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As teachers and students become PRODUCERS of content on their blogs it is becoming essential that we model good behavior when it comes to Copyright issues.

Today, in the PC world, whether a computer is a Dell, a Gateway, a Sony, etc., one puts a layer of software on that device, and then from a user's perspective all those different devices are the same. That is what is going to happen shortly in the mobile device space. Different companies are going to build a layer of software that makes every smart phone--android, [Windows Phone 7], iOS, etc.--appear the same to the teacher and the student.

We need to accept the fact that mobile technologies are an integral part of the kids lives and an integral part of 21st century knowledge workers' lives. We need to stop looking at the past and look to the future. We need to step forward and say: We need to do 21st century education in the same ways we are doing 21st century commerce, 21st century health, etc. There are risks; absolutely. But staying where we are in schools--using 19th century technology and fooling ourselves that we are teaching 21st century skills and content--is truly doing our students a huge disservice. You can't teach 21st century skills and content with 18th century paper and pencil tools.

"It's always been the case that whatever young people are doing now and whatever is the fashion now, there will be crusty and unfortunately ignorant people who think that somehow it has less weight, less heft, less intellectual respectability, less connection with our cultural identity, less seriousness," he said. "It's nearly always nonsense."