Last week was an exciting, extremely busy simultaneous culmination and beginning. We have prepared for the launch of a one-to-one tablet program for the last 1-3 years depending on how you define the start date which for some is when we renewed the discussion and for some is when the board said yes.

Middle school students in Aurora, Colorado acquired technical skills and personal insight from a summer program for digital storytelling.

A two-year battle between school officials of Grand Blanc, Michigan and cell phones has ended with the triumph of teens and technology.

Integrating 21^st century skills into the Social Studies curriculum just got a boost with a new resource. The Partnership for 21^st Skills and the National Council for the Social Studies have created a map designed to provide educators with concrete examples of 21st century skills in classroom practices and highlights of the critical connections between social studies and 21st century skills.

Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Teaching has been a cornerstone of my school's Teaching and Learning Committee. We've read her book and attended a workshop given by Danielson herself. It is only natural that we should try to reconcile our 1-to-1 initiative with Danielson's Domains.

Recently our institution has been spending a considerable amount of time exploring Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Teaching which is best explained directly on the her website: "The Framework for Teaching is a research-based set of components of instruction, aligned to the INTASC standards, and grounded in a constructivist view of learning and teaching."

Teachers are beginning to realize the potential of podcasting. At Fort Sumner High School in rural New Mexico, for example, students use time on the bus to reinforce lessons with Zune music players donated by Microsoft.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have documented the educational benefits of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

Students will choose an issue that impacts them personally, the school, or their community to document in a short movie. Students will interview individuals on both sides of the issue, integrate video clips, create the documentary, and write a reflection detailing the learning process.

Never before has the pressure been so high to find ways to support successful teaching and learning through effective professional development. With the U.S.

"Increasing students' understanding of world religions and beliefs will help students build critical thinking skills and increase their global awareness--two essential skills necessary for the 21st century economy."

How do we take measure of Technology integration or implementation? It's not something we can score on a scale of 1 to 10 or measure as achieving with excellence or just passing. The benchmarks for every school and every classroom are different.

We have heard a lot about 21st Century Learners. But what about 21st Century Teachers? What are the characteristics we would expect to see in 21st Century Educators?

Students create web pages to communicate information demonstrating their understanding of an academic concept.

In the rush to keep up with increasing demands on time and resources, it's easy to forget that our work is as much about people as it is technology.

How the Visual Arts educators integrate 21st Century skills at the American School of Bombay.

Using Technology to Create a Participatory Culture of Learning

Check out the archive from this exciting event. 

The students at Kings Ridge Christian School - from the self-sufficient six year olds in the pre first grade class to the sophisticated active learners in fifth grade -- use technology to prepare for their future. Watch this short video clip from the NBC News affiliate in Atlanta, Georgia.

Students will demonstrate their understanding of abstract concepts through the creation of a visual representation of the concept. In this lesson, students will create visual representations of the atom to illustrate their understanding of the atom and its elements.

For innovative and effective assessment strategies to record and grade projects, collections of projects, and semester or yearlong student work, you can use the same digital communication skills you teach the students. Following are three areas where these digital communication tools can be helpful.

For Preston Coppels of Loudoun County Public Schools in Ashburn, Virginia, dealing with rapid growth is about planning, planning, planning.

The skills required for the digital age give new relevance to the list of skills that we learned back in the old days.

Using creative tools, students will conduct research on a historical figure and then design a web page based on how this person would want to be represented on the web.

21^st Century Schools are likely to grow as community centers, addressing the out-of school issues that have such a profound impact on student learning.

Have you seen the high quality videos that students are producing? They rival the skill of the pros at film festivals even though they are amateurs without funding. The tools are so sophisticated now that anyone can do it. Here's how to get started.

The science research courses in New York's Hudson Valley don't travel a predictable path. Unlike science labs, the outcomes of student experiments are not known ahead of time.

By a "weird, happy accident" Dave Eggers created a transformative tutoring and writing center for K-12 students in his San Francisco neighborhood.

At Henderson High School, students and teachers understand the importance of having technology in the classroom. This Pennsylvania school district is using innovative technologies from Lenovo, Adobe, Intel and Futurekids to inspire digital creativity in 21st century classrooms. Watch students and teachers tell their own stories about using 21st century tools and technologies.

Report from this Conference for Educational Technology Leaders
Tuesday, April 29, 2008 - Seattle, WA