Education in Digitized Schools

Wasatch is now a few years into Digitized Education.  Are the new school plans taking that into consideration?

$5.7 million spent - so far. Details HERE     Before more 'bricks and mortar' these question needs to be answered:

• If digital learning is the future of education, is there a possibility of a need for different type of physical facility? Or do we simply replicate the past?
• Will more students be capable of learning at home, or on their on time? Is it possible lecture time is on its way out?
• Are we analyzing digitized learning to find the most efficient way to use it? Do we have results of how it is succeeding? Should we WAIT before spending $62 Million? Review this article "As districts design and remodel school buildings, they are working on a belief that classrooms should mirror the workplaces of today and the future"

New Jersey Education Department
Districts across the nation are implementing and evaluating a variety of approaches that allow students ubiquitous access to computing resources for teaching and learning. These approaches have been referred to as anywhere, anytime learning, one-to-one computing, laptop learning, or 24/7 access. In as much as the names differ, so do the possible approaches to achieving ubiquitous computing for the range of pre-K through high school students. The purchasing, funding, and dissemination strategies differ as do the computing devices, software alternatives, and network access.

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The traditional classroom with rows of desks, a schedule of 50-minute classes, and curriculum consisting of memorization of discrete facts no longer aligns well with this vision of the emerging learning landscape. Instead, public education needs to embrace spaces that are flexible and promote group and collaborative efforts; schedules that allow for engaged, project-based learning; and curriculum that encourages interdisciplinary and cross-curricular research and exploration.

Digitization of Classrooms

Classes will be self paced and conclude with interactive assessments that measure students’ ability to find and use online resources to answer probing questions.

Before then we, as teachers, need to remember that the best way to educate students today is not the same way that we learned when we were students.