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Ask yourself, "What do I remember as the most rewarding and inspiring experience in school?

Yes, you need knowledge of the periodic table to do chemistry, but you don't need to memorize it if it's on your desktop -- electronic or otherwise. What matters is the ability to do something with the elements in the periodic table.

schools become relevant once more: in teaching our children to evaluate and use that information in ways that are important and meaningful and to satisfy their fundamental human desire to construct solutions for the world full of engaging and pressing problems they will inherit.

Just as the printed page produced a shift in education in the 16th and 17th centuries, computer technology and electronic media have shifted (and are continuing to shift) education in the 20th and 21st centuries.

I'm certainly not arguing that every lesson you teach should be computerized or technology enhanced, just as every lesson you teach doesn't need to include a textbook

Major textbook publishers have been making electronic versions of their products for years, but until recently, there hasn't been any hardware suitable to display them.

Apple also released iBooks Author, a new tool meant to lure publishers into creating new content specifically for the iPad education user.

even if an iPad were to last for five years in the hands of students, the e-books plus the iPad would cost more than the hardback textbooks.

John Seely Brown on Interest-Driven Learning, Mentors and the Importance of Play

in the past, it was likely to be very hard to find other people around you with your specialized interests. For example, when I was obsessed with building transmitters and radios as a kid, there were maybe five other kids in the entire state of New York who were also designing electronic equipment. I had no cohort group. Today, no matter how specialized a kid’s interest is, he or she will find a cohort group. When my godson was 9, he became fixated on penguins. He went on the internet, and he found himself a group or a collective that was deeply engaged with penguins. I said to him one day, “Well, who is this group?” And he said, “Well, they have a funny name.” And I said, “What’s that?” And he said, “Johns Hopkins!” He’d locked into a research group at Johns Hopkins! Yes, as a 9-year-old.

I personally feel that in order to get hooked on something—well, that’s the role of a great teacher, a great mentor. The role of the mentor is to get you to discover things you might not actually know you were interested in, to confront topics you may not be very good at understanding, but once discovered, you will.