Educational

Ubiquitous access to digital technologies is becoming an integral part of our business, home, and leisure environments, yet despite a quarter century of educational technology initiatives, ubiquitous computing remains conspicuously absent from our schools. In this chapter, we argue that simply putting more computers in schools will not solve the problem, but rather that teaching, learning, and technology integration need to be reconceptualized within a ubiquitous computing framework before the full educational possibilities inherent in digital technologies can be realized. Using examples from our laboratory classroom, we discuss how teaching needs to be reconceived more as ‘‘conducting’ ’ than ‘‘instructing’’; and how learning needs to become more the responsibility of the student and located with him or her in an expanded space and time that extends beyond the classroom; and how technology integration needs to be understood not as an add-on, device-driven enterprise, but one motivated by teaching and learning needs in which multiple technology choices are readily available to teachers and students, both within and beyond the classroom. “Digital technologies are for education as iron and steel girders, reinforced concrete, plate glass, elevators, central heating and air conditioning were for architecture. Digital technologies set in abeyance significant, long lasting limits on educational activity.