Now fully into year two of school-wide one-to-one computing (and four years since the initial pilot classes), one of the biggest challenges we face is the actual physical structure of a school and classrooms built to service students in traditional teacher-centered learning environments. As we implemented ubiquitous student connectivity, things like lack of desk space and cooperative learning areas quickly were identified as impediments to the natural emergence of student-centered learning.

As a lead teacher in the first two pilot years of the program, we tried to structure the “classroom” to encourage all participants as a community of learners. For the first two years we teamed classes, with almost 60 students and two teachers in one big space. Rows of students were replaced by 13 round tables with space for 4-5 students each, plus a couple of comfy chairs and window ledges in our “learning corner”. The environment had as much, if not more, to do with the success of the initial program as the laptops themselves.

Now others are beginning to take notice. The keyword to describe New Brunswick Education Minister Kelly Lamrock’s first two years has been “innovation”. His government has provided a $5 million Innovative Learning Fund from which teachers may apply to get resources they can use to lead innovation within their classrooms. Issues with the fund and it’s acceptance by teachers and administrators continue, but Minister Lamrock’s ideas are nonetheless exciting.

Now, he wants to look at the very nature of the physical structure of schools themselves. In yesterday’s provincial morning newspaper, after attending the recent Microsoft Schools for the Future Conference in Finland, he shared his ideas for future schools that focus on students as connected knowledge creators.

“We are reviewing how we build schools because our schools are really built to have teachers sitting at desks and teachers up lecturing,” Lamrock said. “One reason why we wanted to slow down capital construction a bit, we want to make sure we have standards that match how we want teachers to teach.”

Of course, being a politician worried about the bottom line, he’s also, rightly so, wondering just how to pay forbeing on the cutting edge. He has his ideas…

“What if we made it a centre that used technology in a way that we could actually market and export some of the technology and lecture material and educational material that our teachers are developing,”

“What if it was a centre supported by a university that could evaluate what works and what doesn’t. And what if it was a place that could actually act as a place where we try the newest methods of teaching and teachers from around the province could come and learning from what is being done.”

Some bold ideas. But just what should a “school of the future” look like? Will it be a physical building at all? I doubt if Microsoft has any of the answers for our children’s future learning. Many have been debating what School 2.0 should look like? Some even have taken a shot at a definition – a good start for the conversations.

But maybe, just maybe, the answers lie somewhere in what the kids are telling us themselves. Through their use of social networking and interest in connectivity, I think they are speaking loudly, we just don’t understand their dialect. We need to listen carefully to their conversations.

tags: technology, education, learning, whipple, school 2.0