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On Wednesday, April 29, 2009 the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association (OPSBA) released a Discussion Paper entitled: What If? Technology in the 21st Century Classroom. As school trustees we want to engage the province in a meaningful focused discussion about classrooms of the 21st century. We want to be part of developing a provincial vision and strategies that will make all our classrooms connected and relevant. “Today’s students are leaders in the use of technology and we know they want their learning experiences in school to reflect this,” said Colleen Schenk, president of OPSBA. “Students want to take the technology they use in their daily lives and integrate it with how they learn. They want their learning clearly connected to the world beyond the school.” The Discussion Paper asks the question: “How can schools continue to be connected and relevant in the world of the 21st century?” It explores the relationship between the use of technology and the scope for increasing the quality of teaching and learning.

Today's child has a digital footprint the size of bigfoot (especially compared to us) and their online life is just as important to them as their "real" life.  How do we keep our children safe in this brave new world?  By educating them how to make the right decisions online and by modeling appropriate behavior on the internet.  Yes that means we need to exist in the virtual world so we can see, hear, and participate in the main street of the 21st century.

Brown's class was discussing some of the whaling calculations in Moby Dick. When one student asked a question involving a complex computation, three students quickly pulled out their cell phones and did the math. Brown was surprised to learn that most cell phones have a built-in calculator. She was even more surprised at how literate her students were with the many functions included in their phones. She took a quick poll and found that all her students either had a cell phone or easy access to one. In fact, students became genuinely engaged in a class discussion about phone features. This got Brown thinking about how she might incorporate this technology into learning activities.

Brown noticed that many students used text messaging to communicate, and considered how she might use cell phones in summarizing and analyzing text to help her students better understand Richard III. Effective summarizing is one of the most powerful skills students can cultivate. It provides students with tools for identifying the most important aspects of what they are learning, especially when teachers use a frame of reference (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001). Summarizing helps students identify critical information. Research shows gains in reading comprehension when students learn how to incorporate isummary framesi (series of questions designed to highlight critical passages) as a tool for summarizing (Meyer & Freedle, 1984). When students use this strategy, they are better able to understand what they are reading, identify key information, and provide a summary that helps them retain the information (Armbruster, Anderson, & Ostertag, 1987).

Text messaging is a real-world example of summarizing—to communicate information in a few words the user must identify key ideas. Brown saw that she could use a technique students had already mastered, within the context of literature study.