The School of the Future

Microsoft has helped design a futuristic school in W. Philadelphia.

Students use smart cards to register attendance, open their digital lockers and track calories they consume, they carry laptops, not books, and the entire campus has wireless Internet access. Teachers use interactive "smart boards" -- and use a learning process modeled on Microsoft's management techniques.

I had written this post a few weeks ago about my own concerns and hopes as my daughter got ready to go to high school after being home schooled all these years.

Thank you, Microsoft - as our kids join Generation G I am ok with us giving them a technology based advantage. I can only hope every school in the US is at that standard in 2-3 years.

Microsoft has helped design a futuristic school in W. Philadelphia.

Students use smart cards to register attendance, open their digital lockers and track calories they consume, they carry laptops, not books, and the entire campus has wireless Internet access. Teachers use interactive "smart boards" -- and use a learning process modeled on Microsoft's management techniques.

I had written this post a few weeks ago about my own concerns and hopes as my daughter got ready to go to high school after being home schooled all these years.

Thank you, Microsoft - as our kids join Generation G I am ok with us giving them a technology based advantage. I can only hope every school in the US is at that standard in 2-3 years.

Comments

[James Governor]

a technology based advantage. come on vinnie- good teaching is the only advantage that really matters. do calculators make people better at math? tracking calories- interesting experiment perhaps but i dont know that's core to educational excellence. i would like to send my son to a place where they concentrate on discipline, competition and great teaching of the basic tools. i dont buy technology advantage for its own sake.

[vinnie mirchandani]

James, I wrote a couple of months ago about India deciding to back out of the $ 100 Negropinte PC effort and the minister said something similar.

See I drive automatic cars - not manual. I say if technology progresses, you leverage it. There is no reason why technology cannot drive the discipline and basic skills you mention and do so consistently rather than dependent on the skills and moods of individual teachers. And if a dynamic teacher is supplemnted with technology, then magic does happen.

Counting calories is unfortunately an issue in the US. We have a lot of overweight young people (and old ones like me!)