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"Collaborative schooling is a model where the school collaborates with, and provides direction and support for its homes and community. It recognizes the profound impact the home has upon education and that in most of the students' homes and communities there is a vast, largely untapped 'teaching' capacity. It therefore seeks to integrate the efforts of the home and the school. The school has already recognized the opportunities the network and digital technologies provide for the school to network and work collaboratively with their homes and desired parts of their school community. This is seen in the following:"

"Scott McLeod, in his blog, Dangerously Irrelevant, recently reminded us of a line from Mission Impossible, and we must apply that challenge to all of society. "Your assignment, should you choose to accept it" is to take education truly into the 21st century. It is not enough to say that we are already living there. Technically it is the 21st century, but our schools are not there, and our challenge now is to reinvent schools for the 21st century - for the sake of our children, our students and the welfare of our world. Making such a paradigm shift is not easy. After all, when any of us thinks of education, we usually think of what we knew as school - the way it has always been. That is how parents, policy makers, politicians and many students think of school. But we have to make the paradigm shift to 21st century education. So what is 21st century education? It is bold. It breaks the mold. It is flexible, creative, challenging, and complex. It addresses a rapidly changing world filled with fantastic new problems as well as exciting new possibilities. Fortunately, there is a growing body of research supporting an increasing number of 21st century schools. We have living proof, inspiring examples to follow, in schools across the United States. These schools vary, but are united in the fundamentals of 21st century education - see Critical Attributes of 21st Century Education and Multiple Literacies for the 21st Century. Scott McLeod has issued the challenge of creating a plan to get us from "here" to "there"."

So what is the purpose of this site? It's simple. We want to share how technology with people quickly. Each video on the site will be under ten minutes. This is about the same length as my attention span and perfect for showing at the end of a staff meeting. Of course there are some sites like this out there already and we will link to similar sites on the homepage.We may end up having a few different videos on a topic e.g. Beginner's guide to Twitter and Advanced use of Twitter, but generally it will be short and simple. Anyone can upload a video, and you can do this in two ways. Either create a video and upload it to Youtube, Vimeo, Viddler etc and send me the link or email me and I'll give you access to add it to the blog yourself. It all depends on your level of WordPress knowledge really. Obviously some schools have some of these sites banned, so we will try and embed a video from one site and provide a link to others too. To make a video you will need either some screen capture software such as Camtasia or Jing or just use a webcam or video camera. You could be out and about filming, it doesn't need to be a video of a computer screen. the videos can be for 'free' software or for paid-for content, however…they can not be a sales pitch. If I deem the video to be more of an advert than a how-to guide, I will remove it. It should focus on how the software works and how it can be applied in the classroom. You may use these videos wherever you like, in a staff meeting or when working with teachers etc but please just leave us a comment to let us know that they were useful.

"One of the hardest thing with using the iPad in the classroom is finding the time to go through all of the apps in the iTunes Store listed under the education banner. We have started to list some of the apps we've found under each of the Key Learning Areas." The blog associated with this site is also a great read.

"I have become interested in the idea of 'flipping' the classroom since I first read about it on Karl Fisch's Fischalgebra blog (see resources at the end of this post). He describes how he makes eight to ten minute 'mini-lessons/lectures' for his students which they have to watch at home as 'homework'. When they come to class, he then sets them work as he would normally set homework, but now the application of the lecture (which they viewed at home before coming to class), happens in class with the teacher roaming around and offering support to those students who struggle with the work. He thus 'flips' the classroom:"

