Placentia : Classroom of Future Unveiled by District
The Placentia Unified School District unveiled its vision of the classroom of the future Friday at Brookhaven Elementary School.
Instead of hard-backed desks, blackboards and a pointer, the classroom of the future will boast a satellite dish, a laserdisk player, a videotape recorder, light table, a video camera and video display terminals--all linked to a host computer.
Keith Larick, superintendent of the 17,000-student district, said that “everything known to man has the potential to be electronically brought into the classroom,” including books from the Library of Congress, Van Gogh pictures and movies. He said that type of classroom will give teachers more time to spend on their students.
The school district put up $50,000 for the futuristic classroom. Several corporations, including AT&T;, PacTel and the National Information Utilities Corp., donated equipment and services.
Larick said it would cost about $100,000 to outfit a classroom with the technology. Not every classroom in the district will have the equipment, he said, but each will have at least some of the new technology.
Travis Ranch School in Yorba Linda is scheduled to get the first complete high-tech classroom when the school opens next September.
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