Abstract

The Classroom of The Future

Floyd T. Holt

As "The Information Age" leads to the "Age of Intelligence" and information management "Futuristic" classrooms will undoubtedly emerge. The classroom of today is loosely based on a twelfth century model but high speed "asynchronous learning", will offer an interactive, hypermedia "window on the world". Muhlhauser’s insightful "Interdisciplinary Development of an Electronic Class and Conference Room" suggests the "Architronics" of the new classroom. Learner’s workstations will promote individual as well as collaborative investigations. Teachers and students will evolve into "co-investigators" with shared responsibilities. In time, multi-site videoconferencing, video mail, high speed web research, digital cameras, laser color copiers and ultimately Virtual Reality will be commonplace. New technologies, however, are developing faster than an assessment of their worth: extensive research into the efficiency of "customized learning" is presently incomplete. It is difficult to predict the future but "The Classroom or University of Tomorrow" will be the "hallmark of higher education in the twenty-first century".