Perhaps because it’s the holiday season and gifts of model planes, trains and automobiles are on my mind, but visions of K­–12 learning models are dancing in my head.

A central argument in “Disrupting Class” was that technology couldn’t be a silver bullet to cure the challenges public education faces. Instead, the model in which technology is used is far more important.

Many seeking to transform schooling with technology haven’t spent nearly enough time thinking about the model of schooling itself and the tradeoffs in connecting to the traditional school architecture, however.

The dominant model in today’s K­–12 public school system is a zero-sum one in which students learn for fixed periods of time with highly variable learning outcomes.

There are many alternative learning models, from Montessori Education to Summit Learning and New Classrooms’ Teach to One.