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"On October 29, 2014 the Alliance for Excellent Education hosted a webinar in its Project 24 leadership series. Project 24 is a systemic planning framework around the effective use of technology and digital learning to achieve the goal of college and career readiness for all students. This webinar focused on the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1998 to protect the online privacy of children. More than fifteen years later, as digital learning constitutes a critical component of education both in and out of school, COPPA has become yet another hurdle between teachers and connecting students to digital learning opportunities. The webinar explored what educators need to know about this law, and how they and school administrators can successfully navigate COPPA to ensure that students are afforded the full benefits of online and blended learning opportunities.  It showed how teachers can provide consent for students to register for online websites.  It explored whether or not students who are under thirteen years old can even use Web 2.0 resources without running afoul of the law.  And it dealt with how school districts assume the duty of COPPA compliance. During the webinar, Mark Cheramie Walz gave educators straight-forward answers on how to comply with COPPA without sacrificing the potential that digital learning and online resources afford. Tom Murray from the Alliance moderated the discussion. Mr. Cheramie Walz and Mr. Murray also addressed questions submitted by webinar viewers from across the country."

CyberSmart! fosters 21st century skills to increase student engagement and prepare students to achieve in today's digital society. CyberSmart! Online Workshops, facilitated professional development, give educators a hands-on experience in 21st century skills-the new basic skills-to meet the learning needs of today's students. Educators engage hands-on in the same kinds of learning they are expected to facilitate in the classroom. Two free resources support daily teaching. The free CyberSmart! Student Curriculum empowers students to use the Internet safely, responsibly, and effectively. The free CyberSmart! Educator Toolbar puts 21st century skills into practice every day, with just-in-time 24/7 access to annotated essential resources to support student learning.

"Challenge Based Learning is an engaging multidisciplinary approach to teaching and learning that encourages students to leverage the technology they use in their daily lives to solve real-world problems. Challenge Based Learning is collaborative and hands-on, asking students to work with other students, their teachers, and experts in their communities and around the world to develop deeper knowledge of the subjects students are studying, accept and solve challenges, take action, share their experience, and enter into a global discussion about important issues."

Created by an expert tutor and a designer, Virtual Nerd gives students a new option to turn to when they need help. For a fraction of the cost of private tutoring, students gain access to hundreds of interactive step-by-step video tutorials that match up with the practice problems in their textbook. Virtual Nerd's patent-pending e-Learning system anticipates students' questions, so they can easily drill down to related tutorials if they get confused. The innovative design makes it easy for students to stay focused. Plus, unique reporting features mean parents and teachers can stay involved with students' progress.

"As educators focusing on 21st Century Learning, it is important that we are able to share examples of powerful student work that we can share with educators around the world. It is important that we have this opportunity to not only talk about how we can empower students, but as examples of how this has ALREADY affected student learning." A nice listing of 21st century student work examples. Add your own!

"Creating slideshows can be an excellent way for students to summarize their learning, share their what they've learned, and to share their ideas. If you have students that create slideshows that you or they think should be shared with a wider audience than that of their immediate peers in the classroom, the web offers many ways to do that. The following are ten free ways for students to publish their slideshows to the web."

While introduced as a hard drive based music player in 2001, the iPod has evolved into an essential tool for literacy in the 21st century. The availability of educational content is staggering. There are podcasts on everything from math to history to science to learning a foreign language. There is even a podcast on basket weaving. What is even more amazing is how easy it is for students and teachers to create their own digital content for the iPod. Students can then guide their own learning at their own pace, and review content on-demand. This idea of anywhere-anytime learning means the student is no longer tethered to the classroom learning environment.

"Digital citizenship education empowers students to make thoughtful decisions and develop a sound digital foundation for the rest of their lives. Cable in the Classroom brings you a series of free, standards-based lessons that teach key digital citizenship concepts. These lessons, for students in grades 4-8, are designed to engage students through inquiry-based activities, and collaborative and creative opportunities. Digital Citizenship is a holistic and positive approach to helping students learn how to be safe and secure, as well as smart and effective participants in a digital world. That means helping them understand their rights and responsibilities, recognize the benefits and risks, and realize the personal and ethical implications of their actions. Helping a student become a good digital citizen cuts across all curricular disciplines."

