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In the fall of 1996, thirty-three students in a social studies course at California State University in Northridge were randomly divided into two groups; one taught in a traditional classroom and the other taught virtually on the Web. The teaching model wasn't changed fundamentally -- texts, lectures and exams were standardized across the two groups. Despite this, the Web-based class scored, on average, 20 percent higher. The Web class had more contact with one another and was more interested in the class work. Web class members also felt that they understood the material better and that they had greater flexibility in how they learned.ii The ultimate interactive learning environment will be the Web and the Net as a whole. It increasingly includes the vast repository of human knowledge, tools to manage this knowledge, access to people, and a growing galaxy of services, ranging from sandbox environments for preschoolers to virtual laboratories for medical students studying neural psychiatry. Today's baby will learn tomorrow about Michaelangelo by walking through the Sistine Chapel, watching him paint, and perhaps stopping for a conversation. Elementary school students will stroll on the moon. Medical students will navigate through your cardiovascular system.

Native learners prefer receiving info quickly from multiple multimedia sources while many teachers prefer slow and controlled release of info from limited sources.

Native learners prefer processing pictures, sounds and video before text while many teachers prefer to provide text before pictures, sounds and video.

Native learners prefer learning that is relevant, instantly useful and fun while many teachers prefer to teach to the curriculum guide and standardized tests.”

The Internet is a new medium for human communications, knowledge sharing and learning and a new generation of youth who have "grown up digital" learning best through collaboration and discovery. But our schools and universities teach students using approaches dating back centuries. Foremost is the lecture- the teacher focused, one way, one size fits all model where the student is isolated in the learning process.

Both in-service professional development and pre-service education must reflect the realities of quality teaching in this century.

Member organizations include:

Over 200 schools, districts, state departments of education and national and regional organizations and businesses from 40 states signed the National Action Agenda –

One of the challenges for those involved in teaching and learning is to achieve a satisfactory level of 'coordination' of their thinking.

What It Means to Be a Global Student Quick! How many ways can you combine nickels, dimes and pennies to get 20¢? That's the challenge for students in a second-grade math class at Seattle's John Stanford International School, and hands are flying up with answers. The students sit at tables of four manipulating play money. One boy shouts "10 plus 10"; a girl offers "10 plus 5 plus 5," only it sounds like this: "Ju, tasu, go, tasu, go." Down the hall, third-graders are learning to interpret charts and graphs showing how many hours of sleep people need at different ages. "¿Cuantas horas duerme un bebé?" asks the teacher Sabrina Storlie.

Suddenly, it became clear how 21st-century thinking was far more important than the mounds of content we were expected to force-feed our victims (I mean students)

but that is not what his handouts say.

It takes hard work to teach this stuff, and even harder work, by poorly motivated adolescents, to learn it.