The author of this essay opens up with a very logical, affirmative tone. A nice relief from the "distant" emotional tone that I was getting from Carr (that's just something to keep track of as I begin to write my own paper). Tai-Wai Chan opens up his essay by introducing an few assumptions to the reader: 1) In the future, unless radical technological changes occur, schools will still exist, 2) the schools of northern China will likely experience the change first because of deep Confucius roots creating an appreciation of education and educators, 3) This appreciation of education extends to the family structure of East Asian families creating such an appreciation for education parents will go hungry to ensure their children can get quality education. Chan takes an anecdotal approach to expressing his/her ideas in this thesis (anther quality in her/his writing that I liked).
Chan talks about his/her research through the years including his work on a device known as a EduClick "for enhancing teacher-student interaction during the question-and-answer section... I use a device similar to that in my Biology lecture, the iClicker and have heard of some classrooms syncing ipods and ipod like devices for a similar purpose. Some of such technology that Chan talks about future developments as ebooks... devices to replace the written word and clunky modern technology.
Chan presents the idea that the arrival of technology, it's accessibility and practicality in large scale populations (as it is now and will be in a much greater way in the foreseeable future). The first anecdotal story Chan shares with the reader is one of the experimental e-classroom, Ms Liu's class, that Ms. Liu preferred to be called an individualized classroom. That seems to be Chan's positive take on the future of schools and technology, the fusion of technology and education will create a more personalized and individual learning environment. Chan suggests that the eboard (much like a chalkboard is used today) will be phased out by ebooks (textbooks, etc much like the nook, or kindle is being used or perhaps the ipad). This new style of classroom is not going to be a "one size fits all" type of classroom.
Chan goes on to describe the possibilities the eboard might play in the classroom. Creating an environment where students are able to "teach" mini-lectures to create deeper understanding in the students. These active styles of learning as Chan calls them can fall into two categories: individual learning and group learning. With modern technology in the classrooms students will be helping student to understand when the teacher does not have the time to help. Chan's vision talks about teacher's becoming mentors to the students, again returning to an individualized education structure. Hopefully, Chan states, this new structure will help to eliminate social comparisons in the schooling system. "One day, teachers in digital classrooms will speak of classroom equity."
The inequality currently in classrooms creates "dropouts", created from feelings of "failure". This where Chan's argument becomes as follows: The major reason for this feeling of failure is that a small portion of students consistently receives the lowest scores in academic subjects, constantly weakening their confidence and interest.
Chan suggests this may be because of the need within humans, particularly important when in teachers, to be intelligently lazy, or have technology that enables them to have a relatively high productivity level with minimal effort. The interactive technology will constantly keep the students challenged to an appropriate level with adequate help. Chan talks about a classroom where older students are mentoring younger students and everyone is propelling at their own pace.
Over Chan points to a unique future, but he does have a few flaws, in my opinion. The concept of creating equality in the classroom... this does not seem possible. Humans naturally have competition, especially in learning. You can't keep some of the hierarchical structures (grades that do rank people, having math and science be the subjects that are the most pushed in education) and expect other changes to create the illusion of equality. People are different.. and should never have to pretend or be expected to be the same and as long as those differences exist the human mind, which loves to categorize things, will put these into different categories. No matter of reorganization will change this fact, it's how people think. Because I believe in not criticizing without offering a solution, perhaps the problem should be accepted and instead of trying to re-wire the human mind from something it has done since the beginning of time one should work with it. Instead of trying to create equal structures for the children to be "placed" in one should teach children how to handle the different categories... the message that difference are good is a hard lesson but should be the ultimate goal of the moral side of education (along with a few others that may be mentioned later).
Chan also seems to have a false concept of how the classrooms already operate, perhaps there are great cultural differences (this I would suspect is part of the problem). In all the classes I have been a part of if a student had a question they would likely ask others students before they approached the teacher. This is already a system in place, perhaps not taught to teachers but its going on. Also if this becomes the case one has to wonder about the quality of information that the younger kids would be getting. The reason teachers are prized in some societies is their depth of knowledge and the quality of said knowledge. Teacher have taught over and over again the same lessons, each time strengthening their understanding of the subject. If older students have to take on this responsibility how well will they have understandings of these topics, how much time will it be sacrificing from their educational pursuits.
That structure of teaching will create a high degree of integration among the grade levels, growing the sense of community, but lets face it not everyone can teach. Chan's vision is a shinning image that awaits some in the future, I just hope that others will add some organic adjustments to the image.
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