Over ten years ago, while teaching middle school students and viewing the naïve behaviors that they exhibited in chat rooms on the internet, Chuck developed lesson plans to teach his students safe behaviors. As students spoke at home about what they were learning in school, parents began contacting Chuck to have him speak at PTO meetings and to local organizations. Since that time, both use of the internet and the dangers that students face while using the internet have grown. Along with that growth, requests for Chuck to speak on the topic of Internet Safety have increased to include presentations to large groups of students in grades 6 through 12, school staff members and parents. Presentations have been made in schools in several states across the US and at both State and National conventions.

The Networked Student was inspired by CCK08, a Connectivism course offered by George Siemens and Stephen Downes during fall 2008. It depicts an actual project completed by Wendy Drexler's high school students. The Networked Student concept map was inspired by Alec Couros' Networked Teacher. I hope that teachers will use it to help their colleagues, parents, and students understand networked learning in the 21st century.

NBC Learn is the education arm of NBC News. We are making the global resources of NBC News and the historic film and video archive available to teachers, students, schools and universities. NBC News Archives on Demand (K-12 and Higher Ed) unleashes the power of the NBC News archives and makes thousands of video clips available to teachers, students, schools, colleges and universities. What's Your iCue? is the video trivia challenge that blends learning and gaming. Original video content from NBC Learn is engaging, innovative, and makes learning fun!

Today's classrooms are more diverse than ever before. As a result, teachers find themselves searching for ways to meet the needs of each student. Add to it the pressures of academic achievement goals mandated by NCLB and many may feel ill-equipped to meet the challenges of diversity in the classroom. Planning perfect lessons with exciting activities looks great on paper, but will it help your students reach their potential? Probably not. If there is anything I learned during my time as a public school teacher is this: The height of student achievement is directly correlated with the strength of the classroom community. By building  community in the classroom, you build an environment where students feel safe to learn, grow and be themselves.

True Project Based Learning is a process that puts the student at the center of their learning. In this post I wish to share with you some of the top sites I found on the internet that promote true PBL. Since my research I have bookmarked a few more and will be sharing those in a later post. Please share this post with others and as you find other outstanding sites on the internet that refer to PBL, please share with me. Your comments are always appreciated!

There are new web 2.0 tools appearing every day. Although some of these tools were not originally meant for use in the classroom, they can be extremely effective learning tools for today's technology geared students and their venturesome teachers. Many of these teachers are searching for the latest products and technologies to help them find easier and efficient ways to create productive learning in their students. More and more teachers are using blogs, podcasts and wikis, as another approach to teaching. We have created a list of 100 tools we think will encourage interactivity and engagement, motivate and empower your students, and create differentiation in their learning process.

One of the major benefits of using technology in the classroom is the ability to differentiate instruction to meet the needs of every student in every lesson. Just as every student grows and develops at different rates, they learn in different ways and at different speeds. Technology makes it possible to pace lessons appropriately for each student's learning level and can be used to promote learning in the multiple intelligences. Below you will find website suggestions that address the different learning styles in your classroom with the help of technology:

"Webquests make learning more interesting for your students. Using the power of the internet you can tap the resources of almost every library, school, museum, and laboratory in the world! You can take your students on a journey, to anywhere. Webquests allow students to explore content in more depth, but within boundaries that you have selected. This makes them ideal for classes which combine students with different ability levels."

"Teaching students to learn from and with each other is a wise acknowledgment that more and more, students are relying on their peers for information. Sixty-five percent of Americans aged 12-17 and 67 percent of those aged 18-32 use social networking sites, according to the Pew Research Center. Students' lives are infused with each other's viewpoints. Teachers and professors like Parry and Camplese are taking group work to the next logical step: incorporating social media into their classrooms. In lieu of fighting teens' use of networking sites, they are communicating with students in a language that they understand. "

There are a lot of SMART Board resources for elementary, middle, and high school students, but younger students love SMART Boards too! This blog post is for you, Pre-school and Kindergarten teachers! Check out some of the wonderful interactive websites that will be sure to get even your youngest students involved in interactive learning.

"Blogging is becoming more and more popular in the classroom. Teachers can blog to stay in touch with parents and students or they can incorporate blogs from all of the students as a learning tool. The beauty of the student blog is that children from Kindergarten to high school can blog. No matter how you use blogs in your classroom, these tools will help you get started, enhance your experience, or bring the students into the fun."

We've built an education platform that is customizing the way students learn by offering more than 32,000 tutorials on a variety of academic topics taught by thousands of teachers. This vibrant, first-of-its-kind learning community helps teachers enrich their classrooms, empowers students to learn in their own way, and provides a pathway to an affordable college degree.