The Best Time to Plant a Tree....

As the popular Chinese proverb goes, "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."

The new year brings with it an opportunity to take action, to reflect on where we've come and to look forward to where we're going, especially as we consider the cultural and societal shifts that our students have witnessed in the past 10 years.

To consider perspective, the math is pretty simple: This year's graduates were in 2nd grade in 2010. Today's 2nd graders will graduate in 2030.

In 2010, the iPad was first released. Facebook was visited more often than Google. Yahoo Mail and Yahoo search both had more visits than YouTube. MySpace was still a thing.

In 2010, the final season of Lost played out. The Simpsons was in its 21st season. eSports were just emerging.

According to the Pew Research Center, in 2010:

• 75% of 12-17 year old students owned a cell phone (up from 45% in 2004)
• 54% of all teens regularly sent text messages (and unlimited texting prices were close to $20 extra per month, or 10-15 cents, per message)
• 1 in 3 teens sent more than 100 text messages each day (average of 3000 per month). 
• 1 in 5 teens sent fewer than 10 text messages each day. 
• 30% of all teens preferred to talk on a land line
• 33% of all teens preferred to talk face-to-face
• Calling was still the primary function of the cell phone.

And while some things change, others, like The Simpsons, remain a constant.... But when it comes to technology, plainly speaking, we're in the midst of a generational shift.

As we enter 2020:
- 95% of teens have a smartphone or have access to one.
- 45% of teens say they are "almost constantly" online
- 52% of all web traffic, worldwide, is generated through mobile phones.
- 66% of smartphone users are addicted to their phones.
- Female college students spend an average of 10 hours each day on their phone
- 88% of smartphone owners use their phone while driving (~3.5 minutes/hour, on average)
- 80% of shoppers use a mobile phone in a physical store.
- Parents spend more time on their phones than adults without children.

What will 2030 look like? What changes will it bring? 

2020 Graduates were in 2nd grade in 2010.

Kids are still kids.... Their curiosity commands our attention, but their world has dramatically shifted. Just consider the evolution we've all lived during the past 10 years because of increased access to technology. Communication is different. Connectivity is different. Commerce is different. Attention spans are different. Even Parenting is different.

So, is it worth dedicating a portion of our instructional day to deliver Digital Citizenship instruction to students? Absolutely.

If you're not already doing it, the best time to start is now!

The idea of Digital Citizenship focuses on a number of concepts – it is so much more than simply telling students how they should or should not act when operating online, interacting with others, or using their smartphones. We need to focus on empowering users -- not surprisingly, our students don't need a rule book, they need guidance and mentoring.

In short, it boils down to two parts:

1. Digital Literacy – understanding the digital world and knowing what tools (and rules) exist and the basics for how to use them.
2. Digital Fluency – knowing when, why, and how to use digital tools to our advantage; understanding the opportunities that digitally literate citizens have in the emerging world.

There is a huge difference between the two, and, as citizens of the modern world, students must be able to "recognize the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world, and they act and model in ways that are safe, legal and ethical" (Thanks, ISTE!).

Remember, we're 20 years into the 21st century.

A truly fluent user (or a “digital citizen”) is able to move in and out of their communities or switch between the available tools seamlessly, and as educators, it’s part of our mission to help prepare our students for success, just as we, as educators, should model what it means to be a life-long learner in our pursuit to develop areas where we might have knowledge deficiencies.

How can we expect our students to embrace a challenging concept if we aren’t willing to attempt it ourselves? Just one example is a look at our lessons on Coding: Coding is the next tool our students will need to be able to wield, just like we expect them to be capable of typing on their computer or writing with their pencils. Certainly as teachers, it's a foreign concept, but, perhaps the most significant lesson we can take from a Digital Citizenship focused curriculum comes back to modeling the behaviors and attitudes we teach. Let’s use these opportunities to help them, and starting now will only benefit our students, whether they are in Kindergarten or 10th grade!

In essence, our definition of “Citizenship” should be applied across all mediums, as we now live in a Digital World, whether we want to believe it or not. Just as we might expect a citizen to understand the laws and workings of the “in-person” communities in which we interact (and we teach/preach this stuff in our courses) each day, we should recognize that those communities, increasingly, are universally present because so much of this world has moved online.

For another glimpse into how quickly the times have changed,
 consider Jenson Huang's CES speech about Moore's Law

Truly, we shouldn’t have to teach a formalized “Digital Citizenship” curriculum at all, as it’s our professional duty to prepare our students for success in the world they are currently living in, as opposed to preparing them for a world that no longer exists as we knew it to be when we were growing up. These are the conversations and activities we should be having with students each and every day.

But, one thing that our Digital Citizenship instruction allows us to do, that we sometimes don't do often enough in our content-focused classrooms is talk with our students about their thinking process, about their approach to solving difficult and uncertain problems, about understanding the communities in which they wander, about understanding others (empathy!), and about making good and evidence-based decisions. 

