They look like something out of Star Trek, say the Durham University designers who have developed revolutionary classroom desks that will radically change teaching into the future.

The interactive multi-touch desks look and act like a large version of an Apple iPhone.

"The new desk can be both a screen and a keyboard. It can act like a multi-touch whiteboard and several students can use it at once," said Dr Liz Burd, who led the university's Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) group that developed them.

"It offers fantastic scope for participatory teaching and learning," she said.

The desks, which are networked and linked to a teachers' console, recognise multiple touches on the desktop, using infrared light. Several students will be able to work together, as the desks allow simultaneous screen contact using fingers or pens.

"You could have 100 sticky fingers and it would work fine," Dr Burd explained.

The system encourages collaboration between students and teachers, and moves away from learning centred on the teacher.

"Our system is very similar to the type of interface shown as a vision of the future in the TV series Star Trek."

Teachers will have a console allowing them to set work and monitor what each student is doing. They will be able to display examples of good work on the main smart whiteboard, while tasks can also be set for individual desks.

"Teachers will be able to look at what's going on at every screen, see whether pupils are having problems and provide support as needed, or stand back and not interfere where it's not," Dr Burd said.

The software will be used to link everything together in a fully interactive classroom system of desks and smartboards.

Dr Burd, who is director of active learning in computing at Durham, said she hoped that within 10 years every school desk would be interactive. The expense is prohibitive now because each desk is tailor made and costs £8,000, but when it goes into general manufacture the price will probably be around £1,000.

The TEL research study is the largest of its kind looking at multi-touch interactive systems for education. Durham's researchers have £1.5m to design the system and software, and test it with students from primary and secondary schools, and university students over the next four years. When the system has been tested with students of all ages, the software will be available to schools for free.

"It changes the move-to-use principle - the computer becomes part of the desk. It's a practical change that will provide a creative interface for lifelong learning for all students," said Dr Andrew Hatch from TEL.  (Source: Guardian)