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Society confronts educational change in an odd, entirely counter intuitive manner. On one hand we acknowledge that education can and should do a better job of preparing our children for the future while on the other we cling to the models of education that we knew. This led educational writer Will Richardson to state that 'the biggest barrier to rethinking schooling in response to the changing worldscape is our own experience in schools'. Our understandings of what school should be like and our imaginings of what school could be like are so clouded by this experience that even the best evidence for change is overlooked or mistrusted.

With the newest USDA changes to school lunch menus across America, will students finally have a healthy lunch program? And if these changes are activated how will schools encourage students to change their poor eating habits?

Can a bunch of school kids really change the world in five minutes a day? This class of primary school kids demonstrate over the course of a week that it only takes five minutes a day to make a positive impact-from recycling to planting fruit and veg and telling jokes. You can find out more and contact the filmmaker, Tristan Bancks, at www.tristanbancks.com This film was made for Film Australia's Change the World in 5 Minutes project. See more films and upload your own ideas for Changing the World @ http://programs.sbs.com.au/changetheworld

You do not need to look very hard to find a report claiming that schools and education needs to change. But real change needs more than teacher blaming and increased accountability. What will drive real change is . . .

Once schools make the commitment to move to one to one, lots of questions arise about how to make that transformation. Within the past week, I have received multiple emails requesting my recommendations about what steps to take when moving to one to one. First of all, I must say I am extremely excited to receive these requests. Currently, less than ten percent of schools nationwide have one to one, and I think that is a sad statistic. Leaders of one to one schools and those currently making that transition are the trailblazers in education today. Their work has the potential to transform education in a way that hasn't happened in the past 100 years. My recommendations around implementation of one to one focus around two major themes. The first theme is addressing all of the issues that arise with such a major change. The second theme deals with the...

The potential for reliably predicting the outcome of any change effort is surely difficult if not even impossible once the number of influences becomes large. Acknowledging the complexity that exists and seeing the potential for growth, creativity and innovation that can exist within an organisation at 'the edge of chaos' are useful strategies as schools face a period of unprecedented change. 

The frog in the pot of boiling water in An Inconvenient Truth is a cinematic moment that has the desired effect. It is one of the moments from the film that the audience remembers long after the credits roll. I have often thought about how this metaphor applies to change and particularly the way that change operates in schools.

For schools the concept of a learning organisation should make perfect sense, after all learning is our core business, or it should be. Perhaps that almost three decades after Peter Senge identified the importance of learning within organisations the idea is only now gaining traction in schools tells us something about the approach taken to learning and teaching within schools. With an increased focus on the development of professional learning communities as a response to the complex challenges that emerge from a rapidly changing society, it is worth looking at what a learning organisation requires for success.

Career Cruising is an internet-based career exploration and planning tool used by students in grades 7-12. Established in 1997, Career Cruising is currently used by over eight thousand institutions across North America, including schools, employment agencies, libraries, colleges and universities This tool supports career education courses and programs at the senior high level (grades 10-12) as well as the Life Learning Choices strand in the intermediate (grades 7-9) health curriculum. It assists students in the collection of data for their personal portfolio. Student logins are generated at Career Cruising, and students have the option to change their passwords to secure their own personal information. As students plan, develop, and document their pathway to a successful career, they are able to use Career Cruising to explore careers that are related to their skills and interests. For further information, please contact the Board Career Education Consultants. Western School Board at 438-4017 Eastern School District at 368-6963

The consistent message is that we are preparing our students for success in a world very different to that which was the norm only a short time ago. The implications of this change are immense and require a shift in our thinking about what matters most in our classrooms. Such is the pace of change that within any school there will be multiple generations who normalise different perspective on technology and its place in their lives. What becomes clear that the skills we most need within our schools at every level are those which are critical for individuals to be empowered, self-navigating learners. But what does this mean in practical terms?

Taken simplistically there could be a feeling that due to the complexity of large systems change becomes an uncontrollable beast with a mind of its own. 

The role of the teacher is slowly but surely changing and with this come new challenges. Change becomes inevitable and processes for managing this and capitalising on the opportunities it brings becomes paramount within organisations. It is perhaps not surprising that educational institutions may evolve to become what are termed 'Learning Organisations' or 'Professional Learning Communities' within which there is a focus on the application of the principles of learning to manage change and explore new opportunities. 

This unavoidable and irreducible complexity means that schools are challenging place to study, to understand and to manage change within. Even for the teacher who spends everyday inside the school there is so much going on that unguided observations and the plans based upon them come with no guarantee of success. - We need a lens and a lever to manage this complexity. -  Such a lens is offered by the 'cultural forces'.

The foundational stability of schools might be our greatest strength.Getting the fundamentals right and protecting them during change efforts is essential. 

 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. The children of todays Kindergarten will enter the workplace in the fourth-decade of the 21st Century. We debate the merits of teaching 21st Century Skills and what they might be while teaching children who have lived their entire lives in that very century. The challenge is how will schools and individual teachers respond to this drive for urgent change.

"Educational leaders have to have the courage to reinvent our schools for real this time. And our teachers must be teachers of children as well as teachers of their subject area. This means possessing pedagogical knowledge -- the tools in the tool belt to design a lesson for the students of the present and the problems of the future. "

What will tomorrow bring? What will life be like in 2028 as our youngest students of today exit school? What occupations will they enter and what challenges will they face? These are not new questions but with the rate of change in society and the pace at which technology evolves they are questions without clear answers. How then do schools prepare students for this uncertain tomorrow? What shall we teach our children today such that are well prepared for the challenges and opportunities of their tomorrow?

These two powerful questions framed a recent webinar presented by Professor David Perkins of Harvard Graduate School of Education's Project Zero. Answering these questions and helping teachers find meaningful and contextually relevant answers to these questions has been a focus of Perkins' work, especially in recent times. His book "Future Wise: Educating Our Children for a Changing World" introduced us to the notion of lifeworthy learning or that which is "likely to matter in the lives our learners are likely to live". This is a powerful notion and one that has the potential to change not only what we teach but also how we go about teaching what we do.

Rust identified four key trends that school district chief technology officers (CTOs) should be aware of: accountability, the changing nature of learners, the accessibility of technology, and the "internal and external demands" that are now placed on ed-tech executives.