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Recent reports from the Pew Internet and American Life Project show that 93 percent of youth ages 12 to 17 go online. Of those kids, 55 percent use social-networking sites (like Facebook and MySpace), and 64 percent are creating their own original content (such as blogs and wikis). Unlike watching television, using the Internet allows young people to take an active role; this move from consumption to participation affects the way they construct knowledge, develop their identity, and communicate with others. "Technology, from my perspective, has created an opportunity for students to use new digital-media resources to express themselves in ways that earlier generations could never have imagined,

Students today "more quickly tune out a teacher or someone who doesn't relate," she adds.

This is something Jim Gates hears a lot. As a coach for Pennsylvania's Classrooms for the Future project, he works to make technology available to students and teachers. He's also got a blog of his own called TipLine. "There's a growing disconnect between how kids embrace technology and where teachers' skill levels are," he says.

Some of it was in K-12 settings, but most of the comparative studies were done in colleges and adult continuing-education programs of various kinds, from medical training to the military.

“The study’s major significance lies in demonstrating that online learning today is not just better than nothing — it actually tends to be better than conventional instruction,”

But the report does suggest that online education could be set to expand sharply over the next few years, as evidence mounts of its value.

I'm sure it couldn't have been an easy decision, but we became teachers because it is a part of who we are, who we were meant to be. I always tell people "The heart wants what it wants." Obviously, your heart wanted to be back with the kids. How fortunate for them to have such an amazing educator to work with. As for being a classroom teacher with an amazing PLN, I can assure you...nothing beats it!! I know if I'm struggling or having a horrible day, I can hop on Twitter or Plurk at ANY time - day or night - and someone, somewhere in the world will be there to listen and offer support. The same holds true when I have something amazing to share, because those will happen too.I can't imagine just relying on the people I work with at school for support, we don't really seem to make time for each other like we should. But I can always find strength and support from one thousand other people willing to make time for someone they may not even know. How amazing is that!The long and the short of it....Congratulations, Lee! Welcome back...we're right behind you!!

Beyond such undeniable excesses, a quiet reappraisal of helicopter parents is underway. Some researchers have begun to argue that late adolescence and young adulthood are such minefields today - emotional, social, sexual, logistical, psychological - that there are valid reasons for parents to remain deeply involved in their children’s lives even after the kids are, technically speaking, adults. Moreover, they say, with the economy in a deep swoon, helicopter parents may have a vital role to play as career counselors or even as providers of financial aid to their offspring.

Instead of blocking the many exit ramps and side routes on the information superhighway, they have decided that educating students and teachers on how to navigate the Internet’s vast resources responsibly, safely, and productively—and setting clear rules and expectations for doing so—is the best way to head off online collisions.

“We are known in our district for technology, so I don’t see how you can teach kids 21st-century values if you’re not teaching them digital citizenship and appropriate ways of sharing and using everything that’s available on the Web,” said Shawn Nutting, the technology director for the Trussville district. “How can you, in 2009, not use the Internet for everything? It blows me away that all these schools block things out” that are valuable.

While schools are required by federal and state laws to block pornography and other content that poses a danger to minors, Internet-filtering software often prevents students from accessing information on legitimate topics that tend to get caught in the censoring process: think breast cancer, sexuality, or even innocuous keywords that sound like blocked terms. One teacher who commented on one of Mr. Fryer’s blog posts, for example, complained that a search for biographical information on a person named Thacker was caught by his school’s Internet filter because the prohibited term “hacker” is included within the spelling of the word.