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I recently followed a group of eight public high school students, aged 15 to 17, in western Massachusetts as they designed and ran their own school within a school. They represented the usual range: two were close to dropping out before they started the project, while others were honors students. They named their school the Independent Project. The students in the Independent Project are remarkable but not because they are exceptionally motivated or unusually talented. They are remarkable because they demonstrate the kinds of learning and personal growth that are possible when teenagers feel ownership of their high school experience, when they learn things that matter to them and when they learn together. In such a setting, school capitalizes on rather than thwarts the intensity and engagement that teenagers usually reserve for sports, protest or friendship.

StageofLife.com thinks the answer to this phenomenon lies not in pushing against new social media, but rather embracing it: by encouraging high school students to blog. StageofLife.com is a website for the generation growing up with social media embedded into their daily lives to meet, share stories, and learn about those in their generation and other stages of life. It is an educational resource as well, offering lesson plans and contest ideas to educators. One of the most recent creative writing lesson plans is quite innovative: its goal is to break students out of the restrictive environment of 140-character word limits while at the same time promote the use of social media in the classroom. StageofLife.com believes that blogging and other social media is an integral part of the lives of current high school students, and should be incorporated into English classes around the country.

It should raise questions when an enormous, complicated realm of life takes on the characteristics of a stock drama. In the current school-reform story, there is a reliable villain, in the form of the teachers' unions, and a familiar set of heroes, including Geoffrey Canada, of Harlem Children's Zone; Wendy Kopp, of Teach for America, the Knowledge Is Power Program; and Michele Rhee, the superintendent of schools in Washington, D.C. And there is a clear answer to the problem-charter schools.

It was once true that after the school day ended at 3:30, schools rarely, if ever, had any response to behaviors that occurred. However, now, everyone - policy makers, educators, and parents - needs to understand that education is 24/7 and any approach taken to mitigate and/or ultimately improve digital learning with students needs to start from that basic understanding of time and space. Efforts to empower must be community, parent and school-based. Read report, reflect and answer the following questions: What stage school do you think we are now? What stage school are we striving to become?

An online charity through which public school teachers can post classroom projects and choose the ones for which they choose to donate. When the project reaches its funding goal , DonorsChoose.org delivers the requested materials to the school.

The 58 page guide embedded below is intended as quick-start guide for teachers who want to try something new in the 2010-2011 school year. The guide is a available as a free download.

What are The Top Ten Social Learning and Educational Networking Competencies for K-12 Teachers?* Help students use educational networking tools to solve information problems and communicate digitally with experts, peers and instructors. Know the major Web 2.0 categories and tools that are useful in the K-12 setting. Know which tools are provided/supported by one's school. Use educational networking sites to communicate with teaching peers, students and parents. Navigate, evaluate and create professional content on networking sites. Use online networking to create, maintain and learn from a personal learning network - AND their students. Know the district networking guidelines, follow netiquette, conform to ethical standards and interact appropriately with others, especially students, online. Understand copyright, security and privacy issues on social media sites and share these understandings with students and professional colleagues. Understand the importance of identity and reputation management using social media and help students understand the long-term impact of personal information shared online. Create and follow a personal learning plan to stay informed about developing trends, tools and applications of social media. Participate in the formulation of school and district policies and guidelines related to educational networking and social learning.

I could see Heather applying here.

It's been about 10 years since Maine implemented its initiative, and while at least 33 states had experimented with one-to-one computing projects by 2007, none have reached the scope of Maine's project. As jobs and life increasingly involve computers, it's clear that in order to remain relevant to students, schools will need to adopt more technology. Here are six lessons about doing so successfully, taken from Maine's initiative.

Explorations in Computer Science for High School Educators

Wiki of a school that's using World of Warcraft for at-risk students.  There are links to lessons on the left of the page.

"Dan Meyer teaches high school math outside of Santa Cruz, CA, and explores the intersection of math instruction, multimedia, and inquiry-based learning."

Will we ever eliminate textbooks completely?