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But Mr. Warschauer, who supports laptop programs, said schools like Liverpool might be giving up too soon because it takes time to train teachers to use the new technology and integrate it into their classes.

“Where laptops and Internet use make a difference are in innovation, creativity, autonomy and independent research,”

the school board president

Students' comfort with the Internet means it isn't "technology" to them—it may be a way of life.

Comfort with technology does not guarantee proficiency.

They choose when to pay attention—and what to attend to.

Students are quite comfortable with group work and interactions. One of the traits of the Net Generation is the ease with which they can form and re-form working groups.

The DIY attitude extends to their creation and consumption of content on the Internet. Reputation, as well as recommendations and referrals, are of paramount importance. Curiosity, debate, and consensus are all valued traits in the blogging world. Many of today's students possess these traits.

Used effectively and thoughtfully, technology in the hands of the instructors can bring new dimensions to the class.

Other spaces are outfitted with movable tables, chairs, and whiteboards so that seating can be reconfigured to suit the activity.

Spaces that catalyze social interaction, serendipitous meetings, and impromptu conversations contribute to personal and professional growth.

The emergence of learning commons provides another example of how out-of-class time is being enriched with learning opportunities

Creating spaces for spontaneous meetings is particularly important. "Think stops" are places for individuals to stop, relax, and meet others. Often marked by a chalkboard or whiteboard, these locations encourage impromptu meetings and conversations.

When considering the technologies to support, remember that students no longer just consume information, they construct it—in multiple media formats.

Learning is a social process. Often the most memorable college experiences involve connections with others, whether students or faculty.

Connections can be virtual as well, where students work with others who are not physically colocated (through videoconferencing, for example) or who are separated by time (through asynchronous communication).

This flexibility also allows customization, enhancing not only space utilization but also convenience.

Neither learning nor socializing is one-dimensional; the physical complements the virtual, and vice versa. Since learning can occur any place and at any time, there are few—if any—locations where wireless is not valuable.

Student mobility means that students, not just the institution, define the learning space.

Although students have little fear of technology, they are not necessarily proficient with technology, information retrieval, or cognitive skills—what many call information fluency

Some IT units locate technical support staff in classroom buildings. Learning commons create one-stop centers, incorporating services from the library, IT, and the writing center. Although they may look different or have a new name, help desks are probably here to stay.

the benefits for socialization outweigh the potential harm

Unlike adults, youth are not invested in email; their primary peer-to-peer communication occurs synchronously over IM. Their use of MySpace is complementing that practice.

liminal

Regardless of what will come, youth are doing what they've always done - repurposing new mediums in order to learn about social culture.

Blogging not only allowed us access to the event; it made us part of the event. And with that, the form had indeed finally come into its own.

Though consisting of regular (and often dated) updates, the blog adds to the form of the diary by incorporating the best features of hypertext: the capacity to link to new and useful resources. But a blog is also characterized by its reflection of a personal style, and this style may be reflected in either the writing or the selection of links passed along to readers. Blogs are, in their purest form, the core of what has come to be called personal publishing.

As Rosalie Brochu, a student at St-Joseph, observes: "The impact of the blogs on my day to day life is that I write a lot more and a lot longer than the previous years. I also pay more attention when I write in my blog (especially my spelling) since I know anybody can read my posts.

They’re using blogging software, their students use blogging software, but I’m not convinced that using the software is the same as blogging. For example, does posting writing prompts for students constitute blogging? Are students blogging when they use blogging software to write to those prompts?

Blogging is about, first, reading.

We will have to accept that privacy as we have heretofore understood it may be a thing of the past:

We will have to accept that privacy as we have heretofore understood it may be a thing of the past: that people will be presented with a bargain where access to the most intimate details of their lives is traded away in return for increased convenience, and that many will accept.

We hear about RFID tags being integrated into employee ID cards, a new modular sensor grid on the architectural market, a networking scheme proposing to use the body's own electrical field to carry information - and this in the general press, not the specialist journals.

t is coming - and as yet, the people who will be most affected by it, the overwhelming majority of whom are nontechnical, nonspecialist, ordinary citizens of the developed world, barely know it even exists.

It is coming because something like it effectively became inevitable, the moment each of the tools, products and services we're interested started communicating in ones and zeroes.

But the technology we're discussing here - ambient, ubiquitous, insinuative into all the apertures everyday life affords it - will be environment-forming in a way neither of those are.

ubiquitous computing is; establish that it is a very real concern for all of us,

The decor is sterile and unstimulating; the seating arrangements rarely allow for peer-to-peer exchange; and the technology does not allow individual access to information as needed.

They cited research that links the physical attractiveness and lighting of a space to the motivation and task performance of those in the space.

Rather than appearing to be a co-learner, the faculty member is set apart. Similarly, computer labs that do not provide for multiple viewers of a monitor or libraries that do not permit talking convey a built pedagogy contrary to the ideas of social constructivism.

adult furniture over juvenile tablet arm desks.

Smaller places for debriefing, project work, discussion, and application of information become paramount. Outdoor spaces, lobby spaces, cafés, and residence halls all need to be considered in terms of how they can support learning.

t makes better sense to construct spaces capable of quick reconfiguration to support different kinds of activity—moveable tables and chairs, for example.

Human beings yearn for color, natural and task-appropriate lighting, and interesting room shapes.

As technology changes, smaller devices will probably travel with users, who will expect wireless environments, the capacity to network with other devices and display vehicles, and access to power. Rather than cumbersome rack systems and fixed ceiling-mounted projectors, learning spaces of the future will need more flexible plug-and-play capabilities.

Spaces should center on learning, not experts.

new advances in learning theory

that good space is not a luxury but a key determinant of good learning environments.