The Classroom of Tomorrow
:Tomorrow’s classrooms will provide students and teachers with a profoundly different kind of environment – a dynamic environment that will unleash their intellects and their imaginations. The new classrooms will be equipped with an array of powerful tools that will make learning far more satisfying and fulfilling for their users. This paper describes some of the differences that will distinguish tomorrow’s classrooms from those of today.
The classroom’s new tools
The principal learning tool in tomorrow’s classroom will be
a human/computer interface that we’ll call "the telereader
terminal." The telereader, a small, low-cost, and screenless
appliance, will provide each student with completely and precisely
controlled visual and aural environments, a world of sights and
sounds over which the student has full control, a focused world in
which the student can achieve complete concentration and optimum
input/output efficiency. The telereader will be a "transporter" that
can take the students anywhere in the universe they want to go.
However, the telereader will not transport the students’ bodies
to other locations, ala Star Trek, but will simply extend
their eyes and ears (and, when desired, their images and voices) to the places they wish to visit. These digital vehicles will enable the students
to visit the world’s great libraries, the studies of the
world’s great scientists and scholars, the world’s great laboratories and
observatories, other societies, other nations, other planets, the
microcosmic world, exotic locations, or any other realm they would like to visit. The telereader will also enable students to travel back in time
to make realistic and close-up observations of historical events and
the peoples of the past.
The telereader’s parts and pieces
The telereader’s components will include (1) a screenless
visual display system, (2) an audio output system, (3) a microphone,
(4) an input tablet, (5) a pair of optical disc drives (DVD or more
advanced), (6) a memory, (7) a multiprocessor, and (8) a trackball.
Optional attachments will often include a keyboard or one or more
special input/output devices for users with physical or perceptual
disabilities. Instead of a display screen, the telereader will
deliver its images directly to the user’s retinas with retinal
projectors like those described in "Tomorrow’s Screenless PC" at
http://mudoc.com/screenlesspc.htm. The telereader’s audio components will
include a pair of small acoustic domes that will surround the
user’s ears and are described in "The 3D Sound Machine," a Web
page at http://mudoc.com/3dsm.htm. The tablet will be an input-only device and is described in
"The Telereader Tablet" at http://mudoc.com/teletabl.htm. In mass production a telereader will cost only a few hundred
US dollars. Further, the telereader’s small size and low power
requirements will make it highly portable and inexpensive to
operate.
The telereader chaise
Each telereader in the classroom will be mounted on a "telereader
chaise," a comfortable and ergonomically-designed chair that can be
readily adjusted, modified, and adapted to the configuration and comfort
of each user. Ordinarily the telereader chaises will be arranged so
that each student in the room faces the teacher and the room’s
wall display, a large display that functions as the room’s
blackboard and its movie screen. The teacher – and, when
selected, the students – will "write" on the wall display with
their telereader tablets. Class members will have the option of
watching the wall display or the same images on their telereaders.
This option will allow temporarily homebound students to participate
in classroom activities. It will also allow visually-impaired
students and students with other handicaps to modify the images to
satisfy their particular needs.
For more information about the telereader see "The Telereader: Tomorrow’s Interactive Television Terminal" at http://mudoc.com/teleterm.htm.
The transformation from nonreader to superreader
The telereader will be each user’s personal HDTV, 3D theatre,
concert hall, transporter, and time machine. But, as its name
implies, the telereader’s primary function will be to help users
read text. The telereader, along with interactive movable type and
reference substructures, will enable most children and illiterate
adults to teach themselves to read and, eventually, to become
superreaders. Most children who have been playing with stories and
games with interactive movable type on telereaders at home (or in day
care centers, Head Start programs, kindergarten, or elsewhere) will
be reading by the time they enter first grade. The telereader and its
reading tools will make the teaching of reading largely a thing of
the past. The taxing task of working one-on-one with those who are
just learning to read or are having reading problems will be a
teaching burden that our new technologies will, to a large extent,
eliminate. Only those individuals with difficult perceptual or
cognitive problems will require special help in learning to read.
For information about interactive movable type, see the script for the forthcoming movie, The Coming Revolution in Writing and Reading, at http://mudoc.com/crwr/crwrscr1.htm.
The verbal empowerment of the student
Each student with a telereader will have the use of powerful word
processors. Further, the telereader will provide each student with
immediate access to reference substructures that include immense
repositories of verbal and linguistic data on DVDs or other optical
discs. Such data may include information about a given word’s
origin and history, its pronunciations, definitions, grammatical
characteristics and requirements, synonyms, antonyms, homographs,
homophones, and examples of use by many different writers. The
information about the words in the substructure may include pictures,
drawings, maps, charts, tables, computer graphics, voices, music,
sound effects, and/or other descriptive tools that could help the
reader understand any word or word combination. Dual-language
reference substructures will enable most readers to interpret or
learn to read text in languages other than their native language. And
other telereader tools will help each student avoid the common verbal
and linguistic obstacles that impede reading, obstacles described in
"How We Handicap Readers" (http://mudoc.com/handicap.htm).
The matter of mathematics
Mathematically tomorrow’s students will function at far higher
levels than today’s students. That’s because the students
will be employing powerful mathematics machines – the
multiprocessing computers that are supporting their telereaders. The
computers will provide a wide array of mathematical tools that can
solve and explain any math problem that might be considered. The
students will have access to math reference substructures comparable
to the text reference substructures that support interactive text.
The math substructures will include extensive information about the
use of mathematics in all the fields of science. The substructures
will also include extensive libraries of historical information about
those who have created math tools to solve various kinds of problems.
Mathematics has a fascinating history and comes alive when seen and
understood in its historical contexts. The resources available to
tomorrow’s students will make math work much more satisfying.
