Our focus should not be on using technology to make our students easier to teach.  It should be on crafting learning experiences, within networked, digital, and information-abundant learning environments, where students are learning to teach themselves, and begin to cultivate a mutually common cultural and environmental context for for their lives.

We had another great experience this week. A few of the children who stay at school  for After Care joined me at 4:00pm to Skype a class in Jacksonville USA. The Jacksonville kids are doing a tour Around the World with 80 Schools. It was a real WOW experience for the boys as they saw and spoke to children so far away in real time. They caught a glimpse of life beyond our school or city. Most of our learners have not travelled outside of Port Elizabeth and few have access to computers or the Internet outside of school, so their general knowledge is a bit lacking. This morning when I checked my Twitter account there was a link to a video clip that Silvia had edited and uploaded for us which means the rest of the grade 3’s can view it next week. So thank you to innovative and creative teacher, Silvia Tolisano for the experience. Which brings me to another difference technology makes in education. Twitter. I would never have met Silvia without Twitter. Three little boys’ lives have been enriched by a 15 minute Skype call and hopefully it will ignite a desire to learn more. Technology in education is dynamic!

The Authentic Materials Guide, created by Donna Brinton and Andrea Wong, provides an introduction to Authentic Materials, annotated bibliographies on teaching methodology, and links to online resources for creating lessons. The Guide offers sample lesson plans, which you are welcome to adapt for your own use.

The primary story within our last forecast, the 2006 KWF/IFTF Map of Future Forces Affecting Education, was about participation. Specifically, that forecast showed how individuals and groups were taking advantage of participatory media, creating “smart networks” to form groups, and creating value through bottom-up collaboration in “grassroots economies.” Participants were beginning to exchange learning resources, form smart education mobs, and release education from traditional institutions. All this participation was converging with a host of other external forces to effect real changes in the learning enterprise.

The 2020 Forecast depicts a set of forces that are pushing us to create the future of learning as an ecosystem, in which we have yet to determine the role of education institutions as we know them today.

the mental and emotional process of learning a language not one's own is still among the most powerful forces in education.

Learn a language, and you learn a people. Learn a people, and you learn about yourself.