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iSchool, a student led non-profit initiative, inspiring students to go bookless and paperless. These digital natives plan to bring together business and education to create a sustainable eco-system for mobile learners.

Study with 350 children, ages 8-12, from Australia, France, Germany, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States, suggests that Robots may inspire new learning and creativity possibilities.

Stanford's acclaimed d. school inspired 50 teams of graduate students to pitch projects at Aspen Ideas Festival. Spark Truck, one of the winners is a "mobile maker lab" that brings simple tech to help inspire kids to become creators.

Using Minecraft inside and outside the classroom to inspire and explore engineering ideas.

Interesting and creative ways of using Twitter in classrooms.

A video showing how Twitter is used in one classroom. It offers reactions from students who share how they benefit from the use of Twitter in classrooms. http://mlearning.wordpress.com/tag/classroom/

A nice reminder that throwing tech into a classroom solves nothing without proper teacher training. "That is why our investment in upgrading classrooms needs to focus equally on making sure teachers know how to use digital tools effectively." "the motherboard and the memory chip will never replace the passion and inspiration of a real-life teacher."

So I think this articles goes along the same lines as the one from Daniel, about "Are Kids Really Motivated by Technology?". Both bring up great points that just technology alone can't solve education--so it's interesting to think about what that means for a lot of the technology-driven initiatives we see now. Khan, digital textbooks, etc., bring in technology to the classroom, but how much do they still depend on teacher proficiency in the classroom? Are they just repackaging traditional education? What about things like Coursera or edX--does interacting with an inspirational and passionate teacher through the Web still positively affect students?

Looks like we're not the only ones questioning the virtues of technological advances

Its clear, the Common Core Standards are creating new market opportunities.

This is a 2 minute trailer for a documentary on technology to help children and adults with autism communicate and learn. It is quite inspiring, as well as a bit emotion provoking.

Technology isn't explicit in this article, but it is ever-present in regards to this author's re-thinking of the classic book report. Instead of "same old, same old", this article suggests that students should be remixing the information they gather from books and recreating it in different ways - 21st century skills!!! "Below, we present some alternatives to that classic classroom assignment, the book report. All of our ideas are inspired by The New York Times in some way, either because we've adapted an interesting format, or because we were inspired by an article, review, essay, interview or multimedia feature."

Microsoft hosted a Global Forum of educators all over the world for the annual "Partners in Learning" event. Educational leaders presented their own innovative projects that leverage technology in the classroom. Here Secretary Arnie Duncan announced that Microsoft will take over Department of Education's TEACH campaign.

Kids send camera 93,000 ft into atmosphere (based on linear discent rate.) "Want to inspire middle school and high school students to launch things into space."

I thought this was useful because it includes a lot of ways to use Twitter for education.

Great, great article - thanks! (I finally got around to reading it).

ARTLAB+ is a digital media studio that gives local teens the opportunity to become integral members of a design team. They create new visitor experiences at the Hirshhorn, taking their inspiration from its permanent collection and temporary exhibitions. ARTLAB+ designers hone crucial twenty-first century skills as they make videos, animations, wikis, games, podcasts, and more. By the end of every project session, the design team has created a unique product that enriches the museum experiences of other visitors and showcases each teen's creative growth. After-school, weekend, and weeklong ARTLAB+ workshops are held year-round to accommodate a wide variety of schedules. We welcome all teens, regardless of experience. Looks like a great way to help introduce twenty-first century skills- BB

This is really cool- combining mobile, situated learning in the real world, with creative group projects, and letting kids direct their own active, learning 'flow'.. Can this scale up to schools (or after-school programs), without access to museum artifacts and mobile devices?

"President Obama will launch the "Educate to Innovate" campaign, a nationwide effort to help reach the administration's goal of moving American students from the middle of the pack to the front in science and math achievement over the next decade. The President will announce a series of partnerships involving leading companies, universities, foundations, non-profits, and organizations representing millions of scientists, engineers and teachers that will motivate and inspire young people across the country to excel in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)."

"The way that young people learn and get inspired is totally different"

Voters in Idaho voted 2:1 to repeal a RTTT-inspired state law that would have brought 1:1 laptop programs to all high schools and required all students to take 2 online or blended courses in order to graduate from high school. The public felt that the law would have "diverted taxpayer dollars to technology corporations and marginalized teachers."

Idaho voted down several education measures including one to require participation in an online course before high school graduation and a shift to 1-to-1 computing in schools.

While the idea of online courses are not new, Shimon highlights the importance of self-learning and opens a new window for learners who don't excel in the world of grades. Inspiring stuff!

Great philanthropic effort by George Lucas to continue his contributions to innovation in education.

Thanks for posting this. While I was aware of Lucas' philanthropic efforts, I had not read his statement before- very personal and inspirational! I hope he will be patient and thoughtful about how to best utilize these additional dollars. There is no need to rush headlong into the next fad..

Using technology developed at MIT to measure emotion and stress in children with Autism and in the general population.