After France's Lumiere brothers invented the motion picture, what they'd do is point a camera at a proscenium and film some actors doing Shakespeare. Then, they'd take it around the countryside and show it to people for a farthing or a groat or whatever. We're recycling the content and techniques of a prior medium in the new one. Technology in the classroom clearly warrants new ways of teaching. And conferees agreed that those new ways of teaching should steer clear of traditional lecture-based instruction, and focus on doing.
Technology is poised to take up the task.
Roger Schank, director of the Institute for the Learning Sciences at Northwestern University, demoed a piece of software that teaches users about art history. Students must investigate the authenticity of a set of Rembrandt paintings. One is suspected to be a fake, and the user must learn about the techniques of the Dutch Masters to find out which one it is. Seymour Papert, a professor at MIT, presented a computerized Lego toy that teaches children about programming and probability. One group, at San Francisco's Thurgood Marshall High School, has taken freelance jobs setting up temporary networks for trade shows at nearby convention centers.