What Tech Should Be In a Fifth-Grade Classroom?

theodp writes "While going about my day,' writes Slate's Linda Perlstein, 'I sometimes engage in a mental exercise I call the Laura Ingalls Test. What would Laura Ingalls, prairie girl, make of this freeway interchange? This Target? This cell phone? Some modern institutions would probably be unrecognizable at first glance to a visitor from the 19th century: a hospital, an Apple store, a yoga studio. But take Laura Ingalls to the nearest fifth-grade classroom, and she wouldn't hesitate to say, "Oh! A school!"' Very little about the American classroom has changed since Laura Ingalls sat in one more than a century ago, laments Perlstein, echoing a similar rant against old-school schooling by SAS CEO Jim Goodnight. Slate has launched a crowdsourcing project on the 21st-century classroom, asking readers to design a fifth-grade classroom that takes advantage of all that we have learned since Laura Ingalls' day about teaching, learning, and technology."

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Re:Most important point in TFA

[Runaway1956]

A word about the groundbreaking photo-op ceremonies. I've worked a lot of construction. I have nothing but contempt for the office prissies who come out to the job site, with their little golden shovels, and "break the ground". If they want a photo session, let them gather at a local ballroom with a stupid model, and let the camera zoom in on the finer details in the model. Or, just drawings. Few things look stupider than a bunch of office pukes who don't even know how to hold a shovel, trying to look convincing while poking their spades into some topsoil that was turned up by a backhoe. The least they could do is to borrow some old boots and jean, instead of prissing around the job site in spit shined $300 shoes.