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counteract the New WWW's potentially harmful impact on youth, educators must use technology to create learning experiences that are real, rich, and relevant.

Next will come 4G, in which data rates are expected to be 100 times faster than those in this first 3G wave. As the delivery platform of broadband content and functionality shifts from computer to personal device, we will be surrounded by a multimedia aura that accompanies us wherever we go

The plan is that you'll use your phone to spend money everywhere, all the time.

Sadly, what dawned on me is that as hard as I had once worked as a teacher, I had restricted myself by my own educational paradigm. I had been stuck within a paradigm of 'coverage' and in hindsight I realize that all of the improvements I had made were incremental at best. Now, thanks in large part to my Personal Learning Network, I view teaching and learning through a new paradigm...a paradigm of 'inquiry'. (more on this in a future post!)

The iPad however, provides an alternative method by providing a lower cost of entry, while allowing for student-centered instruction where students are able to both create content and access information anywhere, anytime.  The key for revolutionizing education is having educators who embrace this technology to change how they teach to create a learning environment where students, not teachers, are the focus of the instruction.   

“Yeah it does all that and it’s a phone!”  Amidst a cacophony of reverent Oooh’s and Ahh’s, I unknowingly witnessed the birth of the Smart-Phone and the death knell of the PDA.  I bring this up because I recently was approached by someone who told me that our school should get rid of all PC’s and give everyone iPads.

but the tablet format could lead to changes in education.

Educators at all levels have not understood that learning is no longer about the past, as Bush’s memex was. It is no longer primarily about what has been said and done and described and proved, but, importantly, is about what is being said, and what is being done, and what is being described and what has not yet been proven.

asks the students to explain why Reginald or Julia made a particular comment in class yesterday, the answer is not on the Web. If you are working in the present progressive instead of in the past tense, then student answers will also be in the present progressive.

In talking with many colleagues about Twitter, I often hear things like: “I just don’t get it.” “I don’t have time for that.” “I have to many other things going on.” “I don’t have a smartphone.” “I don’t want people I don’t know to follow me.”

So yes, I let my kids have a presence on the internet – first and last name and everything. And though I’m sure there are risks involved, the benefits for us far outweigh them. Here are some of those benefits:

They each have email addresses, but I receive copies of every incoming email. I proofread most of what goes back out as well. Youtube comments have to be approved by me, and I don’t allow youtube likes or dislikes. All comments on their websites also come to me for approval. As neither kid is 13 yet, neither of them have facebook accounts. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s not a perfect world. I say we forge ahead and embrace the positives in a smart, informed manner!

So how did I learn all of the technology I use in my instruction and in my online collaborations with teachers? I learned it on my own.

So, I started using the internet to learn how to do what I wanted to do – blog, make videos, make podcasts, publish student work, etc. Of course it wasn’t easy, but I wanted to learn it so I did. (That is key – my learning was self-directed.)

are we independent learners?

Terms like flipped lessons, flipped learning, or flipped thinking more clearly convey what "flipping" actually means. A teacher must carefully consider which lessons lend themselves to time-shifting direct instruction out of class—and which do not. A selective use of video where appropriate will provide students with a better learning experience than a blanket use of video when video is not the right tool.

Some years ago didn’t get a job because I didn’t have an online digital footprint (this was 2008), and it was a job I really wanted! I learned from the experience and began to explore how I could create an online version of myself which showcased ‘the best’ of my work in education.

Digital literacy: I’m sure you’ve been told this is important for students in the 21st Century. But did anyone mention it’s also important for teachers too?

Ask yourself a few key questions before you set up and post to a social media platform.

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.

How often have we heard the moaning from our students and/or own children? Why do I have to learn this? I will never use it again. There is even (why would I be surprised?) a facebook group called “I bet 90% if the Stuff we learn in School, I will never use again” It has over 16,000 members…

This really shouldn't surprise us. As teachers, how often do we say it is the quantity of your learning that matters more than the quality? I couldn't imagine saying this.

increasingly clear to me that the less I teach, the more my students are actually learning

I Resign From Teaching

I have carefully constructed learning questions and activities for each student. The students are working collaboratively with each other on differentiated learning activities and producing a variety of evidence

I believe the gap in know how is related to learning -- new learning, unlearning, relearning.

I think of knowing as a more staid, steady, stable state. When I know something, it is for sure; it is so sure it is fact.

Learning is an active state, an process of searching, digging, questioning, connecting, thinking, imagining, visualizing, trying, pitching, collecting, building, sharing, enhancing, coloring, synthesizing, communicating.  Learning is unfinished.