Simply put, Digital Citizenship instruction is much greater than just conveying rules of use to our students; it’s about understanding the digital world that surrounds us and understanding our role as members of it – the good, the ugly, the hindrances, the opportunities. If we are to thrive in a digital society (and if our students are going to thrive), we must know its nature and its mechanisms.

And it's never too late to start teaching these fundamental skills. 

A Craftsman's Legacy - Giving Every Child A Voice

A Craftsman's Legacy - Giving Every Child A Voice

Image Source

If you haven’t had an opportunity to watch the series on PBS called “A Craftsman’s Legacy,” I would encourage you to take some time to do so.  Throughout the four seasons of this series, the host visits varying craftsman to learn about their industry and to uncover the artistry and the history associated with the product they make, whether it be swords, stills, soap, quilts, shoes, cowboy hats, jeans, pots, and on and on… Each episode runs 26-28 minutes.

What intrigues me the most is the way the host brings to life a discussion of the art, the history, the science, and the math, and the industry know-how required to understand, to make, and to market the products, and what he finds (not unexpectedly) is the intellect and cross-curricular expertise that comes with every product made.  

At a time when so much emphasis is placed on college readiness and immersion in the digital realm, this show highlights the people who took a different route and it presents their choice and their work as being as highly valued as the work done by people in every other industry.  

And, on top of that, it answers the question of “Why?” we hear so often when introducing new and challenging concepts to students. Each of these craftsman pursued a passion and each found the foundational skills they were taught to be interconnected and transferable into their passion pursuits. 

If these episodes were to be shown in the classroom, numerous opportunities exist, during each one, to pause and to examine the intricacies of the work and the unknowns that must be solved, in order to attain the vision for the product. Even more, consider what classroom discussion will look like when the student who takes AP Calculus and the one who takes Advanced Welding come together to discuss the process of Gold-Smithing and jewelry craft. 

A discussion like this would give value to the knowledge of every participant, and each child, with their individual talents and areas of expertise, is able to bring something to the discussion that ties them to their peers and that legitimizes their passions and their excellence.

Imagine the classroom where there is interdependence among the learners, with each one having an equal seat at the table of learning!

As one of the Season 4 episodes reveals, you can’t make a proper whiskey still without understanding the value and purpose of pi. Similarly, an understanding of the chemical and material properties of copper, compared to stainless steel, is essential if you want the product to possess the proper flavor. Incredible!

Undoubtedly, each student would leave the discussion with an understanding they didn't have when they entered it, whether they learn about the concept, about the skill, or about one of their peers. 

I watched an episode on furniture making earlier today… . The final lines of the series talk about the use of technology to reduce materials waste and to enhance the quality of the end product, with the last line being “As Craftsman, we can always learn something new.” …. A concept that perfectly relates to teaching. 

Teachers are, after all, craftsman, and our students - and the relationships and lessons we leave with them - are our legacy. 

What are we doing, today, to make sure that every student, no matter their passion or their area of expertise, is given a valuable and worthy in our classroom? 

What are we doing, today, to help them see how the foundational skills they are learning can transfer into their life-long, legacy-leaving pursuits? 

Check out the show here: http://www.craftsmanslegacy.com/episodes/season_4.  To watch the full episodes, you co need to create a "Legacy Society" account, which is free.

Does a Problem-Based Learning Approach Fit My Classroom?

It’s April, 1348 – one of the wettest springs in memory. People of your town are constantly muddy and soaked and chilled to the bone. Crops aren’t growing as well as they should be at this point in the year. An unknown messenger just showed up at your door bringing the first reports of the plague to your town. The “Black Death” is spreading rapidly. 96,000 already dead in Florence, and Florence is uncomfortably close to your home in Lucca. How will you protect yourself? How will you protect your community? How will you leverage the knowledge of others to help?

In many ways, the solution to this scenario, posed by Dr. Shelagh Gallagher is complex – it’s cross-curricular and requires us to consider what we know and how we would apply that prior knowledge and understanding to the situation. And there are a lot of unknowns. In fact, there likely isn’t a single solution - there may be only a “best option.”

This example of a problem-based learning scenario is one of countless possibilities for you to get your students to begin actively applying the content they learn to the world in which they live. And the best part – this doesn’t have to be a major undertaking and can be done using a “post-hole” approach. It starts with a rich scenario or a driving question that sets the stage for students to work with one another, to apply already-known (or to gather newly-learned) understandings, and engage in deep thinking. Some describe Project-based learning activities as a “fieldwork” approach to instruction.

