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Focusing on the learning objective vs. what tool or technology to use is critical

That’s not to say that students don’t need to know how to write essays, says Ms. Huff, but using both traditional and more modern learning techniques can open the door for more opportunities and modes of expression.

Briefly, the Flipped Classroom can be described as:

The Flipped Classroom concept, though, was not developed and articulated by Khan but by teachers such as Karl Fisch and Jon Bergman/Aaron Sams.

For educators, who are used to and use the didactic model, a framework is needed to assist them with the implementation of the Flipped Classroom.

To a B.C. (before computers) generation, today’s students are courageous thinkers, innovators and fearless warriors.

The Teacher’s Role in the New World of Blurred Boundaries

The Value of Private Space

What's the biggest positive effect of online education? It is causing schools to reevaluate and seek to answer the question: "Why do students need and want to go our schools?"

Teaching is a complex, multifaceted activity, often requiring us as instructors to juggle multiple tasks and goals simultaneously and flexibly. The following small but powerful set of principles can make teaching both more effective and more efficient, by helping us create the conditions that support student learning and minimize the need for revising materials, content, and policies. While implementing these principles requires a commitment in time and effort, it often saves time and energy later on.

we need to help our students be more cyber smart and learn about why bullying is something to be taken seriously. It is never too early to educate our kids about the dangers of cyberspace.

For instance, in the Maine math study, it is hard to separate the effect of the laptops from the effect of the teacher training.

one-to-one laptop programs may simply amplify what’s already occurring — for better or worse,

As Mr. Share says in the signature file at the bottom of every e-mail he sends: “It’s not the stuff that counts — it’s what you do with it that matters.”

“single best idea for reforming K-12 education”.

Root cause: factory model of management

The goal needs to shift from one of making a system that teaches children a curriculum more efficiently to one of making the system more effective by inspiring lifelong learning in students, so that they are able to have full and productive lives in a rapidly shifting economy.

 I am all for PBL but I think that we need to not only create the opportunities for our students to do this, but for ourselves as well.  Again referencing the Wagner book, schools in Singapore are seeing the importance of learning communities that promote active learning:

Most importantly, you need to use music that is not licensed under a No Derivative Works license. This means that the musician doesn’t want you to change, transform, or make a derivative work using their music. Under CC licenses, synching the music to images amounts to transforming the music, so you can’t legally use a song under a CC No Derivative Works license in your video.

you’re likely to hear that kids today are overcorrected, entitled, arrogant, irresponsible, directionless, and apathetic. With twitter-sized attention spans—these kids lack values, character, and basic civility.

They  still want and need our guidance.

And even with the most modern device in hand, students still need the basics of a solid curriculum and skilled teachers. “There’s a saying that the music is not in the piano and, in the same way, the learning is not in the device,’’ said Mark Warschauer, an education and informatics professor at the University of California-Irvine whose specialties include research on the intersection of technology and education.

“I think one of the real key questions that will be answered over the next several years is what sort of things work best in print for students and what sort of things work best digitally,’’ Diskey said. “I think we’re on the cusp of a whole new area of research and comprehension about what digital learning means.’’

We need to stop pretending that technology can fix problems that aren’t technological in nature. Kids are bored. They don’t know why they’re learning what they’re learning. The solution isn’t asking the question better. The solution is asking a better question.

Aristotle concluded more than 2,300 years ago that "the young are heated by Nature as drunken men by wine."

"We're so used to seeing adolescence as a problem. But the more we learn about what really makes this period unique, the more adolescence starts to seem like a highly functional, even adaptive period. It's exactly what you'd need to do the things you have to do then."

Teens take more risks not because they don't understand the dangers but because they weigh risk versus reward differently: In situations where risk can get them something they want, they value the reward more heavily than adults do.

There are always strengths and weaknesses, so the best policy (IMHO) is to be agile and responsive. Not to lock yourself into one product, but rather consider a range of products that will fill a number of needs. Be agile enough to pick up new tools as they become available, and similarly, be able to let them go when they reach their used-by date.

requires sophisticated searching and processing skills

many users have not been taught how to make appropriate decisions

we must teach everyone to become responsible digital citizens

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.

students are not waiting for the rest of us to “catch up to their vision for 21st-century learning,”

Middle and high school students’ smart phone access “jumped 42% from 2009 to 2010,”

parents aren’t waiting around either