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Each year, hundreds of visitors--including journalists and researchers--flock to schools like San Diego's High Tech High or Napa Valley's New Tech High to get a glimpse of how teaching and learning can be re-invented and re-imagined.

Janet, This sounds amazing. I'll probably regret it but I signed up for the course which begins Jan 20. If nothing else the response you receive once you fill out the form is worth the effort!

I follow Jerry Blumengarten on Twitter and have had a few Tweet conversations with him. He has great insights about tech integration that change learning, rather than for the sake of tech integration. This page is like his version of a Diigo page for BYOD resourcs. It links to a lot of great BYOD blogs, articles, lesson examples, etc. Cybrary Man's Educational Web Sites The internet catalogue for students, teachers, administrators & parents. Over 20,000 relevant links personally selected by an educator/author with over 30 years of experience.

Interesting perspective on how SAMR, and tech integration in general, should be rolled out in professional development. It's not about using technology to teach better. It's about teaching better and using technology to amplify that great teaching.

"Doctopus" is a script that makes it easy for students to submit assignments via Google drive, and it allows you to send them feedback. This looks very useful for what we are trying to do will Google Docs!

Jake, have you tried this out at all yet? It does look like it might be useful. We have been using google docs in 6th and I've done some commenting on student work. So far I've just used the commenting tool right on a google document and it appears to the right of the students work. They can comment back to me, and if it's something to do with editing, I can click "resolved" when the issue has been addressed, and I believe the comment goes away. I'd be curious to see the advantages that using Doctopus may have over just responding right on the google doc? I do agree with the blogger, however, that it's so much easier not having to track and carrying home the papers when you know you can just access everything through google drive. It makes it easier for the students, too, which is especially great for kids with organization and management issues.

George Couros is a MUST follow on Twitter. I really like this post he wrote. It covers new v. experiences teachers, tech integration, parents, and "listening to the nay-sayer". It's a good (and quick) read.

Loved #3, the demographics of our cohort is proof of the debunking of that assumption. My colleague PB and I are two of the oldest teachers at our school and we, along with our team members, are considered leaders in tech integration. I agree it is all about mindset, not age.

I agree with you, John. I went to MassCue on Thursday and noticed that the majority of the teachers there were veteran teachers. I think that years of experience give teachers the necessary understanding and confidence it takes to create change. Veteran teachers in our school also see and value the great ideas of newer teachers and work with them to make teaching better for all students.

I noticed that the link I posted for this last time was wrong. This is the correction, My apologies for the previous error. It is worth a look if you don't mind taking a moment.

A really interesting reflective post about parents' concerns about screen time and our increasing use of screens as a way to encourage learning. What should schools do when curriculum and instruction conflicts with parenting? No easy answer here. Just posing more questions.

Interesting post, Kerry. I don't have any answers, either. And since I'm not a parent, it's hard for me to imagine how I might feel on the parent side of the issue at this time. It's interesting because in our jigsaw group discussion on chapter 6, we talked about a similar issue. Wagner points out how parents of the innovators he showcased in his book limited screen time, but also set an important distinction between screen time where kids are watching TV and playing video games, often independently, and screen time in classrooms where kids are engaged in collaborative learning projects. I certainly agree that there is a difference, but it makes sense that there should be some balance, or some limit, somewhere. In education it always seems that the pendulum swings from one extreme to the other before settling somewhere in the middle. It will be interesting to see how this issue unfolds. I'd also be curious to hear from the perspectives of the parents in our EBTL2 class, since they are also educators involved in the BYOD initiative and growing world of technology.

So, I'm a parent of a 7th grader and a 3rd grader, and obviously I'm also involved as a teacher at RMHS. We have 1:1 iPads in my LLD English classes but they stay at school. I haven't had any push-back from parents so far about assignments or screen time. I did look at this link, and I looked at the forum as well, and I think as a parent, what was a little concerning about the forum comments, was the lack of empathy and understanding from teachers towards parents. As a parent, I also have concerns about screen time, and I see that there are certainly ways that we can limit recreational screen time. We do as much as we can. But, sometimes if my 7th grader has a project, I might not know much more about it than she is able to communicate to me (sometimes this is a lot, and sometimes it is not much). There have only been a few times when this has happened, but I have tried to set some limit about how much time to spend on the project, my daughter has really fought it, because she's been concerned about not doing a good job, etc. Occasionally new technology or apps take longer for her to master than the intended time for the project or assignment, and so something simple or seemingly quick takes much longer than it should. Situations like this can turn parents off to technology if they don't understand the big picture, or if they don't have any confidence that the teacher understands the big picture. Sometimes we don't give kids enough time in class to "play around" with apps or new approaches before turning them loose to do an assignment independently, and that too, can lead to stressful situations at home where both parent and child don't know how to do the assignment. I think the point is that any change is going to make people uncomfortable, and some folks are going to react more strongly than others. The more we can communicate and explain what's happening, and let parents know that the technology and experimentation is a vital part of the learning proce