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it is more important to be able to learn than it is to be learned

If the young people of today are to thrive beyond the walls of the classroom they will need to be able to cope with a world characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.

Q. What would you say is the most promising technology for teachers? A. What technology does is it enables collecting a very rich set of information about student behaviors. So you have a digital curriculum that is designed to be highly interactive. As students interact, there's a time-stamped record of everything they're doing that lives on a server. And if you have a system that's set up to analyze that kind of information, it can provide very valuable diagnostic data for the teacher to personalize instruction. If I'm a teacher, and 70 percent of the class is benefiting from what I'm saying in class now—which is a pretty good number—then I'm losing the 15 percent at the top end who are bored, already know this stuff, and are just being warehoused. And I'm losing the 15 percent at the bottom end who have no clue what I'm talking about. That's a lot of people to lose. Now I'm able to have different instructional streams, so instead of a one-size-fits-all strategy, I've got enrichment opportunities that the top group can participate in, and I've got remedial activities that the bottom group can participate in. And I still have activities for that big middle group, and they're all happening at the same time because of this digital teaching-platform idea.

I utilized the stack feature so that I have two main stacks in Evernote, private notebooks and work related notebooks. In the work stack I have two notebooks, one for school related notes (to do lists, things to share in future meetings, substitute plans, etc.) and another that I have named lessons. In the lessons notebook, I have one note per week of the school year. Inside that I have a list of all of the classes I teach in age order. Underneath each class I write my lesson in. This is constantly updated, usually straight after a class so I know what to teach the follow week. So when I show up to a class, I can open up my computer or get out my iPhone, go to the lessons notebook, click the week we are in and I have my lesson plan outlined. I’ve been doing this for fifteen weeks now and I find this an excellent way to stay organized. I have a searchable list of all of the lessons that I have taught. I can copy and paste if a class is cancelled or if it carries on for longer than expected. I can adapt my lesson plan straight away to add what was actually taught in the lesson as opposed to what I planned to teach. I can plan weeks in advance without worrying about having to cross something out. It is the ultimate organization tool.

Last year, the state legislature overwhelmingly passed a law that requires all high school students to take some online classes to graduate, and that the students and their teachers be given laptops or tablets. The idea was to establish Idaho’s schools as a high-tech vanguard. To help pay for these programs, the state may have to shift tens of millions of dollars away from salaries for teachers and administrators. And the plan envisions a fundamental change in the role of teachers, making them less a lecturer at the front of the room and more of a guide helping students through lessons delivered on computers.

“Teachers don’t object to the use of technology,” said Sabrina Laine, vice president of the American Institutes for Research, which has studied the views of the nation’s teachers using grants from organizations like the Gates and Ford Foundations. “They object to being given a resource with strings attached, and without the needed support to use it effectively to improve student learning.”

thin walls

suppose today’s content knowledge is an offshoot of successful ongoing learning in a changing world – in which ‘learning’ means ‘learning to perform in the world.’

Problem-based learning and the case method not only challenge the conventional paradigm but suggest that K-12 education is increasingly out of touch with genuine trends for the better in education.

the point of learning is not just to know things but to be a different person – more mature, more wise, more self-disciplined, more effective, and more productive in the broadest sense. Knowledge is an indicator of educational success, not the aim

nteraction should be frequent

as in human conversation

active environment maintains student interest for a long period of time, even with difficult learning material.

Given the growing momentum of these trends, what does it mean for students, teachers, schools, and the education community at large? Collaborating and customizing. Educators are learning to work together, with their students, and with other experts in creating content, and are able to tailor it to exactly what they need. Critical thinking. Students are learning how to effectively find content and to discern reliable sources. Democratizing education. With Internet access becoming more ubiquitous, the children of the poorest people are able to get access to the same quality education as the wealthiest. Changing the textbook industry. Textbook publishers are finding ways to make themselves relevant to their digital audience. Emphasizing skills over facts. Curriculum incorporates skill-building.

Control, whether by threats or bribes, amounts to doing things to children rather than working with them. This ultimately frays relationships

The alternative to bribes and threats is to work toward creating a caring community whose members solve problems collaboratively and decide together how they want their classroom to be

grades in particular have been found to have a detrimental effect on creative thinking, long-term retention, interest in learning, and preference for challenging tasks

educators are sellers of ideas

Games have the potential to make math more relevant or engaging, Pink said, but if they lead to standardized thinking about getting to the one right answer, that can be problematic

If the only aim of a game is for points and badges, the game has little benefit for the player. For a game to be compelling and a good source of learning, it should be capable of providing rapid, robust, regular, and meaningful feedback.

Vittra doesn't award traditional grades, either—students are taught in groups according to level—so maximizing diverse teaching and learning situations is a priority. The open nature of the campus and the unusual furniture arrangements reflect the school's philosophy that "children play and learn on the basis of their needs, curiosity, and inclination." That's true for kids all over the world, so let's hope educators in other countries begin to pay attention.

Since it is through communication that we exercise our political, economic and social power, we risk contributing to the hegemonic perpetuation of class if we fail to demand equal access to newer technologies and adequately prepared teachers for all students

They can benefit their students by developing and then teaching their students to develop expertise in evaluation of search engines and critical analysis of Web site credibility. Well-prepared teachers, with a deep and broad understanding of language, linguistics, literature, rhetoric, writing, speaking, and listening, can complement those talents by studying additional semiotic systems that don’t rely solely on alphabetic texts.

Not only will teachers need to understand “fair use” policies, they are likely to need to integrate units on ethics back into the curriculum to complement those units on rhetoric.