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Yes, technology plays an important role in today’s classrooms. While the pace of change has accelerated, however, one constant remains the same: Good teachers are critical to delivering an effective learning experience

Technology can play a critical role—but only when the technology supports the approach, the teaching philosophy and the goals that educators, students and families have agreed matters the most.

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.

2012-13, The US department of Commerce ranked 55 industry sectors for their IT intensiveness, education ranked lowest (below coal mining). Education industry that bears the responsibility to prepare children for the world of tomorrow, itself is not ready to embrace the digital revolution with an open mind.

Indeed there are some real risks attached with children using social media and it can’t be taken lightly. But there are also dangers in crossing a road. Do we tell our kids not to cross the road? No, we don’t! We hold their hand and tell them how to do it.

So irrespective of whether or not you as an institution are ready to embrace the new digital ways of teaching, the revolution is already happening. If educators are left behind on social media, they will also fail in the simple role of being cultivators of curiosity.

But some professors say it’s traditional teaching methods – not the computers – that don’t belong in the classroom. To engage students, they argue, the way instructors use and talk about technology with their students needs to change.

students' perspectives on the experience of breaking down the barriers of a traditional classroom. It also showed how the role of the teacher shifts to facilitator of knowledge acquisition, a role that is critical in a virtual classroom, although the teacher still has to design and deliver the structure needed for a successful lesson

Education is first and foremost about learners

social media was about to change forever my role as  "teacher"

So the first requirement to using any technology in the classroom is for us to be prepared to talk about it, assess its influence over our interactions and evaluate its role in an ongoing way.

One thing we have learned in the last 20 years is that many young people — certainly most teens– are pretty savvy about how they use the Net, though all of us can use some reminders now and then.

And parents — even those who may be technologically challenged — continue to have a crucial role to play in guiding their children and helping them sort out and deal with the stresses of life, both online and offline.

A better strategy would be to teach children to be “street smart” in order to better safeguard themselves in any potentially uncomfortable or dangerous situation.

Society has changed. We cannot adequately prepare students for the society that exists today or will exist tomorrow, if we continue to prepare them for the society that existed yesterday. In order to prepare students to play their role in the 21st century society we are a part of, a few things need to be considered when deciding how education will look in our schools and classrooms.

Social networking tools play a powerful role in building teacher learning networks, but educators still yearn for the chance to gather face to face to polish their craft.

a battle between those with utopian and dystopian viewpoints, over who can have a more extreme perspective on technology. So where's the middle ground?

With this complexity in mind, I would like to introduce a question that I have been struggling with for the past few years: what role does social media play in generating or spreading societal fear?

We fear the things – and people – that we do not understand far more than the things we do,