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Picture a bus. Your students are standing in the front; most teachers (maybe even you) are in the back, hanging on to the seat straps as the bus careens down the road under the guidance of kids who have never been taught to steer and who are figuring it out as they go.

In short, for a host of reasons, we're failing to empower kids to use one of the most important technologies for learning that we've ever had. One of the biggest challenges educators face right now is figuring out how to help students create, navigate, and grow the powerful, individualized networks of learning that bloom on the Web and helping them do this effectively, ethically, and safely. The new literacy means being able to function in and leverage the potential of easy-to-create, collaborative, transparent online groups and networks, which represent a "tectonic shift" in the way we need to think about the world and our place in it (Shirky, 2008). This shift requires us to create engaged learners, not simply knowers, and to reconsider the roles of schools and educators.

As the geeky father

Google Docs is an easy-to-use online word processor, spreadsheet and presentation editor that enables you and your students to create, store and share instantly and securely, and collaborate online in real time. You can create new documents from scratch or upload existing documents, spreadsheets and presentations. There's no software to download, and all your work is stored safely online and can be accessed from any computer.

Welcome to episode five of the Technology Shopping Cart podcast where educational innovation thrives on the food of creative ideas! This week Karen Montgomery, Vicki Allen and Wesley Fryer host an interview with Kristine Molnar of PBwiki. PBwiki is one of our favorite web 2.0 sites for creating collaborative wiki documents with teachers and students. After sharing our geeks of the week, we discussed digital citizenship and the ways teachers in different places are helping students as well as educators connect 21st century skills with digital citizenship skills including Internet safety, safe online collaboration, and netiquette. It is helpful to situate conversations about Internet safety within a broader discussion of digital citizenship, and insure the constructive and positive uses of collaborative digital technologies are also highlighted.

TeachersFirst is a rich collection of lessons, units, and web resources designed to save teachers time by delivering just what they need in a practical, user-friendly, and ad-free format. We offer our own professional and classroom-ready content along with thousands of reviewed web resources, including practical ideas for classroom use and safe classroom use of Web 2.0. Busy teachers, parents, and students can find resources using our subject/grade level search, keyword search, or extensive menus.

Kid-cast.com is a website for kids to publish their own Podcasts so that other kids can listen. The idea is to make sure that there's a kid-safe Podcast out there for our young minds to hear. Contribution by kids makes it that much better, by allowing kids to listen to their peers on subjects they love!

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