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Their backers also say that teachers’ freedom of speech is imperiled when we penalize their out-of-school remarks. But these defenders have it backward. The truly scary restrictions on teacher speech lie inside the schoolhouse walls, not beyond them.

For years school curriculums have emphasized top-down instruction, especially for topics like math and science. Learn the rules first — the theorems, the order of operations, Newton’s laws — then make a run at the problem list at the end of the chapter. Yet recent research has found that true experts have something at least as valuable as a mastery of the rules: gut instinct, an instantaneous grasp of the type of problem they’re up against. Like the ballplayer who can “read” pitches early, or the chess master who “sees” the best move, they’ve developed a great eye.

Now, a small group of cognitive scientists is arguing that schools and students could take far more advantage of this same bottom-up ability, called perceptual learning

fully 65 percent of today’s grade-school kids may end up doing work that hasn’t been invented yet.

you can create basic PowerPoint presentations on iPhones, Androids and BlackBerrys, as long as you have Documents To Go Premium

But for those who want to create a rough draft of a presentation, or who worry about their laptop crashing on the eve of a big business meeting, Documents To Go offers the ability to cobble together a passable piece of work on the phone

Sadly, many online classes are Web-based correspondence courses where students complete worksheets and take tests. The offerings and content mirror traditional curriculums

My colleagues and I have demonstrated that online environments focused on collaboration and action, rather than reading and test-taking, can be more social, creative, substantial and personally meaningful than traditional classes

The computer’s real power lies in how it allows kids to learn and do new things in new ways unimaginable just a few years ago