I am also very curious about the flipped model for my classroom to an extent. It feels hard to trust that my kiddos/parents will practice their rote knowledge, ex. math facts, outside of school when you sometimes don't see homework come back all year from individual students.  I have heard some interesting fixes to this, such as, having students perform the homework while you and the class do a fun activating activity such as a game, etc. This could work... but the question remains; what about kids that have no support at home, need help, and you can't give it to them because you are busy activating the thinking of 20+ other students?  This is also a problem with the current model of education as it stands, those students that don't receive supports at home need more attention, we are only one person, and can't make up for all the lost attention/time at home the way we'd like to. So how can you leverage the technology to help those kids and give them more supports? 

Finding videos of other teachers doing your flipped lesson would feel impersonal, tend to alienate those students that are already weary of being connected in school, and most likely just have irrelevant material included amongst the important content. You can't tell a student, "Oh just ignore minute 2:30 to 2:45, they went out on a confusing tanget for a minute" because of their personality/teaching style. You NEED to have your own tangents/teaching style. It's what connects your students to you!

This is a really good point they make, "Do we think that before technology, most students avoided distraction?" Kids still got distracted, just by different things. Teacher found a way to deal with note passing, etc. Why is tech. any different? 

If the generation to come is no good, that would only be a poor reflection on us, the generation before whose job it was to train them for the world. Sounds like this article points to evidence that we did a good job and that these kids are too!

I find the fact that there are 800 million Facebook users to be a little bit disturbing. It's like something out of a science fiction novel where we are all hooked up to a apperat 24.7 pumping data through a stream. 

All this even though I am one of those 800 million, at least at this point. 

Follow the top tabs for types of tools, then follow the lighter gray tabs that show up below to check into specific tools. 

My mind wandered off here, because of the picture to the side. 'I was thinking I wonder if this is the author?' and then I saw the caption and thought, "I wonder what those words are?"

A friend of mine and I are going to soon put this to the test by reading the Infinite Jest, which is a very long read if you are unfamiliar with the book. I anticipate it being a difficult task. I wonder if it would have been less difficult before the net.

Here is one thing that I feel my district is weak in. Tools don't seem to be placed via need (or at least the need isn't clearly expressed) they seem to be given because they were advertised as a fix all miracle cure for..., well I'm not sure what, because I don't know the goal. (Remember?)  I know this isn't a district website, but I wonder: What do other districts do to analyze tools before implementation?

This is crucial for those student who live in towns that are not in those areas, because they may have no reference point for those types of terrain. What a great way to build background knowledge before geography lessons or even before reading a story that takes place in these settings! I love Google Maps/Earth!