on-line instruction that uses an adaptive curriculum. A big advantage to using technology in this way is teaching can be customized to the learning needs of each child. The pace of learning can be varied. Teachers can individually tailor the way that learning occurs. Perhaps the biggest reason to use adaptive instruction is to adjust learning modalities and exercises when the learning software shows the student is having difficulty with the material.

Computers with adaptive curriculum software that are deployed in the very earliest grades are probably more useful than computers used in the higher grades if only because critical thinking is so much more advanced, nuanced, creative and unpredictable in the later years.

Trends in technology offer glimpses of a bright future with a cornucopia of potential applications that can affect learning, both within and outside of a classroom setting, as well as administrative applications that can help with data acquisition and analysis.

Computer technology will be more powerful and less expensive going forward. Place-bound technology (desktop computers) will be supplanted by mobile technology (cell phones, small appliances). Technology focused on individual learning will be complemented with technology focused on community learning. These social networks will be beneficial to students interacting with other students, students interacting with teachers, and teachers interacting with other teachers. Gaming algorithms will help make learning fun.

While managed instruction strategies are ideal for the earliest grades, more freedom and flexibility in pedagogical approaches is necessary for the higher grades. This will be required if only because of the increasing complexity of critical thinking skills as children mature, and because programs will have to be adapted to the particular focus of the school. These student-centered schools will have to design academic programs to match student interests.