Because of lack of support many of today’s students experience
feelings of frustration and antipathy when involved in mathematical
problem solving. But, in tomorrow’s classroom, math problem
solving will be a highly interactive activity – and most students will find it fascinating, fun, and fulfilling.
The teacher’s role in the new classroom
The teacher will play a different role in the telereadered classroom.
The teacher will spend more time working with individual students,
functioning more as a consultant than as a lecturer or "choir
director." With telereaders the teacher will be able to address the
entire class as a group – selected members of the class as a
group – or just one student at a time. The teacher will have
access to a student matrix that will show what each student is
working on at any particular time. Using the student matrix, the
teacher will be able to log in to any student’s telereader to
observe the student’s efforts, with the student being informed
that the teacher has logged in and is observing his or her efforts.
When the teacher logs in, the student will be able to discuss his or
her efforts with the teacher. Further, when the teacher is not logged
in, the student will be able to signal the teacher at any time to
discuss any question or problem. In some cases, the teacher will
simply refer the student to a site or source where answers can be
found, but in others, a dialogue will occur either through their
respective telereaders or face-to-face.
The greater independence of the student
The personal learning environment provided by telereaders will
enable students to work more independently – to work at their
own paces and to pursue their own interests. Any isolation of
students will be largely of their own choosing, however. Students
will be able to leave their private domains to communicate with the
teacher – or with another student – or with an aggregation
of students with a common interest or objective. The telereader will
make it possible for many simultaneous conversations or meetings to
take place in a single classroom. So, while tomorrow’s students
will be able to find a level of solitude not found in today’s
classrooms, they will also be able to communicate and collaborate
with their classmates in intriguing new ways. Another support system
that will help the students will be the personal learning records
that will be maintained. All the work performed by a student on a telereader will be recorded. This will make it possible for the
student and/or the teacher to review and reflect on any of the
student’s past efforts as well as current activities.
The testy telereader terminal
Instead of testing the entire class as a group, most of the
testing in tomorrow’s classroom will be done individually. The
primary use of tests will be as teaching tools and for
self-evaluation, instead of as grading instruments. Students will use
tests to assess their own personal progress and their knowledge
and/or skill in any particular area. Test results will be used by the
teacher to assist and advise the students in their efforts and in
achieving their goals. The telereader’s basic tools will enable
students to test such things as their own reading abilities, visual
and aural perception abilities, and computer input/outputskills.
Special attachments to the telereader will enable users to assess
such skills as typing ability, finger and manual dexterity, eye-hand
coordination, and other motor and physical agility abilities. Tests
delivered by telereaders may sometimes be used for grading,
screening, ranking, rating, or qualification purposes, but more often they
will be used simply to demonstrate one’s knowledge, skills, or
abilities in a particular area or field.
Typical of the tests that will be commonplace in tomorrow’s classroom will be the 25 tests found in The Performance Evaluation Kit for The Mu Primer, a brief description of which is available at http://www.mudoc.com/newtitls.htm.
The classroom in the home
Most of tomorrow’s homes will have their own miniclassroom,
a room that we’ll call "the mu room." The mu room will have
telereaders, telereader chaises, and a large display screen. The mu
room will be the home’s communication, computer, entertainment, and education center. A floor plan that shows a
typical mu room can be seen at http://www.mudoc.com/hmtomrms.htm and a general description of the home of tomorrow is
available at http://www.mudoc.com/hmoftom.htm. In the future most children will learn to read in mu
rooms and will be reading before ever entering a classroom. After
learning to read – and even after starting school – the mu
room will be the place where most personal scholarship takes place.
School classrooms will merely supplement and support the learning
that takes place in the mu room. When most homes have mu rooms, the
home’s role and the school’s role in education will, to a
large extent, be reversed – as discussed on the Web page on the
home of tomorrow. The classroom will be only a temporary learning
place, but the mu room will be a place for a lifetime of learning
– learning from the ages of 2 to 102 plus.
The new classroom in the LDCs
In the advanced nations the kind of classrooms described above
will be commonplace. But, the limited resources of the less-developed
countries (LDCs) will necessitate the development of a different kind
of classroom. In the LDCs teacherless and screenless classrooms
called "information dispensaries" will be the principal providers of
literacy training and of education. Most of the children and
illiterate adults in the LDCs will learn to read in
telereader-equipped information dispensaries instead of in mu rooms
in homes or in classrooms in schools. Information dispensaries will
fill the role of public schools and public libraries in the LDCs
until they become able to develop the kind of educational and
information systems that are now in operation in the advanced
nations. The development, functions, operation, and costs of national
information dispensary systems for the LDCs are described in The
Mu Primer’s Chapter 3, which is available at http://mudoc.com/mpms3.htm.
The virtual classroom
With telereaders the members of a class will be able to
participate without being in the same location. For example, a sick
student will be able to participate in classroom activities while
resting in a bedroom or a mu room at home – or at a telereader
terminal anywhere else in the world. Indeed, with telereaders,
digital textbooks set in interactive movable type, knowledgeable
teachers, and the proper Internet connections, it will be possible to
form classes with individuals widely scattered around the world. As
in the workplace, where more and more workers will telecommute to
work, more and more students in tomorrow’s schools will
telecommute to school from wherever they happen to be. So, instead
of meeting in four-walled classrooms, telecommuting class members will be able to
meet in virtual classrooms – unbounded educational edifices in
cyberspace.
The new world of education
Education in the 21st century will differ more from 20th century
education than 20th century education differed from 15th century
education. The advent of printing presses with movable metal type in
the 15th century made possible mass literacy and public education.
In this century, the advent of telereaders with interactive movable
type, along with the Internet and related communications tools, will
make possible universal literacy and lifelong educational
opportunities for everyone.
©2004, The Mudoc Corporation (rev. 08/04/04)
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