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How do you educate a generation of students eternally distracted by the internet, cellphones and video games? Easy. You enable them by handing out free iPhones — and then integrating the gadget into your curriculum.

That’s the idea Abilene Christian University has to refresh classroom learning. Located in Texas, the private university just finished its first year of a pilot program, in which 1,000 freshman students had the choice between a free iPhone or an iPod Touch.

Think web apps to turn in homework, look up campus maps, watch lecture podcasts and check class schedules and grades. For classroom participation, there’s even polling software for Abilene students to digitally raise their hand.

When you read a book, for example, you go on a journey

There is no real empathy for the princess

There is no long-term significance to the characters

children should be making things, communicating, exploring, sharing,not running office automation tools

Our kids’ futures will require them to be: Networked–They’ll need an “outboard brain.” More collaborative–They are going to need to work closely with people to co-create information. More globally aware–Those collaborators may be anywhere in the world. Less dependent on paper–Right now, we are still paper training our kids. More active–In just about every sense of the word. Physically. Socially. Politically. Fluent in creating and consuming hypertext–Basic reading and writing skills will not suffice. More connected–To their communities, to their environments, to the world. Editors of information–Something we should have been teaching them all along but is even more important now.