Whatever the configuration of a school of the future might be, technology is always a huge part of it. Ginger Howenic, a consultant and director for The Classroom of the Future Foundation, recently made a presentation in the Lake Washington (Washington) School District. She was joined by Robert Clarke, executive director of the National School Co. Both emphasized technology.
Howenic formerly headed Clear View Elementary School, a charter school, in Chula Vista, California. At the presentation, she played a video from the school in which two boys studied bee anatomy with the help of an electron microscope and two professors. At the school, Hovenic says, kindergarten students use spreadsheets to track their height and weight through sixth grade.
Clarke's company offers SONY Web TV packages to school districts for $207 per unit. The packages provide Internet access through regular televisions, assisting students whose families do not own computers.
The school days when computers meant word processing or playing games are already behind us. Yet no matter how great a part computers and other technologies play in the school of the future, it is only a means, advocates of technology say, to the greater end of enabling students to learn through interaction with various aspects of life.