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The Mobile Learning Institute’s film series “A 21st Century Education” profiles individuals who embrace and defend fresh approaches to learning and who confront the urgent social challenges that are part of a 21st century experience. “A 21st Century Education” compiles, in short film format, the best ideas around school reform. The series is meant to start, extend, or nudge the conversation about how to make change in education happen.

One of the eighth grade social studies teachers at my middle school decided to try and engage his students even more during a  classroom video by incorporating the backchanneling tool, TodaysMeet

This was an awesome first experience with backchanneling in our middle school. In the past, when teachers used a long video (more than a few minutes in length) with students, one could easily observe students "tuning out" the video, trying hard to keep their eyes open, and generally getting *nothing* out of the experience. So not true with this experience!

The phrase “21st-century skills” is everywhere in education policy discussions these days, from faculty lounges to the highest echelons of the U.S. education system.

Broadly speaking, it refers to a push for schools to teach ­­­critical-thinking, analytical, and technology skills, in addition to the “soft skills” of creativity, collaboration, and communication that some experts argue will be in high demand as the world increasingly shifts to a global, entrepreneurial, and service-based workplace.

But now a group of researchers, historians, and policymakers from across the political spectrum are raising a red flag about the agenda as embodied by the Tucson, Ariz.-based Partnership for 21st Century Skills, or P21, the leading advocacy group for 21st-century skills. Array of Skills In the Partnership for 21st Century Skills’ vision for K-12 education, the arches of the rainbow depict outcomes, while the pools represent the resources needed to support those outcomes. But critics contend that states implementing this vision might focus too heavily on discrete skills instruction, at the expense of core content. SOURCE: Partnership for 21st Century Skills Unless states that sign on to the movement ensure that all students are also taught a body of explicit, well-sequenced content, a focus on skills will not help students develop higher-order critical-thinking abilities, they said at a panel discussion here in the nation’s capital last week.

Twitter is in effect a scalable, intelligent search engine with an amazing memory capacity. Twitter is capable of understanding natural language, dealing with ambiguity, and engaging in conversations – at least to the extent that people can The crowd might not always have the answer for your problem, but they may point you in a new direction, or even create the answer for you. What people want will be visible for all to see.

A safe, interactive website for kids.

Every year at this time we turn to the experts in our field to share their predictions on what lies ahead for the e-learning community. While our colleagues here unanimously agree the global economic downturn is the overwhelming factor coloring their forecasts, they do see a great array of opportunities and challenges in the coming 12 months. Their insights never fail to inspire further discussion and hope. Here's what our experts have to say this year:

2009 is the year when the cellphone—not the laptop—will emerge as the learning infrastructure for the developing world. Initially, those educational applications linked most closely to local economic development will predominate. Also parents will have high interest in ways these devices can foster their children's literacy. Countries will begin to see the value of subsidizing this type of e-learning, as opposed to more traditional schooling. The initial business strategy will be a disruptive technology competing with non-consumption, in keeping with Christensen's models. —Chris Dede, Harvard University, USA

During the coming slump the risk of relying on free tools and services in learning will become apparent as small start-ups offering such services fail, and as big suppliers switch off loss-making services or start charging for them. The Open Educational Resources (OER) movement will strengthen, and will face up to the "cultural" challenges of winning learning providers and teachers to use OER. Large learning providers and companies that host VLEs will make increasing and better use of the data they have about learner behavior, for example, which books they borrow, which online resources they access, how long they spend doing what. —Seb Schmoller, Chief Executive of the UK's Association for Learning Technology (ALT), UK

Everybody seems to be talking about learning 21st century skills, but what does it all mean for the classroom teacher who needs better technology in education and more resources for tomorrow's mathematics or history lesson?

Everybody seems to be talking about learning 21st century skills, but what does it all mean for the classroom teacher who needs better technology in education and more