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Why are some Educators able to get going and maintain momentum while others start strong only to fade away?

How can we continue to encourage Educators to use and embrace social media as a professional growth tool, while recognizing we will have to at some point in time reach a critical mass to keep moving forward?

And John Seely Brown, a visionary technologist and innovation expert, argues that foregrounding the Humanities is our only hope of sustaining innovation in the United States. As physicist Michio Kaku has pointed out, the only jobs left to humans in the not-so-distant future will be those that computers can’t do – the kind that demand intuition and creative thinking.

Researching What for Why? I enjoy research. I spend much of my time reading it. I also often find myself in sustained and vigorous conversations with colleagues from some of the leading research institutions from around the world...and it's time that I value very much. Indeed, the Foundation maintains a register of some of the leading research around 1-to-1 on our site....however, I am also sick and tried of the unrelenting practice of political leaders and educational policy makers who continually seek to justify inaction and limit the scope for innovation in the name of research. One only has to review the mountains of literature around the most effective ways to teach reading and the efficacy of small classes to conclude that too much educational research is based on loose assumptions, inappropriate methodologies, a blatant lack of rigor and ideological bias. Too often the funding base for educational research creates preconceptions about the outcomes, real or perceived, and the volume of research that swamps the education market seems to be more related to tenure or the attraction for doctoral topics, than a genuine need. It really is about time we took stock of the situation. For more than three decades we have seen an increasing stream of research that has targeted our use of technology in schools. What purpose has much of it served, other than to often significantly distract educators from continuing to develop innovative practice, and seek new ways to enga

How can we support innovative teachers taking risks, if every move is covered by a researcher measuring outcomes?

Why don't we start by working on the culture of our schools, and encourage those that are seeking to create a culture of innovation. Why don't we start thinking carefully about what it really means to support risk-taking in our schools; it seems the only risks people are interested in are about the evils of the net and beyond...how about we support our educational leaders who are creating new agendas for learning within their schools and seeking to genuinely leverage technology within an immersive environment to truly create worthwhile, authentic learning opportunities.

The principles on which AALF was founded and on which we have given advice for nearly 15 years still apply. At all times, our priority must be to ensure any 1:1 program provides for ALL students and can be sustained in the long-term and not just dependent on the whims and fancies of political, technological and policy leadership.