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This is a website created by Burlington High School students that are taking a class called Help Desk. In the class they run a help desk to help teachers learn and integrate current technology into classrooms. This was administration's response at Burlington to teachers needing support in incorporating web 2.0 tools into curriculum when they started a one to one device system.

This article is about students running help desks. This is becoming more common, as students are often better versed in technology than many teachers. The article identifies a relevant curriculum and discusses the dynamic shift from students supporting technology to technology supporting students. This also goes along with the Burlington High School help desk link I shared.

Lesson Capture and Technology in the service of education!

"By outfitting a mobile shipping container with desks, a 50-inch electronic board, Internet-enabled solar-powered notebooks, Samsung Galaxy tablet computers and Wi-Fi cameras, children can receive a technology-rich education without traveling far."

Brings up the interesting issue of physical space in 21st century classrooms. Should schools of the future look like the way they do now (ie. desks and chairs, albeit with iPads/laptops atop desks)? How can we match the shift in pedagogical thinking with what our physical spaces of classrooms look like? On a related note, a colleague at an international school in Mumbai showed me around their new K-12 school recently (K-12 1:1 laptop program, phenomenal tech integration program)... and they no longer have walls to demarcate classrooms across the entire school. Instead of classrooms, they have "learning pods." So, imagine you're a third grade teacher--you have four slidable "walls" that you can open up to collaborate with the adjacent third grade section for social studies. Or perhaps you notice that the fifth grade science experiment seems to align with what you're doing today so you walk over to see if they'd be up for sharing what they're doing. Their idea is that the physical space needs to reflect the same environment of open education and collaborative learning that we're promoting in our classrooms.

This is a classic example of "gee whiz - it's magic" journalism about technology in education

It's intersting to think about what sorts of journalists get handed these kinds of stories. Should this be the education beat? The technology beat? This particular journalist doesn't seem to bring expertise of either kind. (It seems like it's just a Metro desk story.) Mostly he comes across as a shill for Apple.

The financial struggles of print media have led to the substitution of "piecework" journalists, often with no credentials for the story, for qualified professionals with strong backgrounds. Poor articles are the result...

A lighthearted, but thought provoking article on how digital learning might shape future classroom design.

Background on Augmented Reality. Reading for 9/14.

David Walter Banks/Luceo for Education Week Susan Kramer watched her packed 10th grade biology class weave through rows of desks, pretending to be proteins and picking up plastic-bead "carbohydrates" and goofy "phosphate" hats as they navigated their "cell." As they went, they explained how the cell's interior system works.

CHANDLER, Ariz. - Amy Furman, a seventh-grade English teacher here, roams among 31 students sitting at their desks or in clumps on the floor. They're studying Shakespeare's "As You Like It" - but not in any traditional way. To hear from more experts, and to share your own predictions for the future of technology in the classroom, visit the Bits blog.

I noticed in the video that despite the kids all having computers, the classroom set-up seems to still be the same as the traditional one, with the teacher in front and the students all sitting at individual desks facing the teacher. Where's the group work/peer-to-peer interaction?