SearchTeam is a collaborative search engine. You start your research by creating a SearchSpace on a topic of interest. From within a SearchSpace, you can search the Web, videos, images, books and more. You can find and save only what you want while you are searching and throw away what you don't want or find irrelevant. You can automatically organize what you save, into folders of your choosing. Everything is automatically saved into your personal account, and you can return to your searches any time and continue from where you left before. What makes SearchTeam unique and valuable is that you can do your searches collaboratively with others you trust, such as friends, colleagues and family members. You can invite any set of people you trust to search with you from within a SearchSpace. An invitation is sent via email to those people you invite to join your search. When they enter your SearchSpace, they see exactly what you've found and saved so far. They can comment on or like your findings. They can chat with you from within the SearchSpace, and do further searches relevant to that topic and save more results into the SearchSpace. All changes made by any collaborator are relayed to all other collaborators in real-time, so everyone is instantly in synch with what others are doing. In addition to finding and saving search results, SearchTeam goes further to enable you to enrich your SearchSpace with knowledge that may come from other sources. You can upload documents to a SearchSpace to share your relevant reports / presentations etc. You can also add links to Web resources that you may have received from others via email or social networks. You can even create new posts to share your knowledge on the topic directly inside the SearchSpace. Together, as a team, you can leverage the collective effort to find good quality information, and benefit from the collective knowledge on any topic efficiently. In effect, SearchTeam is traditional Web searching + Wiki-like editi

"An interesting question was raised today during the Effective Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age event at the University of Birmingham. Organised by the Higher Education Academy, the one day conference attracted around 40-50 people from a number of universities across the UK. One of the invited speakers was Professor John Traxler (University of Wolverhampton) who spoke on how mobile technologies are extending and enhancing learning. In a 'hot off the press' publication from the HEA, which he also edited, John writes about mobile technologies, (of which he includes smart-phones, media players, games consoles, netbooks and handheld computers):"

"The reality is the power of social media is enormous. It's what students are using to make a difference, our president used to get elected, and what Egypt used to start a revolution. Educators must get over their fears lest they make themselves irrelevant and leave their students unprepared. As I shared in my post Being Safe Online Is Being Safe In Life, the lesson is this. It's not primarily having a social networking profile, or giving out personal information that puts kids at risk. What puts kids in danger is being willing to talk about sex online with strangers or having a pattern of multiple risky activities on the web like going to sex sites and chat rooms, meeting lots of people there, kind of behaving in what we call like an internet daredevil. As the post is titled, the rules for being safe online are really just the rules for being safe in life. "

Physics to Go is a collection of websites where you can learn physics on your own, through games, webcasts, and online exhibits and activities. Also included are physics on the road programs, which bring demonstration shows, and in some cases hands-on activities, to you, the audience. To find the resources you want, you can browse the collection and search our database by content topic, resource type, and grade level. We encourage your involvement in Physics To Go. Once you have registered and signed in, which requires only a username and password, you can build a personal collection, share your comments about resources already in the comPADRE collection, and suggest resources for us to add. Physics To Go is produced by the American Physical Society (APS). It is a part of comPADRE, the online collection of resources in physics and astronomy education, which itself is a part of the National Science Foundation-funded National Science Digital Library (NSDL).

Henrico County Schools System has adopted the TPACK as the Framework for professional development and 21st Century Learning in the Henrico County Schools System.  Henrico County is one of the largest and earliest districts to pioneer and implement a one-to-one initiative.  They have adopted this model as its conceptual framework to guide their progress towards the 21st Century Learning. The following video will set the stage to provide insight into how this school district uses technology for relevant and real-world learning.

"Being able to solve everyday complex problems through communication and cooporation with others are the skills that students need to learn and practice to prepare for the future. Communicating effectively and efficiently with diverse audiences and solving everyday problems are important in a society that is moving at a rapid pace in a Global Market. The ability to solve everyday complex problems is an important and necessary skill for students today. Problem based learning (PBL) provides a learning environment students require to resolve everyday problems while applying previous and learning new knowledge. Cooperative learning, as a part of PBL, allows students the opportunity to communicate ideas and knowledege. As a teacher it is also important to communicate effectively with students to guide the learning process as well as model how to question and reason through a problem. The web-enhanced 3 part seminar series is designed to review and apply the basics of PBL to allow you to create a PBL unit to use within your own classroom."

