Abstract :
Cathleen Norris, Regents Professor, University of North Texas, Denton, TX
Elliot Soloway, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

While one can argue about the details (blue vs pink, XP vs Linux, mobile vs immobile, etc.) the future with respect to computers and children is clear: each child can and will have a powerful computer in their hands for use 24/7 in a matter of a few years. Since access has long been the barrier, it really didn’t matter much what our community was doing because the fruits of the research would never see the classroom. But now, what our community is doing does matter. Educators will look to us and ask: so, now that the children all have computers, what do we do with them? And companies, seeing opportunity, will want to provide schools with new products. Recycling drill-and-practice programs, creating more Flash-based simulations, etc is not the answer.

Again, we believe very strongly that what our research community is doing does matter. As responsible citizens we need to ask ourselves: can our research have a real impact? As hard as it is to ask, it is even harder to answer. Towards providing input on making such judgment decisions, in our talk we will identify challenges from today’s schools that need to be addressed if pervasive computing is to truly have a substantial impact on teaching and learning.