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We often read that there are 4 C's in a true 21st century education: critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, and creativity and innovation. The iPad is a success at engaging individual students in critical thinking and creativity, but how about collaboration? After all, tablets are consumer products, designed to be used by one person at a time, not by teams of students. It's up to teachers and instructional technologists to figure out how best to deploy them in the classroom in a way that supports project-based learning and fosters teamwork. We asked several teachers involved in iPad initiatives which apps they've had the most success with on the collaboration front. Here is what they told us.

It's got a 3.8 inch screen with 4 gazillion pixels! WOW! Oh, but our Z6A chip... well, it blows the competition away! Yeah, yeah, but our wireless services get 16 megabits down and 8 megabits up; incomparable! That type of talk is sure to make a non-techie educator feel sleepy, feel intimidated, feel that technology has no place in his/her classroom.

The conventional wisdom in education is that any school reform--be it curriculum, instruction, assessment, or teacher professionalism--is most likely to take hold in schools that have strong leadership. The same holds true for technology. Any educator will tell you the most successful implementation of technology programs takes place in schools where the principal sees him or herself as a technology leader. 

"Plagiarist!" It is an accusation that strikes fear in the hearts of students, academics, journalists, authors and presidential candidates alike. The fear is certainly that of being caught: punished by those in authority, professionally censured by one's peers, publicly humiliated. Often too, however, it is a fear of the unknown. From the day a third grade student, armed with cut-and-paste commands, is assigned a report on Thomas Jefferson and turns to Wikipedia, he confronts the same questions faced by the best-selling historian who dares consult secondary sources: how do I use this information without "overusing" it. How much use is too much? What needs to be attributed and what doesn't? Is substantially rewording or paraphrasing a passage sufficient to make it my own? What constitutes "substantially?" And on and on. Even when one makes every conscious effort to avoid the P-word, the nagging thought can remain: what if it wasn't enough?

Everyone wants Bart. Or SpongeBob. Or one of those Aqua Teen Hunger Force dudes. Each year, student yearbook editors from across the country call the Student Press Law Center to ask how they can get an image of Bart Simpson (of the FOX-TV animated show, "The Simpsons") - or whoever the cartoon character de jour happens to be - into their yearbook or other publication without running afoul of copyright law. They usually receive both some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that they may not be able to use Bart in precisely the way they had hoped. Bart is a copyrighted image and federal copyright law restricts its use. The good news, however, is that with a little extra work, planning and creativity, it should be possible to legally include Bart in some way.

"Coder is a free, open source project that turns a Raspberry Pi into a simple platform that educators and parents can use to teach the basics of building for the web. New coders can craft small projects in HTML, CSS, and Javascript, right from the web browser."

"Adobe has unveiled Slate, a new tool for iPad that allows students and teachers to produce multimedia presentations that are viewable on any platform."

Education that includes at least some online work is more effective than classroom-only teaching, according to a major research review done for the Department of Education.

Wordle is a toy for generating "word clouds" from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

Oddcast is a social media and viral marketing company specializing in online technologies that open up new possibilities for audience personalization and engagement. We partner with agencies and brands to execute user-driven campaigns that leverage social networks to drive viral propagation, lead generation, and brand exposure.

"Project Tomorrow is a national education nonprofit group based in Irvine, California. The vision of Project Tomorrow is ensure that today's students are well prepared to be tomorrow's innovators, leaders and engaged citizens of the world. We believe that by supporting the innovative uses of science, math and technology resources in our K-12 schools and communities, students will develop the critical thinking, problem solving and creativity skills needed to compete and thrive in the 21st century. "

Maps are one of our oldest forms of visualizing data about the world. One might say we'd be "lost" without them. flickr creative commons photo by [martin] From the early web-based Mapquest versions and later when Google Maps came onto the scene followed closely by Google Earth, online mapping and the use of maps by the general public has exploded.  Maps are now a mainstay for mobile computing and other endeavors online line that have a spatial component. The capability enabled by GPS  (Global Positioning System) allows our devices to know where we are in the world, what/who is nearby, and what information is available about places. We see many ways people use maps for personal use and are interested in knowing more about that and your ideas on how mapping tools might also be used for learning.  

"Created by the Discovery Channel, and the energy that revolutionized media over twenty-five years ago, Discovery Education empowers educators to engage students and transform classrooms by providing dynamic curricular resources, comprehensive assessment services, and customized professional development plans with ongoing support that improve student achievement. Discovery Education is the #1 provider of digital services to U.S. schools reaching 1 million educators, 35,000,000 students, and is in 60,000 schools"

What we have learnt Recently Chris Flesuras from Kyoto Gakuen school created the movies below (Part 1 and Part 2). Not much more than a year ago MLC school began our journey and were very unsure of how virtual worlds would work.  Since that time we have had many meetings, many trial activities, many failures and successes.  What Chris' videos say to me is that we have learnt plenty.  I invite you to watch both parts and enjoy.  Whilst it is only explaining one event within Skoolaborate I believe it clearly shows how our understanding on 'how to work with Education in Virtual worlds' has grown.

iEARN (International Education and Resource Network) is the world's largest non-profit global network that enables teachers and youth to use the Internet and other technologies to collaborate on projects that enhance learning and make a difference in the world.

Perhaps you have a special skill, talent, or knowledge-base that you want to share with others, and maybe you've heard that teaching online courses can make you a little extra money. The resources below will help you discover how to combine both what you have to offer and what you wish to gain by guiding you through creating and establishing an online course. No matter what age of student, subject you want to teach, or size of the class, you will find resources and information to bring your class online.

BrainX is an adaptive online learning system that uses a Digital Tutor to teach any content to any person in the way that person learns best. The BrainX system is based on cutting edge research from the fields of cognitive psychology, education and neuroscience.

A site that creates a flash on a google search of your choice. Kinda fun and creative

"Assembly Bill 307 requires that California students and teachers receive instruction in Internet Safety and the ethical use of information. To fulfill the requirements of AB 307 as incorporated into the SAUSD District Technology Plan (2009-2012) and District Technology Goals and Benchmarks, Education Technology and Instructional Media Services is providing lesson materials to educate pupils and teachers on the appropriate and ethical use of information technology in the classroom, Internet safety, plagiarism, copyright, and the implications of illegal peer-to-peer network file sharing. The materials are provided for SAUSD classroom teachers to use during CyberSafety Week, February 23-27, 2009. Teachers should plan to spend 10-15 minutes delivering information to students on the topic for that day."

"Using Blooms Taxonomy in education is a highly effective way to scaffold learning for the students. With the recent popularity and pervasive nature of iOS devices in school districts it is essential for educators to understand how to implement Blooms in the classroom using the apps that are available. While this list is by no means fully comprehensive, it will assist educators in getting started when implementing iOS devices in the classroom. This site will change almost daily as it will be updated with new and exciting apps! If you find any that you have worked with in your classroom please email dmileham@e1b.org or tweet @bloomsapps with your suggestions. Thanks for checking the site! "