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The millions of stimulus dollars to be spent on modernizing classrooms won't transform learning if students can't participate in the online forums that are reshaping the economy, journalism, government and society. If government has any helpful role to play in making school Web surfing safer, it should fund the development of online safety curricula and research into effective supervision software and strategies. Requiring more filtering would throw more resources at a failed approach. Another emerging and misguided strategy is requiring certain Web sites, such as social networks, to use age verification software; evading these new obstacles won't be much harder than evading filters.

Picture a classroom where every student has their own tablet PC, with wireless internet access and videoconferencing equipment to give them access to academics, industry experts and other schools around the world. The teacher begins the lesson by drawing students’ attention to a new discussion thread that’s appeared overnight on an online forum about a text they’re studying.

You no longer need to be fluent in HTML to benefit from the digital revolution. Web 2.0 tools are closing the divide between richer and poorer regions, and between the ‘digital natives’ and ‘digital immigrants’ of the online world. Cloud computing, where resources and software are stored online, means hardware is no longer necessary, and the growth of free programmes and services lets anyone create their own wiki, blog or podcast.

The extent to which technology can transform the world, and education, is illustrated by the ‘flat classroom’ project, run by Julie Lindsay, head of information technology and e-learning at Qatar Academy in Doha, Qatar, and Vicki Davis of Westwood Schools in Camilla, Georgia, USA. The project began in 2006 as an online collaboration between the two schools, inspired by Thomas L. Friedman’s book The World is Flat. It has now sprouted two sister projects – ‘digiteen’ and ‘horizon’, which have so far involved more than 800 students and 200 educators from across the world.

ePALS Classroom Exchange - Connects users from around the globe, providing the tools and meeting places to create a worldwide community of learners. The tools include ePALS SchoolMail™ and SafeBrowser™ as well as built-in language translation designed for schools. Whether you want project ideas for your class-to-class partnership, or discussion areas where you can contribute your views on a matter, ePALS strives to make it easy for members to make meaningful connections with each other. http://www.epals.com

All effective teachers plan and plan well, creating different scenarios to cover the ways that lessons might go.

Disposable Web Page is now here! You can create a disposable web page with as little effort as a few key strokes and start right away at filling up the page with the content you want. Disposable web page offers you the convenience and freedom of getting information out there on the internet with as little hassle as can be.