Move over, smart classrooms. Researchers at Durham University in England are working on your offspring — an interactive desk they hope will move education away from its “teacher-centric environment,” the university announced Wednesday.
The new desk’s screen will function somewhat like a whiteboard: An instructor can assign small sections of the desk to different students, and he or she can then send a specific task to each piece of the screen.
After studying the collaboration between teachers and students, the Technology Enhanced Learning Research Group was awarded roughly $2.1-million to develop software aimed at providing more interaction between them. The software will be tested on students from primary and secondary schools and universities over the next four years.
Some readers may recall the DigiDesk — a similar effort, presented by Microsoft at a 2007 conference, that is still in the works. —David DeBolt
