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“I don’t buy into the fact that we can get a system – and this is not a popular belief – that can do the full analysis of what students need,” he said

“I value the teaching profession and I think they need to look at the data that’s put out in front of them, the information that’s cut in different ways and use their ‘neck top computer’ [brain] to make some sort of valued judgement as to what the data is saying.

“Information can give black or white positives or negatives, but without the analytical mind of the teacher over the top understanding the student, what’s happening at home and in the classroom, they [IT] actually miss some of that analysis.”

collaboration, communication, creativity, critical skills. Can the real world really be that alliterative?

I'm all for abandoning this ‘21st centur

more academic, more test-driven, PISA obsessed and has failed to use the technology that we all use,

She developed a new style of teaching that gives students a mix of technology and small-group instruction. Online tools, most of them free, helped her customize lessons for students. She periodically checks progress through the year to adjust.

That’s not to say the transition was easy or the results perfect. Hawkins considers her classroom a work in progress. She continues to remodel it to fit the needs of the school day and her students

Another challenge: Managing the multiple online platforms, such as quizzes, learning games and online grade reporting for parents. Data on the websites she uses aren’t connected so Hawkins has to juggle them to monitor how her students are progressing

It turns out that for most major scientific concepts, kids come into the classroom — even in middle school — with a whole set of beliefs that are commonly at odds with what scientists, and their science teachers, know to be true

you had to explain what causes the change in seasons, could you? Surprisingly, studies have shown that as many as 95 percent of people — including most college graduates — hold the incorrect belief

If teachers are to help students change their incorrect beliefs, they first need to know what those are

what is important in digital literacy is that we understand and teach “how to use technology, or relate to it, in ways that are productive and meaningful” (p. 144). As she says, if we ignore technology altogether, like Samuel’s limiters, or provide students with access to technology without guidance, as do enablers, we prevent them from developing a critical understanding of the role that technology plays in our culture, ultimately leaving them with no position from which to understand emerging technology other than fear or blind acceptance

Samuel reports that she has found some telling correlations in her data between these parenting approaches and children’s online behaviors, noting that “mentors are more likely than limiters to talk with their kids about how to use technology or the Internet responsibly,” while “among school-aged kids,” it is the “children of limiters who are most likely to engage in problematic behavior: they’re twice as likely as the children of mentors to access porn, or to post rude or hostile comments online; they’re also three times as likely to go online and impersonate a classmate, peer, or adult.”