 1: operating system UM called the Sugar System. UM. I just
Speaker 1: mangled that, but I can't find it in my notes
Speaker 1: fast enough. UM. But yeah, it's uh, it's oh, the
Speaker 1: Sugar Learning Platform and it's basically the Fedora Lennox UM
Speaker 1: it's a version of that. And the thing is, I mean,
Speaker 1: these are very very inexpensive. They're working on the one
Speaker 1: laptop per child. Initiative is also working on a fold
Speaker 1: out that's sort of like the Microsoft Carrier. The next
Speaker 1: version is going to open up so it has two
Speaker 1: touch screens UM, sort of like a book. And then
Speaker 1: they're also working on tablet that's supposed to be out
Speaker 1: in UM, which has many of the same types of functionality,
Speaker 1: but it is supposed to be you know, lower cost
Speaker 1: of course that has to be subsidized by a lot
Speaker 1: of people, so they take donations and and uh you know,
Speaker 1: request help from other people to help bring this to
Speaker 1: other to some of these underdeveloped uh school systems in
Speaker 1: in many countries. But it's kind of a neat idea
Speaker 1: and it and it does bring down the cost, which
Speaker 1: may you know, in turn help other people in other
Speaker 1: parts of the world where they do have a little
Speaker 1: bit more money if they can get the power in
Speaker 1: the hands of the kids. That actually brings up another
Speaker 1: concern of mine, which is the classroom of the future
Speaker 1: might have lots of logos in it. It is entirely possible.
Speaker 1: The cameras yeah, well yeah, the cameras are another issue.
Speaker 1: But really the logos thing bothers me because it's the
Speaker 1: idea of making sure that whatever you're teaching the students
Speaker 1: isn't biased toward a particular sponsor. Um, that's we have
Speaker 1: to worry about. Well, we'll just have to wait and
Speaker 1: see what the classroom of the future looks like, I guess,
Speaker 1: because you know, again, it's always fun to try and
Speaker 1: be a prognosticator, but it we're almost always way wrong.
Speaker 1: We'll see more about that when we do our wrap
Speaker 1: up of our two thousand ten predictions podcast later this year.
Speaker 1: Not looking forward to that. I already know at least
Speaker 1: two of mine that I got totally and completely wrong,
Speaker 1: and I will be eating a lot of crow during
Speaker 1: that episode. But I'll still get a check mark because
Speaker 1: I'm the one who does that. So you, guys, if
Speaker 1: you have any questions or comments or topic suggestions, you
Speaker 1: can email us. Our address is tech stuff at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, and Chris and I will talk
Speaker 1: to you again really soon if you're a tech stuff
Speaker 1: and be sure to check us out on Twitter text
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Speaker 1: on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash tech Stuff h
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