Philly's Microsoft High

The accompanying picture shows two freshmen at Philadelphia's new Microsoft High, officially known as theSchool of the Future--a $61.4 million joint venture between the Philadelphia public schools and the Microsoft Corporation. The school serves the West Philadelphia neighborhood, an area where 85% of the residents live below the federal poverty level. This Morning Edition piece (10/11/2006) highlights this "what if?" bold experiment in improving education through technology.

Musings

• "No pencils, no papers, no books. None." This is how a student describes the school, with technology, especially laptop computers, replacing traditional school materials. While this may sound cool, there are any number of possible concerns with such reliance on technology.
  
• Educational technology, as a key to our future or greatly oversold, is a topic which students themselves have a high level of expertise: for better or worse, all students have had a host of experiences (good or bad) with educational technology.