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In particular, it must support four key components of learning: active engagement, participation in groups, frequent interaction and feedback, and connection to real-world experts

The Web connects students to experts in the real world and provides numerous opportunities for expressing understanding through images, sound, and text.

When technology is effectively integrated into subject areas, teachers grow into roles of adviser, content expert, and coach.

Anytime a teacher wants to use Twitter, Voicethread, whatever the tool, bring them in (if you can), record a video, communicate somehow, the answers to these 3 questions: What are you using? Again, it sounds simple but you've got to communicate what tool you are using. How it works. Are the parents going to have access to the student work? What will they be able to see? This is all the technical stuff. The depth to which you go is up to you. If you can bring them, take the time to teach them how to use the program. Why are you using it? You've got to communicate to the parents the purpose of the use of the tool. How does it fit with the content? Explaining why you are going to use it will help you determine for yourself, the best pedagogy for the technology and how it will fit into your teaching. That, in turn, helps the parents to understand the same. How does the use of this tool enhance student learning? The most important question to answer. How will the use of this ultimately make learning better. Why will the use of this tool be good for kids? You've got to build those bridges with parents. The easiest way is to bring them in and tell them whats going on. Better yet, let the kids teach their parents.

The truth is that students who engage in risky behaviors offline are more likely to engage in risky behaviors online.

Help students build positive digital footprints. Whether they're working to raise awareness of the genocide in Darfur—a project that George Mayo's students tackled (http://stopgenocide.wikispaces.com)—or doing a good deed every day for a month and sharing about it online—an initiative that 10-year-old Laura Stockman started to honor her grandfather's life (http://twentyfivedays.wordpress.com)—today's teens and tweens can come together electronically to learn about and act on issues that matter.

Scare tactics like those my 7th grade informants described are not only ineffective at changing student behaviors (Online Safety and Technology Working Group, 2010), but they also prevent students from seeing digital footprints as potential tools for learning, finding like-minded peers, and building reputations as thoughtful contributors to meaningful digital conversations.

In a growing number of simulations, ranging from the off-the-shelf SimCity and to Muzzy Lane's Making History to MIT's experimental Revolution and Supercharged, students -- even elementary school children -- can now manipulate whole virtual systems, from cities to countries to refineries, rather than just handling manipulatives.

In Education Simulations's Real Lives, children take on the persona of a peasant farmer in Bangladesh, a Brazilian factory worker, a police officer in Nigeria, a Polish computer operator, or a lawyer in the United States, among others, experiencing those lives based on real-world statistical data. Riverdeep's School Tycoon enables kids to build a school to their liking.

The missing technological element is true one-to-one computing, in which each student has a device he or she can work on, keep, customize, and take home. For true technological advance to occur, the computers must be personal to each learner. When used properly and well for education, these computers become extensions of the students' personal self and brain.

When my 2nd grader needs to know the meaning of a word, I tell him to use my iPhone to ask Siri, an artificial intelligence program that's always happy to look it up for him. Siri, in turn, uses the free online program Wolfram Alpha, one of the most powerful data analysis tools in the world. If you enter into the Siri (or Wolfram Alpha) search box, by text or voice, "arable land in world divided by world population," in less than a second the phone or computer will find the relevant data; do the calculations; provide the answer—in square miles, acres, square feet, and hectares per person—and cite you its sources.

With YouTube, for example, students can post their ideas to the world and get rapid global feedback. With tools like Twitter and its cousins, they can follow firsthand details of events unfolding anywhere in the world, from revolutions to natural disasters. With mashups and related techniques, they can combine sophisticated data sources in powerful new ways. One school group I know of created a Second Life model of Los Angeles, using the database of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to show each plane flying in its actual spot! With Skype-like tools, students can connect with experts and peers around the world in real time.

call the process of envisioning such technically enhanced possibilities imag-u-cation. It's something every teacher and class should spend some time doing.