This article states that students and teachers have an almost unlimited access to different types of technology, and information on the World Wide Web.  However, in today’s world technology is not necessarily “classroom friendly”.  Sometimes the hassle of dealing with equipment, cords, and software bugs sometimes does not allow teachers and students unlimited capability of collaborative assignments using computers and the web.  Even so, research is showing that we are learning from the problems, and in “tomorrow’s schools” technology advances are definitely playing a role.

 In the future, technology can provide opportunities for real life learning.  An example would be a Math pad.  This is smaller and lighter than the devices we have today, and it is capable of stylus input, display, mathematical calculations, and graphing.  Such a device might feature short-range radio communication that would link one hand held device to another.  This would allow students and teachers to work collaboratively to research, record, and analyze data.
Connecting to the web would also be included in the process allowing students the ability to see how another person may be searching for information on a topic.  The possibilities of the type of research are endless.
 

 After reading the article, I was excited.  This makes me feel as if learning is going to take on a new era in the 21st century.  If students were able to work together with the teacher to research topics on and off the web, with the ability to record and analyze data, the amount of relevant information they could be learning for the use in the real world would be amazing.  When more than one person can get together in a group and discuss ideas, it seems the research they are doing takes on a new face.

 This article also mentioned some technological programs that I was not aware of and that I might find useful as my career in teaching advances.  For example, Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) program helps elementary and secondary school students learn science by involving them in real life science applications such as soil and water quality.  Secondly, Hands-On Universe gives students the opportunity to use image-processing software to investigate images from a network of automated telescopes.  When and think about these types of programs and the advances that classroom technology is taking, I can only hope I will be a part of the next generation of learning.