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The student-teacher faces a rowdy class. “We’re not going to have that kind of behavior in here,” she says. “It’s too loud in here to move on.” The students don’t pay much attention. A boy in the back row, wearing a sleeveless T-shirt, slumps his shoulders. Another student waves his hand aimlessly. “Nah, just stretching,” he replies, when the teacher asks if he needs something. Scenes such as that aren’t uncommon in urban classrooms, but in this case there is one critical difference: These students are avatars—computer-generated characters whose movements and speech are controlled by a professional actor. Each of the five characters—all with distinct abilities, personalities, and psychological profiles, and even names like “Maria” and “Marcus”—were created as part of the TeachME initiative at the University of Central Florida, in Orlando. There, teacher-candidates can practice in a virtual classroom before ever entering a real one. Real-time classroom simulations like TeachME, supporters say, offer promise for a host of teacher-training applications. Through them, candidates could learn to work with different groups of students, or practice a discrete skill such as classroom management. Most of all, such simulations give teachers in training the ability to experiment—and make mistakes—without the worry of doing harm to an actual child’s learning. “It allows the teacher to fail in a safe environment,” said Lisa Dieker, a professor of education at the University of Central Florida and one of the designers of TeachME. “Real kids, trust me, will remember in May what you said to them in August. You can’t reset children.”

Support teachers in using technology for professional purposes. Provide teachers with support for securing interactive digital content. Encourage teachers to partner with students to integrate technology into learning. School principal must lead by example. Embed technology integration into teacher and leader evaluation. Support student acquisition and use of technology in schools. Work with students to develop responsible use policies. Secure appropriate permissions from students and their parents.

Support teachers in using technology for professional purposes. Provide teachers with support for securing interactive digital content. Encourage teachers to partner with students to integrate technology into learning. School principal must lead by example. Embed technology integration into teacher and leader evaluation. Support student acquisition and use of technology in schools. Work with students to develop responsible use policies. Secure appropriate permissions from students and their parents. As schools put these building blocks in place, they will be able to work to

Their backers also say that teachers’ freedom of speech is imperiled when we penalize their out-of-school remarks. But these defenders have it backward. The truly scary restrictions on teacher speech lie inside the schoolhouse walls, not beyond them.

curriculum to better prepare students for a working world that increasingly favored the technologically fluent

Teachers observed that students were more engaged when using the Mac, and they saw the effect as potentially transformative

teachers rarely lecture from the front of the classroom. Instead, they ask questions, then issue clear guidelines and expectations for students to meet. Either alone or in small groups, students research the topic on the Mac to come up with the information they need to answer each question