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Now, setting up a language exchange is as easy as making a videoconferencing call.

"You used to count blocks or beads," says Lynne Schrum, who has written three books on the topic of schools and technology. "Manipulating those are a little bit more difficult. Now there are virtual manipulative sites where students can play with the idea of numbers and what numbers mean, and if I change values and I move things around, what happens."

Models and simulations, beyond being a powerful tool for teaching concepts, can also give teachers a much richer picture of how students understand them.

“With a simple assignment and access to technology, researching and also producing a product that would communicate, they were able to do deep learning on a concept that wasn’t even addressed in their textbook, and allow other people to view it and learn from it,” Knezek says

“It’s no longer the verbal logic or the spoken or written word that causes people to make decisions," Knezek says. "Where you go on vacations, who you vote for, what kind of car you buy, all of those things are done now with multimedia that engage all of the senses and cause responses."

E-books hold an unimaginable potential for innovating education, though as some schools have already discovered, not all of that potential has been realized yet.

"A digital textbook that is merely a PDF on a tablet that students can carry around might be missing out on huge possibilities like models and simulations or visualizations," Dorsey says. "It takes time and it really takes some real thought to develop those things, and so it would be easy for us as a society to miss out on those kinds of opportunities by saying, 'Hey look, we’re not carrying around five textbooks anymore. It’s all on your iPad, isn’t that great?'”

they do not read and write the same things that we did

Most of us are still in a mindset where we see the book as central and the electronic technology is marginal.  For young people, it is the other way around…We are not going to change that, but we can manage it….put the book into the electronic technology.” “Every style of language has its purpose, but we have to see what the purpose is…Take an essay and turn it into a text message or vice versa, take a text message and turn it into the essay.”

itter changed it’s prompt from “What are you doi

 More people are turning to the Twitter search function to find out about events in real time from people who are willing to share.

“These kids do not read,” but he quickly dismisses this as a fallacy.

Crystal addressed the real concern that our attention span has lessened, and with the advent of short snippets of information, making it harder to pay attention to anything at length

Admittedly I have been frustrated by conversations with many regarding the idea that texting is eroding our literacy skills.  I have always been a firm believer that the more we can have our students read and write, no matter how that happens, their skills will improve, as long as we are willing to guide them.

having an expert confirm these thoughts is more than exciting