Superintendents say they are attracted to the devices for two reasons: It’s user friendly and inexpensive compared to other technology like laptops.

apToTalk, a free app, turns the iPad into an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) device. Kidd said children who have a hard time with speaking can use the application to tap on a picture and the iPad will say the word.

"The Internet offers incredible opportunities to build high-level, deep thinkers if we provide the instruction that's needed."

Vicki Collet, a literacy facilitator for the Poudre School District in Larimer County, recently met with a group of middle-school teachers and posed a question: Are kids reading as much as they used to? The unanimous response: More. And yes, that includes novels, not just online fare. But the teachers saw a connection between the two — online information, including social networking, often steers students toward an attractive literary niche. Think "Harry Potter" or even "Twilight." "Then," says Collet, "they read deeply within that genre."

I’ve stopped buying the argument of digital natives versus digital immigrants as a rationale for why we boomers can’t learn to use new technologies. I have, as many baby boomers do, one of those millennial children who can walk through the door and solve a tech glitch in minutes that I’ve been struggling to address. However, eventually, I also. as can a number of boomer peers, use a combination of skills to figure those problems out, too.

Pew and the Knight Foundation in a new study has said the web has finally overtaken newspapers as the primary source of news.

The tablet played a role and was growing rapidly in adoption; about seven percent of Americans had an iPad or another tablet in January, twice as many as those who had one in September.

As educators, we must respond proactively to these real dangers children face in using social networking and read/write web resources. But unfortunately the knee-jerk reaction has been to block all social networking resources – blogs, wikis, YouTube, Flickr, and virtual worlds.

afety comes from education, not blocking. Even if social networking sites are effectively blocked in schools, most students will still get access to them

Here is what we are doing, when we are doing it, where we are doing it, and who is doing it (describing the situation) Here is why and how we are doing it (analyzing), and here is why it's important, the outcomes, relationships and impacts (evaluation