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February 15, 2002
Trend Watch
By Susan McLester, Amy Poftak, and Kristen Kennedy
Testing vs. Technology?
What's Your Opinion?
Will the new emphasis on testing and accountability directly affect your school's or district's technology program? We'll report your responses on the Back Page in the April issue.
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The newest K-12 legislation, the No Child Left Behind Act, requires schools to implement annual reading and math assessments for all grades 3-8 students, and report test scores publicly. Schools and districts will be held strictly accountable for getting all kids up to speed (see Washington Wire).
Is the Desktop a Dinosaur?
The decades-old desktop metaphor, once an intuitive model for organizing digital information into files and folders, no longer suits the modern user, says David Gelernter, a Yale University computer science professor and chief scientist for Mirror Worlds Technologies. He argues that with increasingly expansive hard drives that can save huge amounts of data, today's computer users must wade through long lists of unrecognizable file names and lengthy pull-down menus to find what they're looking for.
Gelernter's solution is Scopeware, a chronologically based information management system centered around a diary metaphor-that what we worked on most recently is the most important to us. Scopeware users select from digital file cards that display more recent documents in the foreground while older ones recede into the digital past.
Apple Innovates (Again)
T&L was treated to Apple CEO Steve Jobs' annual revival at the January Macworld conference in San Francisco, where the redesigned iMac took center stage. Two years in the making, the new iMac ushers in a radically different look for computers. Attached to a half-sphere base via a jointed, chrome neck is a 15-inch flat-panel display that can tilt, adjust height, or swivel up to 180 degrees. (Prices start at $1,299.)
Continuing its strategy to enable people's "digital lifestyles," Apple also rolled out iPhoto software for editing, organizing, and sharing digital photos. The program, which comes on new machines and can be downloaded from Apple's Web site, features a custom publishing option that allows users to create hardbound photo albums.
Although Jobs' speech was directed primarily at the consumer market, he gave K-12 a nod when he announced that the state of Maine, which plans to equip its seventh- and eighth-grade teachers with wireless computing devices, has ordered 36,000 iBook laptops from Apple. "We look at this as one down, 49 to go," said Jobs, adding playfully: "Texas is going to be a challenge."
Buck Rogers Meets the Net
If you've got $99, you can now view online images and events-such as museum tours, sporting activities, music videos, and championship chess games-in 3-D. Brought to you by True Depth Visualization (TDV), the "easy-to-install" package includes software, a device that goes atop your monitor, and two pairs of 3-D glasses. The company's plans for education are hush-hush for now, but we're speculating on the possibilities for science dissections, sculpture study, tours of the pyramids or other monuments, and much more.
Read other articles from the February Issue
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