Classrooms of the Future

Classrooms of the Future Stacey Gove Week 4 Assignment EDLD 5362 Informational Systems Management   By: Stacey Gove While reading all the documents and research on the Classroom of the Future, I noticed one thing; everyone’s classroom of the future may look different, depending on their district. Faith Family Academy is a 2500 student charter school on two campuses, both having a majority of economically disadvantaged students. This makes my Classroom of the Future a different view than that of a large district like my childrens district where they attend, where they go to a magnet school. My school district doesn’t have as many resources and money as some of the larger school districts, thus my classroom of the future for my school may already be a classroom that does exist in a district that has more access to available funds. But in this paper, I will discuss what a normal Classroom of the Future would be like if there were no obstacles in their way. The Horizon report talked about 6 important topics for the future of the classrooms and the future of technology in the classrooms; Cloud Computing, Open Content, Game Based Learning, Mobiles, Learning Analytics, and Personal Learning Environments. I will be discussing each of these in regards to the Classroom of the Future. Cloud computing “refers to expandable, on demand services and tools that are served to the user via the Internet from specialized data centers and do not live on a user’s device”. (Horizons, Page 11). This is a great program to use, everything you do is said “in a cloud” which basically says it just floats around until you need it, but it is not on your hard drive or USB drive. This makes documents so much easier to access from anywhere, your home, school or even your mobile device. I see where many districts are beginning to use this way of storing information, unfortunately, mine is not one of them. Which can be a problem, when you are trying to work on something at home and if you didn’t email it to yourself or download it to a USB drive, then you can work on it until you get back to school. There is no way of pulling it up anywhere else. I would love to see my district in the future figure out a way to use a Cloud. The timeline recommendation on this is one year or less to see it work its way into the districts, if not being used now. Mobile Learning is letting students use their tablets, mobile phones, the biggest reason that mobile learning is growing is the apps that are out there. I know that in this class we use Blackboard, which is what many colleges use, some middle and high school use Edmodo, which is a way to turn in and take tests for classes as well. You can download textbooks, do online assignments all the click of a button all because of mobile learning. This timeline is one year or less in most districts. Again, my district doesn’t use either any mobile learning right now. They are looking into it, but for now, there is no mobile learning, unless a teacher keeps their website up to date which could include assignments. One of the quotes from the report was, “Access to devices is noticeably different between higher and lower income schools; 52% of teachers of upper and upper-middle income students say their students use cell phones to look up information in class, compared with 35% of teachers of the lowest income students,” (Horizons, page 19) this percentage is probably even lower in my school than in most. Learner Analytics is to “use data and analyses to adapt instruction to individual learner needs in real time” (Horizons, page 20). This means that using mobile and online learning a learner’s education can be adapted quickly to how the student is learning. Move faster if being successful in the work, or slow down if the student doesn’t understand it and needs extra help. For teachers, this “learning analytics has been crucial to gaining insights about student interaction with online texts and courseware” (Horizons, page 21), we use this knowledge in order to have a better understanding of where our kids are in their educational lifetime. Game Based Learning is where the kids are learning thru the use of video games, you say really how they can learn but it is amazing how they can learn thru games. We kind of use something like this called Istation in our school but it is not the actual TEKS being taught, it is a Reading and English and Math program that is set but it can tell where a child is and help that child better understand what they need. Everyone is on different levels and everyone moves at their own speed when on the laptops on this program. But I understand where it would be great to offer this in all areas of education and how it could change at the drop of the hat for a child’s learning level. So the children are learning, we also use Mr. Nussbaum and Spelling City and then we have a website that is designated to nothing but games on all subjects in k-5. They can get on and play interactive games while learning, the game only moves when they answer the correct questions. Open Content has timeline of 2 to 3 years. Open content is where teachers can share educational materials, education ideas, pedagogies, and experiences in education. This is a way for smaller districts to find out ways of teaching from larger districts or richer districts to poorer districts. It is a way of sharing what is out there with all educators. This is already out there, there is Teachers Pay Teachers and Share My Lesson, are just two of many ways you can share your lessons or look at others materials for teaching. This is huge for me and my district, we don’t have a set curriculum, we do have textbooks but we must go by the YAG and make up our own lessons and find our own resources to teach these students. So for me, this has been a great way to find educational resources. It may have a timeline of 2 to 3 years but for me I and several of my teacher friends are already utilizing this technology. Personal learning environments are where the students are learning. It is how they use the Web 2.0 tools in order to be at their fullest potential when learning. “Personalized learning environments—a new approach to understanding how and where education is delivered, how students learn, and the roles of teachers, parents, and the broader community in supporting students’ academic success, (AIR, page 1). PLE’s will be great for students that have access to all the technology but for my personal school my families, must decide whether or not to put food on the table or to get internet and a computer, I am sure you can pick which one they choose most of the time. All these aspects together are the future of education and the one reason I decided to get my degree in technology education to be able to watch students learn more about technology that is the wave of the future not only in education but also in the real world.   The NMC Horizon Report 2013 K-12 Edition © 2013, The New Media Consortium. http://k12.wiki.nmc.org/ For Low-Income Kids, Access to Devices Could Be the Equalizer, Tina Barseghian, March 13, 2013 http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/03/for-low-income-kids-access-to-devices-could-be-the-equalizer/ American Institute for Research. Are Personalized Learning Environments the Next Wave of K–12 Education Reform? August 2013, www.air.org/files/AIR_Personalized_Learning_Issue_Paper_2013.pdf