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"As the workplace changes and becomes increasingly global, today's students must be educated with a 21st-century mindset. Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills are no longer just "good skills" to have; they are increasingly vital to a 21st-century education-and students should begin cultivating these skills as early as possible. Attracting students to the STEM disciplines is the first hurdle, and retaining student interest in these areas is the second. But once student interest in STEM-related fields is established, they will discover they are on a successful path not just for higher education, but for the workforce as well."

"Alejandra Quaglia The world in which my students are growing up is changing very quickly. With smartphones, video games, wikis, blogs, texting, and e-mails as an integral part of their lives, students are multitaskers, fast-paced, and highly collaborative. Over the last 10 years, I've found that I can no longer apply teaching methods that were developed before the rise of technology. My students got bored, and they didn't pay much attention to highly structured textbook lessons. As a language arts teacher in the bilingual St. Andrew's Scots School in Buenos Aires, Argentina, I was determined to change my education approach to help prepare my students for our changing world."

"Our room is a large semi-industrial studio. The students in the foreground are sitting in our Blogger's Lounge while in the distance, two students are projecting student work and leading a peer review session, and to the right a cluster of students have a chat session around a table to plan for their presentation; two more groups hang in our mini Mac lab just to the left of where this picture is cropped."

"Unfortunately, unchecked and unfocused use of technology can result in students disconnecting from the "why" of learning and from the real-time relationships that are key to their development and success. Alternatively, high-quality integration of technology has the potential to not only prepare young people for their futures, but also to enhance and expand learning and connectedness. Join our guests as they discuss specific ways you can overcome barriers to connecting digital learners and lead your school community in meaningful technology integration. You'll hear from: * Heidi Hayes Jacobs, author of Curriculum 21: Essential Education in a Changing World, founder and president of Curriculum Designers Inc., and executive director of the Curriculum Mapping Institute; * Juliette Mersiowsky, instructional designer and instructor of education and technology at Germanna Community College in Virginia; and * Ena Bentley Wood, technology integration specialist with Arlington (Va.) Public Schools. How does your school and community meaningfully connect digital learners to their peers, teachers, and communities; to rich and challenging learning; and to their futures?"

Great video that represents the essence of Project-based Learning ... If a school/district is currently traditional in that the disciplines are seen/taught separate or occasionally blended, why not have teachers from various disciplines work collegially to create one interdisciplinary PBL Unit per semester as an curriculum upgrade. The PBL Units can be housed in a separate "course" in the mapping system.

"Students increasingly are taking education into their own hands with personal technology experiences, a trend with important implications for schools"

"Teens across the country are starting to play computer games in school - and their teachers encourage them. It's called three-dimensional learning, and it has little in common with the 1980s video arcades parents remember. In North Carolina, high school students who take an elective called "Computer Applications 2" get introduced to Second Life or ReactionGrid, 3-D virtual worlds in which each player has an avatar - like a digital sock puppet that the user controls. In at least one school district, middle school students sit down at computers to play 3-D games in math and language arts classes. Quantcast "

"The creation and maintenance of the Math Wiki by our Middle Schoolers was the perfect platform to expose students to an array of design tools to create tutorials for their classmates and other math students around the world."

"Jason Ryan Dorsey, the Gen Y Guy, talks about how teachers can influence students, how students can reach success by taking control of their educational path, and his success as a New York Times Best-selling author at age 18."

David Nigadula's company Richer Picture ... Sample portfolios of students' personally selected work. Rhode Island gradulation requirement is to have K-12 personal portfolio.

"Today's kids are hardwired in a fundamentally different way than most of the adults who teach them. Every child from high school on down grew up immersed in a world of technology. None have known a world without visual computing. Many never saw a day in which broadband Net access wasn't delivered directly to one of the two or three PCs in their house. Other items within easy daily reach include a DVD, various cell phones, and game consoles."

"The Foundation and Center for Critical Thinking aim to improve education in colleges, universities and primary through secondary schools. We present publications, conferences, workshops and professional development programs, emphasizing instructional strategies, Socratic questioning, critical reading and writing, higher order thinking, assessment, research, quality enhancement, and competency standards."

I am not an artist, but I am surrounded by artists- family, friends, colleagues, and young people. A million years ago (or maybe about three decades past), I worked through each of the lessons in Betty Edwards' first edition of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and struggled to brake the inertia of my well-designed, verbal-linguistic vehicle so that I could learn to see, not read, images in my world. I followed instructions to turn a vase upside down and draw it. After an intense attempt the result was…a lopsided, upside-down vase. "

Mimi Ausland, a 12 year old girl from Bend, Oregon, wanted to help feed the hungry animals at her local animal shelter. "There are 10's of thousands of dogs and cats in animal shelters across the country, all needing to be fed a good meal." Say hello to freekibble.com and freekibblekat.com! Freekibble.com's primary mission is to provide good, healthy food to dogs and cats to those shelters who are working so hard to see that none of them go hungry - they need our help. In addition to providing free kibble to the Humane Society of Central Oregon, we've added 13 new shelters to the program (from Oregon to Florida!) and plan to expand the program to many more! Thanks to everyone for supporting freekibble by playing the trivia game - every piece of kibble counts!

Upgrading Assessments ... A group of teachers decided to upgrade/replace a final exam to embrace 21st century skills and Web 2.0 tools.