The classroom is the most vital component of any educational setting, providing the venue for teaching and learning. Amid the rapid development of information technology, the evolution of its functioning is also being expedited

Zhou, Longjun

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SIEF, Vol.23, No.1, 2024 3629     The Smart Classroom Grows Ever Smarter amid Technological Advances Longjun Zhou Division of Education and Economy, China Center, International Education Communica-tion Agency, the BASE, USA  “All children start their school careers with sparkling imaginations, fertile minds, and a willingness to take risks with what they think.” –Ken Robinson   HE CLASSROOM is the most vital component of any educational setting, providing the venue for teaching and learning. Amid the rapid development of information technology, the evolution of its functioning is also being expedited. The notion of the smart planet was advanced in IBM’s “A smarter planet: The next leadership agenda” in 2008, which laid out a vision that our planet would become smaller, flatter, more open, and more importantly, smarter as we infuse intelligence into the systems and processes that provide goods and services (Palmisano, 2008). As predict-ed, the physical and digital infrastructures of our planet have converged, and technology has been continuously embedded into the vast majority of objects we use, giving rise to concepts such as the smart city, smart healthcare, smart transportation, and smart energy grid, among others. As a result of the increase in digital awareness and application in the education world, the smart classroom emerged.  In their discussion of the role of education for a smarter planet, Rudd et al. (2009) summarized the benefits of the smart classroom as being able to provide a learning envi-ronment that improves student achievement by increasing their access to resources and tools for collaboration; a student data environment that supplies real-time information, in-sights, and strategies to teachers and faculty; open source applications, content, and stand-ards to enhance cost-effectiveness and interoperability; devices that deliver high function-ality while reducing acquisition, support, and operational costs by centralizing services; and cloud-based services and infrastructures that create a dynamic, green, and flexible desktop as well as IT environments that are built on world-class technologies. With ad-vantages like these, the smart classroom outperforms the traditional classroom by remov-ing the barriers of time and space in student learning, increasing teacher-student and inter-student in-class interactions, making teaching more efficient, and facilitating multi-dimensional student evaluation (Gao & Peng, 2023).    © 2024 Insights Publisher. All rights reserved. Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed by the Insights Publisher. T  SIEF, Vol.23, No.1, 2024 3630 The development of the smart classroom in China has been ongoing in recent decades. It can be traced back to 2000, when the multimedia classroom featured by the application of “computer plus projector” was introduced to schools at all levels. The “Three Links and Two Platforms Program” (namely, the school link to broadband-based network, class link to excellent teaching content, individual link to the online learning space; the national public educational resource and educational administration platforms), launched by the Ministry of Education in 2012, catalyzed a new wave of smart classroom construction in China. Since then, digital learning resources and technologies, such as mobile devices, smart whiteboards, and all sorts of educational app, have been widely ap-plied to classroom teaching, generating various smart classroom models including the in-teractive whiteboard classroom, 1:1 laptop classroom, and mobile tablet classroom (Wang & Li, 2019). 2015’s “Internet plus” initiative marked the establishment of the digital transformation as a national strategy in China. The digital transformation in education gives new impetus to the building of smarter learning environments that facilitate more in-depth integration of instruction and intelligent technologies (Xie, 2016). The new-generation smart classroom is distinguished by its application of cutting-edge technolo-gies, such as cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence, and deployment of mobile intelligent terminals, allowing enhanced teaching and learning experience.  Smart classroom research shows a growing trend in recent years. The Construction and Application of Smart Classrooms in China: A Literature Review Based on 93 Studies in this issue examines the status quo of the construction and application of the smart class-room in China by reviewing the published research findings and pinpointed issues arising in the said processes, as well as proposing targeted suggestions (Ren, 2024). It is hoped that this article can spark more discussions on the development of smart learning envi-ronments in the context of digital transformation of education.        References Gao, J. & Peng, S. (2023). A comparative study of smart instructional tools in artificial intelligence-assisted education. Journal of Shanghai Educational Research, 2023(3): 61-67. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16194/j.cnki.31-1059/g4.2023.015  Palmisano, S. J. (2008). A smarter planet: The next leadership agenda. IBM. November, 6:1-8. Available at: https://www.connect-world.com/PDFs/articles/2009/AP_I_2009/AP_I_2009_02.pdf  Ren, F. (2024). The construction and application of smart classrooms in China: A literature review based on 93 studies. Science Insights Education Frontiers, 23(1):3705-3724. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15354/sief.24.re385  Rudd, J., Davia, C., & Sullivan, P. (2009, September 9). Education for a smarter planet: The future of learn-ing. Available at: http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redpapers/pdfs/redp4564.pdf  Wang, L. & Li, S. (2019). The construction and application of smart learning environments: Using Henan University of Science and Technology’s “smart teaching environment” as an example. China Infor-mation Technology Education, 2019(7):109-112. Available at: https://kns.cnki.net/kcms2/article/abstract?v=YRsOmSesWzaIPmyIKIc3j2JYTx69IqUWDknxBhrNx0xFaT38e3M3qK88JmaGAq4OzsHrsKoiWGntyDmujnPHIl4-wa3NiVT86DE_ZOfiiPYyfQ6MbQewRdWXQ5JWOhiqKnZ30984mHu7giwOz0lvOTuJNqeBkao3&uniplatform=NZKPT&language=CHS  Xie, M. (2016). Smart Education under the Initiative of “Internet plus Education” (master’s thesis). Jilin University. Available at: https://kns.cnki.net/kcms2/article/abstract?v=YRsOmSesWzZvpIDv0lENVB3beTwcxUXwAJOdtNtEEHHCDdki3muVGj_RnxT_C2mbjGu879Wn6yBuFNZoorHziJNMBxChHV_8SbvrZheTtoHWKN SIEF, Vol.23, No.1, 2024 3631 D-EuyKGBGuI-hDDEWbgEC6wTGdHjPmylWrCwpUJ4sWZt0RiJR3&uniplatform=NZKPT&language=CHS      Correspondence to: Longjun Zhou Division of Education and Economy China Center International Education Communication Agency The BASE USA E-mail: 294437034@qq.com Conflict of Interests: None Doi: 10.15354/sief.24.co319 

The Smart Classroom Grows Ever Smarter amid Technological Advances

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The Smart Classroom Grows Ever Smarter amid Technological Advances

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