Week 6: Digital Classrooms

Designing a digital classroom is something that I will most likely need to think about when designing my future classroom. Digital classrooms are classrooms that encourage collaboration. These classrooms are accessible to electronic devices such as laptops or iPads. These classrooms would have projectors or interactive whiteboards, too. In these classrooms, the teacher should not be placed in front of the entire class all day. Students should be sitting at tables that allow collaboration and not desks. The teacher should act as a coach and move throughout the classroom. I considered that I wanted students to collaborate in groups of all sizes. I also considered that I wanted students to be comfortable when working together and I wanted the classroom to feel safe and like home. That is why I included plush sofas and rugs in my classroom. I don't think that desks are necessary because they make it extremely difficult for students to work together. I also decided that I didn't want a set of 3 or 4 classroom computers becasue I wanted devices that were mobile. I want a large classroom library, too, so I included many large book shelves. I really hope to have tables available to me in my future classroom as well as a projector (ELMO) and an interactive whiteboard. I think that these things really encourage collaboartion and communication in the classroom. I would also really like to have a laptop or iPad cart for my room, but the best case scenario would be teaching in a 1:1 school district.