"Vanished" is a two-month-long game, which debuted the week of April 4 and stems from an initial scenario revealed in recent video messages on the site. The premise is that people living in the future have contacted us in the present, to answer a question: What event occurred between our time and theirs that led to the loss of civilization's historical records? Students must decode clues in hidden messages, and in response find and provide information about Earth's current condition, such as temperature and species data, to help people in the future deduce what wound up happening. "

Henrico County Schools System has adopted the TPACK as the Framework for professional development and 21st Century Learning in the Henrico County Schools System.  Henrico County is one of the largest and earliest districts to pioneer and implement a one-to-one initiative.  They have adopted this model as its conceptual framework to guide their progress towards the 21st Century Learning. The following video will set the stage to provide insight into how this school district uses technology for relevant and real-world learning.

This article reports on a five-year longitudinal study which investigated teachers' use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the classroom. The study, involving five teachers at primary and secondary schools in New South Wales, looked in particular at how ICT was incorporated into the participants' teaching practices over time, and why. The teachers clearly developed their use and understanding of ICT over the five years of the study; however, they did not adopt constructivist styles of practice in their use of ICT, as is often expected of teachers. The teachers largely held to teacher-centred practices, but had nevertheless incorporated ICT into their teaching in ways which reflected knowledge needed for today's society.

"So I'd like to get more specific about what I think is wrong about the Khan Academy approach by writing about things I see as wrong with the way we teach math in the US. No matter if we agree or not about Khan Academy, I'm fairly certain we can agree math learning is not going as well as we'd like (to say the least.) Too many people are convinced by the system that they "hate math", and even students who do well (meaning, can get decent test scores) are often just regurgitating stuff for the test, knowing they can safely forget it shortly afterward."

"As connection speeds increase and the ubiquity of the Internet pervades, digital content reigns. And in this era, free education has never been so accessible. The Web gives lifelong learners the tools to become autodidacts, eschewing exorbitant tuition and joining the ranks of other self-taught great thinkers in history such as Albert Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell, Paul Allen and Ernest Hemingway."

"It doesn't seem to matter what age group or demographic that I talk to, kids (and adults) everywhere are fans of Angry Birds. As I was playing around with Angry Birds (yep I'm a fan too), I started thinking about all of the learning that could be happening. I have watched a two year old tell an older sister that "you have to pull down to go up higher". I have watched as kids master this game through trial and error. Being the teacher that I am, I started dreaming up a transdisciplinary lesson with Angry Birds as the base. I happened to be writing an inquiry lesson that has students look at inventions throughout time and thought: the catapult-that is an invention that has technology and concepts that are used even today. This is one of those inspirational moments that comes when you are drifting off to sleep and has you frantically searching for paper and pen to record as fast as the ideas come. So what did I do? I got myself out of bed and went to work sketching out a super awesome plan. Here is the embedded learning that I came up with"

"Last week, I read this interesting blog post from Kevin McLaughlin Entitled "Switching off the interactive whiteboard for good". It revisited the argument that IWBs have been a huge waste of taxpayers money, and should be replaced with alternative technologies. The post generated a large number of comments, and even caused Kevin to go over his bandwidth allocation, reminding me of an earlier IWB-related post to this blog, which remains to this day my most commented upon blog post ever! Matthew Pearson then posted a robust defence of IWBs, which again provoked debate in the comments and on Twitter - including the (rather amusing) retitling of Matt's post as "Interactive Whiteboards Are Awesome, It's Just People That Suck"."

"SOME 7.5 million of the 20 million minors who used Facebook in the past year were younger than 13, and a million of them were bullied, harassed or threatened on the site, a study released yesterday said. More than five million Facebook users were 10 years old or younger, and they were allowed to use Facebook largely without parental supervision, leaving them vulnerable to threats ranging from malware to identity theft to sexual predators, the State of the Net survey by Consumer Reports said."

The Hexagon Challenge is an educational Alternate Reality Game (ARG) in which students will attempt to solve a mystery by infiltrating a secret society, answering initiation questions regarding history, science, mathematics, world languages, and the arts. They will contact and be contacted by various fictitious characters via email, telephone, and instant messenger who will provide clues that enable them to continue their quest to discover the truth about a mysterious artifact known only as the Hexagon. Up to six extra credit points will be awarded along the way, which can be applied to your course if you so choose.