Design Concepts: Ultramodern Learning Tools

The Web is teeming with the unrealized ideas of both students and established designers who set out to produce astonishing renderings and prototypes for unusual products. Unfortunately, due to the lack of time, money, or technology, many of those products never progress from the planning stages to the mass market. But that doesn't mean we can't salivate over them, nevertheless.

Like them or not, children are the future. (Alas, biology says so.) So, how might we impart our great stores of knowledge on the young ones? Can our children learn, under technologically enhanced tutelage, to maybe consume less energy, or to ignore reality TV? Can we dissolve age-old differences between historically separate peoples by bestowing upon youngsters the vast informational richness of the Internet? These are questions upon which educators and parents currently and constantly dwell, and we're not going to pretend to answer them here. What we do know is that we've come across some truly amazing education concepts that make us wish we were growing up again (except without all the voice changes and new hair in strange places). We fogies had to be content with books -- but the kids of tomorrow will be positively spoiled by cutting-edge learning tech.

EduMap for Learning, by designaffairs

When we think about the future of education, it really comes down to interfaces. The basics of pedagogy will remain the same, but the way that kids come to interact with and ultimately absorb that information will be the difference between the old school (or, well, schools) and the new. The EduMap for Learning, by designaffairs, is a multi-user, interactive surface that is specific to the lesson at hand and can be rolled up and stored away. The maps respond to digital pens and objects in real-time, creating a tactile surface that's still next-gen at heart.

Mesa - Classroom of 2015, by Phelan Miller

Speaking of kid-friendly interfaces, you might as well use one to introduce your little ones to clean and beautiful design while you're at it. Designed for the middle school set, Mesa is an interactive desk with a touchscreen display at the front end. Mesa comes with grammar check, spell check, a dictionary, encyclopedia, thesaurus and math helper, to give kids instant access to learning tools without the distractions of the Internet that you might find when handing them a laptop. The double-wide desk can accommodate two-students, and will even scan pieces of paper for grammar and spelling errors.

Original Sound Track, by Ricardo Seola

Everyone knows that the schoolmarms of the past did their students a major disservice by ignoring the important role of play in learning. The Original Sound Track may look like the modular wooden train sets of our youth, but a simple toy this is not. Much like a music box, the front of the train has pronged metal teeth that act as music makers; small pins, embedded in the track, prick the pins to create tones as the train moves along. But, like those old sets, the track comes in sections, all of which are interchangeable; this allows the youngster to get his or her first experience with arranging music while having a grand ol' time with the choo-choo trains.

Feelor Colored Pencils, by Noh Ji Hun

Feelor colored pencils are intended for preschoolers with vision disabilities, but we can't see why they wouldn't work for sighted children, too. The comfort-grip, refillable pencils are subtly differentiated from one another by an extruded figure -- meant to represent that pencil's color -- on each end. Blind children can learn that the clover shape means green, and that the apple shape means red. Forming associations of abstract concepts like color with real-world examples solidifies the differences between them for children with vision problems, but can also help sighted children learn their RGBs in a new way.

Vision, by Tyson Leslie

'Guitar Hero' is all well and good for musical mongoloids, and even for those with some fret familiarity, but it doesn't really teach you the skills to play a real-life axe. Vision, by Tyson Leslie, addresses that problem with an LED-lit guitar that works in tandem with learning software. Ignoring the fact that this bad-boy looks about a century ahead of the guitar-design game, this electric six-stringer will enable bored band geeks to rouse themselves from their musical lulls by either connecting to an amp or to a computer via Bluetooth. Students can also play the instrument with included learning games (much like 'Rock Band' and its spawn), or by itself -- thanks to a rear-mounted speaker. Who needs to learn the clarinet, anyway? Rock rocks.

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