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"Last month, while at the Apple Education Leadership Conference, I went to a presentation about the SAMR model. This weekend the IT department went on a retreat to our school's chalet in the Alps and one of the issues we were considering was how to raise the level of technology from enhancing the curriculum to transforming the curriculum. Often we attend planning meetings where teachers suggest using technology in a way that is merely enhancing what they are doing (the S and A in the model) - we have decided that if they want to do that they should book the lab themselves and do these activities, the ones shown in blue on the above diagram - and that this will free us up as IT teachers to go into the classrooms to concentrate more on the M and R to transform the learning experience (shown in pink on the diagram)."

"Technology does not necessarily improve education. Take a simple innovation like the pencil: One can use it to write a superlative essay, to drum away the time, or to poke out someone's eye. The best television has educated thousands, while the daily network offerings dull the sensibilities of millions. "

"What happens when administrators throw out the rulebook and try fundamentally different models of education? The models are all different: In one successful school, kids help choose the lunch plan. In another, classes start at 10 a.m. (with less homework-and more field trips). And in a third school, physical education happens three times a day, instead of once a week. Sound like items from a third grader's wish list? Nope. These are initiatives from real schools where, instead of nibbling at the edges of curriculum and technology, administrators have embraced radically new approaches to the very idea of school itself. We caught up with leaders at three such schools to find out how it's working out for them-and to show you what you can steal for your own district, without necessarily ­turning your whole model upside down. "

"As I begin my tenth year as superintendent, I take stock of the significant changes that have occurred in my school district. As Pascal Finette says, social media have turned the world into a participation culture linked by a global communication network. And mobile devices, with 500 times the computing power that put astronauts on the moon, rest in the hands, pockets, and backpacks of children, not just top executives. Smart technologies have moved onto some college campuses, and students now receive texts telling them when washers are open for laundry. No longer science fiction, driverless vehicles represent real stories in our daily newsfeeds."

"Twenty-three second-graders file into Virginia Edwards' technology classroom at Grant Ranch School, take a seat at their iMacs, pull on headphones and launch a program whose graphics and audio prompts teach them crucial keyboarding skills."

"A stack of research suggests that all the classroom technology in the world can't compare to the power of a great teacher. And, since we haven't yet figured out how to clone our best teachers, a few schools around the country are trying something like it: Stretching them across multiple classrooms. "We'll probably never fill up every single classroom with one of those teachers," says Bryan Hassel, founder of Charlotte-based education consulting firm Public Impact. But, he says, it's important to ask: "How can we change the way schools work so that the great teachers we do have can reach more of the students, maybe even all of them?""

"Whenever a college student asks me, a veteran high-school English educator, about the prospects of becoming a public-school teacher, I never think it's enough to say that the role is shifting from "content expert" to "curriculum facilitator." Instead, I describe what I think the public-school classroom will look like in 20 years, with a large, fantastic computer screen at the front, streaming one of the nation's most engaging, informative lessons available on a particular topic. The "virtual class" will be introduced, guided, and curated by one of the country's best teachers (a.k.a. a "super-teacher"), and it will include professionally produced footage of current events, relevant excerpts from powerful TedTalks, interactive games students can play against other students nationwide, and a formal assessment that the computer will immediately score and record. "