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"Can speculation about the future of technology serve as a measuring stick for what we create today? That's the idea behind Envisioning Technology's massive infographic (PDF), which maps the future of emerging technologies on a loose timeline between now and 2040."

"Students who self-assess are the best? That's what Alan November says. Research shows that students who self-assess their work become top students. What does this mean? Any school can improve with these three things."

And it serves as a reminder to be less reverent about those long-held assumptions.

"While some education conferences are genuinely inspiring, others serve mostly to demonstrate how even intelligent educators can be remarkably credulous, nodding agreeably at descriptions of programs that ought to elicit fury or laughter, avidly copying down hollow phrases from a consultant's PowerPoint presentation, awed by anything that's borrowed from the business world or involves digital technology. Many companies and consultants thrive on this credulity, and also on teachers' isolation, fatalism, and fear (of demands by clueless officials to raise test scores at any cost). With a good dose of critical thinking and courage, a willingness to say "This is bad for kids and we won't have any part of it," we could drive these outfits out of business -- and begin to take back our schools."

"In conjuction with our partners in the Rethink Learning Now campaign, we have produced an ESEA Toolkit for you to use in making your voice heard around ESEA reauthorization."

IMAGINE AN assessment system in which teachers had a wide repertoire of classroom-based, culturally sensitive assessment practices and tools to use in helping each and every child learn to high standards; in which educators collaboratively used assessment information to continuously improve schools; in which important decisions about a student, such as readiness to graduate from high school, were based on the work done over the years by the student; in which schools in networks held one another accountable for student learning; and in which public evidence of student achievement consisted primarily of samples from students' actual schoolwork rather than just reports of results from one-shot examinations.

We need to store knowledge in our outboard brains - not only in databases, intranets and on the Internet, but also in the experience and insights of our co-workers, colleagues and people networks. Knowing who to ask when confronting a challenge is absolutely vital in our interconnected world.