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I've learned from many great teachers before me that the idea of a flipped classroom is nothing new.  While the term 'flipped class' is a trendy new catch phrase, the idea of the flipped classroom model is something teachers have been practicing for years.   Defined: The flipped classroom is an instructional  method used to engage students at home through the use of video in effort to enhance the classroom experience by a more hands-on approach to learning.

In some ways, the flipped model is an improvement. Research shows that tailored tutoring is more effective than lectures for understanding, mastery, and retention. But the flipped classroom doesn't come close to preparing students for the challenges of today's world and workforce. As progressive educational activist Alfie Kohn notes, great teaching isn't just about content but motivation and empowerment: Real learning gives you the mental habits, practice, and confidence to know that, in a crisis, you can count on yourself to learn something new. That's crucial in a world where, according to the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, adults change careers (not just jobs) four to six times or where, as an Australian study predicts, 65% of today's teens will end up in careers that haven't even been invented yet. We don't need to flip the classroom. We need to make it do cartwheels.

A practical example of using Twitter in the classroom setting.  Here's the "Twitter Experiment":

"TeachMeets are an exciting model of professional development making waves in the Melbourne teaching community. A TeachMeet is an informal meeting for teachers to share and discuss their classroom practise. Another term to describe these meets is an unconference. Presenters speak for either seven or two minutes on a topic of choice that is related to classroom practice. "

"Revision is a critical piece of the writing process-and of your classroom curriculum. Now, Google Docs has partnered with Weekly Reader's Writing for Teens magazine to help you teach it in a meaningful and practical way. On this page, you will find several reproducible PDF articles from Writing magazine filled with student-friendly tips and techniques for revision. You'll also find a teacher's guide that provides you with ideas for how to use these materials with Google Docs to create innovative lesson plans about revision for your classroom."

"Meridian is an electronic journal dedicated to research and practice of Information and Communication Technology in Kindergarten through 12th grade. Meridian features research findings, practitioner articles, commentary, and book excerpts by educational researchers, technology designers, classroom teachers, and authors who wish to share and expand teaching and learning experiences with computer technologies in K-12 classrooms and beyond."

Resources for Google Docs use in the Classroom.

You may know TED, not as the guy from marketing, but as the nonprofit organization devoted to "Ideas Worth Spreading" - or as the set of global conferences, Talks, and videos that touch on the many heady, relevant issues surrounding Technology, Entertainment, and Design. As an increasingly powerful medium through which the world's experts share their hard-won knowledge, TED is also an educator. In March, the organization launched the first phase of its "TED-Ed" initiative, in practice a series of a dozen short animated YouTube videos "created for high school students and lifelong learners," in the big picture an invitation to teachers to collaborate with TED to create more effective video lessons that can be used in classrooms.

Below you will find a collaboratively written document produced in Bangkok, Thailand, at the March 28-31 teacher's meeting of EARCOS, the East Asia Regional Council of Schools.  EARCOS is an organization of 130 primary and secondary schools that primarily use English as the language of instruction.  These include AP and IB schools and a number of other private schools.  We produced the document below on a public Google doc at a workshop, which I structured on the model of an "innovation challenge" of the kind that web developers use to bring together communities to complete a project.  We hope this guide will be useful to any teacher confronting the challenges of introducing new technologies into the K-12 classroom in meaningful, inventive, productive, creative, and connected ways.

Alvaro González-Alorda has created a powerful presentation that's a must see for any educator looking to push his or her school / classroom into the future. He talks about what the leaders of today's major schools and companies have to say about what academics will look like in the future. Basically, it's decision time for schools who have been clinging to best practices from the past and not paying enough attention to future trends. In fact, Alvaro lists more than a few trends to be on the lookout for in terms of education technology. The following presentation is on Slideshare and worth spending the next minute of your day on.

I have teachers ask me frequently about app recommendations for different subject areas. "What app could I use to teach subtraction?" "What app would you recommend for my students to practice writing?" "I want to use iPads in my Science class. What app is good for that?" I usually sigh to myself, when I receive questions like that. While I am not against in suggesting apps ( which I love doing), I am not comfortable with the level of disconnect between the teacher (who knows her/his students best) and the curriculum related skills and objectives and pedagogical relationship that needs to be in place for an app to be a match to use in a classroom or with an individual learner.

The Google Educast, hosted by the Google Certified Teachers, features a weekly roundup of the newest Ed tools from Google, highlighting best practices using Google tools, and further highlighting the impact that these tools have on the classroom, schools, and school districts.

"In a recent post, Edudemic introduced us to a very intricate, color-coded visualization by Envisioning Tech on what to expect in education technology in the next 30 years or so. And these concepts are not broad generalizations- Envisioning Tech takes topics like digitized classrooms and tangible computing and segments them into practical ideas to produce a well-organized, cohesive diagram"

"A new era of personalized professional development is sweeping into schools. We've created this guide to capture the extraordinary changes in PD tools and in the cycle of learning. We look here at tools that support how teachers engage with colleagues; that help teachers learn or find support for implementing fresh strategies and approaches; and that measure how that learning impacts practice in the classroom."

"An important step in the process of effective integration of technology in education is having a pedagogical approach supported by a theoretical framework to ground your technology practices inside the classroom. Of course there are several frameworks to help you teach using technology but three approaches  in particular stand out from the rest. These are SAMR model, TPACK model, and Marslow model."

Site that collects and encourages colleges to adopt guidelines based on pedagogy best practices for online and classroom teaching.

This handbook aims to introduce educational practitioners to the concepts and contexts of digital literacy and to support them in developing their own practice aimed at fostering the components of digital literacy in classroom subject teaching and in real school settings.

The Zimmer Twins is a fun way to incorporate technology into the classroom. Watch your students expand their vocabulary, practice proper writing habits, and become junior movie producers all at the same time! Take a few minutes to explore the Zimmer Twins and so you are familiar with the site before using it with your students. Includes tips for teachers.

"Being able to solve everyday complex problems through communication and cooporation with others are the skills that students need to learn and practice to prepare for the future. Communicating effectively and efficiently with diverse audiences and solving everyday problems are important in a society that is moving at a rapid pace in a Global Market. The ability to solve everyday complex problems is an important and necessary skill for students today. Problem based learning (PBL) provides a learning environment students require to resolve everyday problems while applying previous and learning new knowledge. Cooperative learning, as a part of PBL, allows students the opportunity to communicate ideas and knowledege. As a teacher it is also important to communicate effectively with students to guide the learning process as well as model how to question and reason through a problem. The web-enhanced 3 part seminar series is designed to review and apply the basics of PBL to allow you to create a PBL unit to use within your own classroom."

"This site will provide you with links, ideas, tips, and much more for supporting the use of infographics as an assessment option in the classroom. The site has three informational pages, linked on the right. The first page provides a list of links to support my infographics presentation. The second page includes a Google Form for you to add your own ideas, practices, or links to information you have found. The third page provides contact information for me, in case you have ideas, suggestions, criticisms, witticisms, or just want to chat!"