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Title: What's New? What's Good: Exploring Digital WritingDescription: Folks often speak of engagement when they talk about writing in online spaces. But is the "writing" that's occuring in these new spaces any good? Is it worth doing? Is it better than what came before? In this session, we'll discuss where and how you're writing in digital spaces, and we'll take a look at some resources created by the National Writing Project to explore what digital writing is, or isn't.Presenter: Bud HuntEmail & Other Links: budtheteacher@gmail.com NWP's Digital IS

Trying to prepare students for their future without interactive Web 2.0 technologies in school would be like trying to teach a child to swim without a swimming pool. However, it is exceptionally important for schools to carefully consider what technologies they will embrace.

Technology has completely changed the way that we communicate and interact, the way that we learn and use information. However, our educational system still has not reflected this fundamental change, and remains reliant on what Renzulli calls “to-be-presented knowledge,” with teachers and textbooks as the gatekeepers of this knowledge. However, this doesn’t reflect how our society and our information structures work today. Renzulli argues that our educational system needs to adapt to the skills and technology that we have developed as a society in order to prepare our students for 21st-century jobs and for rebuilding America’s reputation as a birthplace for creativity, leadership, innovation, and development of new technologies. This can be done through using technology to improve the way that we deliver education, as well as what we are teaching students, and improving students’ engagement in the educational process.

States score a significant portion of Race to the Top points by opening up charter schools and pegging teacher pay to student performance—two features that are common in New York and D.C., but are virtually nonexistent in Iowa.