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Technologies available in classrooms today range from simple tool-based applications (such as word processors) to online repositories of scientific data and primary historical documents, to handheld computers, closed-circuit television channels, and two-way distance learning classrooms. Even the cell phones that many students now carry with them can be used to learn (Prensky, 2005).

Bruce and Levin (1997), for example, look at ways in which the tools, techniques, and applications of technology can support integrated, inquiry-based learning to "engage children in exploring, thinking, reading, writing, researching, inventing, problem-solving, and experiencing the world." They developed the idea of technology as media with four different focuses: media for inquiry (such as data modeling, spreadsheets, access to online databases, access to online observatories and microscopes, and hypertext), media for communication (such as word processing, e-mail, synchronous conferencing, graphics software, simulations, and tutorials), media for construction (such as robotics, computer-aided design, and control systems), and media for expression (such as interactive video, animation software, and music composition). In a review of existing evidence of technology's impact on learning, Marshall (2002) found strong evidence that educational technology "complements what a great teacher does naturally," extending their reach and broadening their students' experience beyond the classroom. "With ever-expanding content and technology choices, from video to multimedia to the Internet," Marshall suggests "there's an unprecedented need to understand the recipe for success, which involves the learner, the teacher, the content, and the environment in which technology is used."

In examining large-scale state and national studies, as well as some innovative smaller studies on newer educational technologies, Schacter (1999) found that students with access to any of a number of technologies (such as computer assisted instruction, integrated learning systems, simulations and software that teaches higher order thinking, collaborative networked technologies, or design and programming technologies) show positive gains in achievement on researcher constructed tests, standardized tests, and national tests.

whether you are creating an environment where learning can take flight - dry kindling, tall trees - or are you creating an environment where, with a lot of damp branches, there is a lot of smoke, but little fire?

As +George Siemens suggests while talking about connectivism as an answer for the digital age, "learning is a process that occurs within nebulous environments of shifting core elements – not entirely under the control of the individual."

"The Flipped Classroom is an intentional shift of content which in turn helps move students back to the center of learning rather than the products of schooling."

We are actively transferring the responsibility and ownership of learning from the teacher to the students in a Flipped Classroom. When students have control over how they learn content, the pace of their learning, and how their learning is assessed, the learning belongs to them.  Teachers become guides to understanding rather than dispensers of facts, and students become active learners rather than receptacles of information.

The Flipped Classroom is a pedagogy-first approach that strives to meet the needs of the learners in our individual schools and communities.  It is much more an ideology than it is a specific methodology...there is no prescribed set of rules to follow or model to fit.

books—shelved in a four-floor spiral connected by gently sloping ramps—were given pride of place in the design

many assumed that physical tomes would soon go the way of the card catalog and the cassette tape.

More than a decade later, however, demand for the printed word—and its place in libraries—remain strong.

What Do We Mean by Learning?

allowing students to pursue their interests in the context of the curriculum

Teachers must be colearners with kids, expert at asking great, open-ended questions and modeling the learning process required to answer those questions. Teachers should be master learners in the classroom