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he internet is a pedagogic engine, changing and shaping the way we learn. In this sense, we’ve had more pedagogic change in the last 10 years than in the last 1000 years – all driven by innovation in technology.

1. Asynchronous – the new default

2. Links – free from tyranny of linear learning

Whether kids are watching TV, creating digital media, reading, searching, or playing video games with parents, siblings or friends, consuming media becomes a different kind of experience than when it’s done alone.

Plenty of studies have shown that kids learn more when they’re consuming media alongside their parents

 Instead of bookworms, perhaps we should call these kids “gadgetworms.” So, how can we keep them focused on our lesson when they would rather text their friends?  We can return to the very first principle of good lesson planning.

my experience has shown that if the lessons are engaging, student-centered, and appropriately presented, kids will focus and their devices will stay in their pockets.

Many of the arguments being made today as to how the Internet is ruining our society were first put forth with the introduction of public speaking, the printed word, telecommunications and so on.

should respond to emails at 6 a.m. on a Saturday (emergency or not), this is less about your boss's disposition and more about a common lack of education as to how to best use technology.

It's my job to best manage my technology (and not the other way around).

Children’s days are over-scheduled with sports, arts, functions and additional classes. Yet the need to connect and socialize has not gone away in these overly adult-managed times.

Many of the young people interviewed here said they would actually rather be hanging out with friends in real spaces than posting updates in online spaces, but the hemmed-in reality of their lives makes that nearly impossible.

We teachers are not “digital immigrants.” We are their guides, and our role, along with parents, has never been more important, nor more complicated.

“Adults didn’t grow up with social media, and so they only look for the bad, and see scary stuff like cyberbullying and sexting” he says. “They don’t realize that 90 per cent of kids use social media for really good things, like making friends.”

“Teens are simply doing on social media what they have done for decades, using social relationships to experiment and test behaviours and values they will use as adults” says Andersen.

“The role of parents is to model appropriate behaviour for their kids and to develop expectations with their kids around social media use. We can’t just hand them a cellphone and cross our fingers.

Social media may have started out as a fun way to connect with friends, but it has evolved to become a powerful tool for education and business.

Web 2.0 is transforming our society. Online tools that support collaborative communities are redefining how firms do business, how retailers engage customers, how politicians energize voters, how journalists inform readers, how teachers educate students, how friends maintain relationships, and how individuals shape their own identity.

"Technology has been completely transparent to the Net Gen. 'It doesn't exist. It's like the air,' said Coco Conn, cofounder of the Web-based Cityspace project. MIT's Dr. Idit Harel, a professor of epistemology, agreed: 'For the kids, it's like using a pencil. Parents don't talk about pencils, they talk about writing. And kids don't talk about technology—they talk about playing, building a Web site, writing a friend, about the rain forest

Our students need adults to stop being afraid, and stop hiding, so education can get out of the shadows and into the light of the world in which our children live.

were not created to keep students stuck in the past, educated in a disconnected school environment that shares little resemblance to the real world for which we should be preparing our children.

Students can access websites that do not contain or that filter mature content. They can use their real names, pictures, and work (as long it doesn’t have a grade/score from a school) with the notification and/or permission of the student and their parent or guardian.

The future seems both clear and imminent — a future in which students carry course texts and personal media in a "digital backpack" that is light, fun to use, enjoyable for reading, and always connected to information and friends.

You hear two opinions from experts on the topic of what happens when kids are perpetually exposed to technology. One: Constant multitasking makes teens work harder, reduces their focus, and screws up their sleep. Two: Using technology as a youth helps students adapt to a changing world in a way that will benefit them when they eventually have to live and work in it. Either of these might be true. More likely, they both are. But it is certainly the case that these kids are different—fundamentally and permanently different—from previous generations in ways that are sometimes surreal, as if you'd walked into a room where everyone is eating with his feet.

It's as if Beatlemania junkies in 1966 had had the ability to demand "Rain" be given as much radio time as "Paperback Writer," and John Lennon thought to tell everyone what a good idea that was. The fan–celebrity relationship has been so radically transformed that even sending reams of obsessive fan mail seems impersonal.

The teens' brains move just as quickly as teenage brains have always moved, constructing real human personalities, managing them, reaching out to meet others who might feel the same way or want the same things. Only, and here's the part that starts to seem very strange—they do all this virtually. Sitting next to friends, staring at screens, waiting for the return on investment. Everyone so together that they're actually all apart.