The Microsoft High School
Put in a big order for utopian-engineered peoplehole covers, Microsoft has designed a high school:
Students — who are called “learners” — 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, or “educators,” rather than using blackboards, have interactive “smart boards” that allow teachers to zoom in and out, write or draw, and even link to the Internet.
There’s no library, but an “interactive learning center” where information is all digital and a “multimedia specialist” will help out students.
Instead of a cafeteria, there’s a food court with restaurant-style seating. The performance center — where two sections rotate close to create a smaller space — replaces the typical auditorium.
-emphasis mine
Makes me think of those futuristic designs from the 60′s and 70′s of the “house of the 21st century,” trying to depect what the futuristic mid-80s might look like with all those robots and gadgets.
It’s remarkable that that the only use of the word “obsolete” is refers to Gates’ depiction of the current education system. I guess those Associated Press reporters wouldn’t want to strain themselves with actual jounalism. It’s nice and all that Gates has funded and, through his company, supported an experiment that is interesting; however, does anyone wonder how quickly a school like this in mainstream use would become obsolete or at risk to hackers? If there was even a token question about such things you might assume this was not simply the regurgitation of an interesting press release.
And the language used… why can’t the coporation spare the workplace jargon? We know hotel customers are considered “guests” and Starbucks employees are “partners”; one might argue that whether a student is also “learner” rests on several factors, including the qualty of the educator.
“Learning is not just going to school,” said Shirley Grover, the school’s energetic principal who came from the American School in Milan, Italy. “Learning is equal to life.”
[...]
“Two things are quite intriguing — the willingness of the district and Microsoft to try something different,” Lynch said. He cautioned, however, that while trying new methods may be valuable “we have to be careful because you’re messing with kids’ lives.”
What is intriguing is that the real experiment has nothing to do with technology. Good luck to the students –err, I mean, learners.