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We're in the state once described by that great scholar of cyberspace, Manuel Castells, as "informed bewilderment".

The idea is that our short-term memory can only hold between five and nine "chunks" of information at any given moment (here a chunk is defined as a "meaningful unit"). So, when trying to decide how many big ideas about the internet would be meaningful for most readers, it seemed sensible to settle for a magical total of nine. So here they are.

On a scale of one to five! You have only to ask the questions to realise the fatuity of the idea. Printing did indeed have all of these effects, but there was no way that anyone in 1472, in Mainz (or anywhere else for that matter) could have known how profound its impact would be.

Sometimes teachers and schools have a hard time developing appropriate rules for this balance. Dr. Kallic discusses the need to think about the rules that we have and the ones we have had in the past. We need to think about making adjustments to these rules.

It is ironic that in one of the world’s most progressive technological areas nobody here seems to be feeling like they have to choose.

Laptops make learning and schoolwork more interesting, students and teachers said.

Writing test scores have improved

Freeport math skills have jumped

iGeners are almost universally plugged in. Ear buds hang from backpacks, and cell phones are stuffed into every pocket. Instant communication has replaced listening to messages, streaming video has replaced waiting for television shows to start, Xboxes have replaced Ataris, digital images have replaced negatives, and high-speed connections have replaced dial-up modems.

iGeners aren’t always the best students, however! Working quickly instead of carefully, they infosnack their way through class, flitting from instant experience to instant experience. Reading deeply, considering multiple perspectives and interacting with others in meaningful ways is pushed aside in a race for immediate gratification.

iCloud (here’s more on the iCloud.com launch), which allows iTunes purchases including songs and TV episodes to be stored on Apple’s servers and tapped into on-demand via any of your iTunes or iOS devices. This includes the option to have your purchases automatically download to each of your devices (buying a song via iTunes on your computer and having it immediately also download itself to your iPhone, for instance) and also includes the ability to download any previous purchases, including those you may have lost due to drive failure, for free

“Adaptive technologies presume that knowledge can be modularized and sequenced,” says Watters, the education writer. “This isn’t about the construction of knowledge. It’s still hierarchical, top-down, goal-driven.”

e latest techno-fad, destined to distract administrators and upset curricula for a few years until the next one comes along. But there are two reasons why adaptive learning might prove more durable than that. The first is that the textbook companies have invested in it so heavily that there may be no going back. The second: It might, in at least some settings, really work.

“I like to think of analogies to other places where science and technology have had an impact, like transportation. We went from walking to horse-drawn carriages to Model Ts, and now we have jet planes. So far in educational technology, we’re in the Model T stage.”

So if you’re ready to take your classroom or digital skills to the next level, read on. In fact, these skills are worth knowing for just about every teacher at any age.

guide to help you learn more about the important trends in educational technology