Consider three questions matter when designing a problem-based learning activity or unit:

1. What do I want students to learn/understand/demonstrate at the completion of this unit? - These are your learning targets, your standards-focused outcomes, your assessment components. Consider using a “demonstration” of learning at the end as your unit/activity assessment. 
2. What do students already know? – This is often not just their subject-specific knowledge, but rather a breadth and depth of life experiences and academic understandings that could be acquired from the “groupthink” process. One of the best possible outcomes that could result from using a PBL approach in your classroom is that students will bring their unique knowledge and experiences into the conversation - whether gained from personal experience, personal exploration, or family or community connections.  In the scenario posed, above, I'd use my prior reading of Ken Follett's Kingsbridge trilogy to support my solution. 
3. What do students still need to know? – This is the yet-to-be-learned material – the embedded instruction component. Sometimes foundational or conceptual skills in a given unit or subject, sometimes “on-the-spot” learning, sometimes real-world experiences, sometimes “soft-skills” driven (communication, teamwork, public presentations, etc…). This might also be seen as a differentiated learning environment, where students/groups might receive the same instruction.

Better yet, complex problems such as this one can be the basis for engaging eLearning and Blended Learning lessons, particularly because they launch students into the problem-solving phase of learning, challenging them to consider and act upon what they already know while preparing for the application of new knowledge that, perhaps, has not yet been uncovered.

And because of the internet (and its array of crowd-sourced Problem-Based learning websites) it's relatively "easy" to do - give students a situation or scenario that would require them to apply learning from your class, and task them with developing a question about it. What's important is that the responsibility for learning is released to the students - they need to be free to ask questions about their learning and to uncover the answers to those questions. As teachers, it's not our job to "always" provide them with the right answer - our job is to provide them with the tools and resources to access and to determine the answer using the evidence they have available to them.

As you close out the first trimester (and approach the end of the first semester!) of this school year and leap into your planning and revisions for the one to come, you might consider using a scenario-based, or problem-based approach to breathe new life into a tired, outworn (or outdated), or under-performing lesson or activity in your classroom.

Maybe you start by integrating a video from OK Go, Dude Perfect, or RealLifeLore as the tool that helps your students develop their questions (also mentioned in my last post!). Or, maybe you go a little further and utilize some of Robert Kaplinsky's lessons, or even those from Andrew Stadel at Estimation180.com.

With the right preparation and support, this approach can be made to fit every classroom - whether using a full-on approach to redesign your classroom or as a "post-hole" approach to help solidify the gaps in understanding that students have in your units. 

It answers the question, "Why do we need to know this."

It activates prior knowledge and applied understandings from other coursework.

It transfers learning to other subject areas. 

It creates excitement. 

It pushes students to be active learners.

It forces them to find solutions, applying the skills gained in your class to real life. 

This is a great time to reach out to your instructional coaches, building administrators, and/or department leaders to get help finding resources (which may include your colleagues), brainstorming “problem” ideas for your subject or specific-student group, and/or to get feedback and assistance as you design assessments/lessons/units that integrate this method of instruction.

Clearing the Fog on eLearning: 4 Tools for Consideration

If you're like me, you've been watching the weather more closely - especially as foggy mornings are more frequently causing school delays across our area. As the season changes, and eLearning becomes an ever-increasing reality, what's your go-to tool or approach for delivering high-quality lessons in a digital environment? Do you have one?

Across our region, there are typically two primary approaches to delivering instruction for eLearning: 1) distribute something in advance of the anticipated school closure or 2) post lesson material on your school's LMS (Schoology, Canvas, or Google Classroom are most predominant in our region).

Sending materials home is not always a practical solution, and posting content online for students to access with ease is a good start. But, it's still not enough to simply use the online product as a mere substitute for the physical classroom. With the environment shifting from classroom to cloud, lessons should also make a similar leap.

The challenge of eLearning is that our instruction has to be more enticing than the distractions students have at home.

To compete, we need students to get excited about the task ahead or, at the very least, to ask questions about the concepts presented that will, hopefully, lead towards further inquiry on a topic.

The prepared worksheet probably isn't going to make that happen - for most students. And just posting the assignment in Canvas to read Chapter 8 in the online textbook, or to take an online quiz, probably won't do that, either.

So is there a way to flip the script on eLearning and to make the shift from practice to application? Is there a way to engage our students in the power of questioning?

Sure, but our approach must be measured and intentionally designed. And, to be honest, it must become a regular part of your classroom practice. With that in mind, here are a couple of tools you might consider integrating into your routine lesson design:

1) Google's Newspaper Archive: I've found that this is one of the most dynamic and unknown resources on the internet. If you remember the microfiche machines of the past, Google has taken the advance step to digitize newspaper archives, simplifying the process while putting the information of the past at our fingertips in the present.

How could you use this? A few ideas:

1. History - what are some significant dates related to your current unit? Have your students read an article from this time (yes, they are searchable) and respond with their impression of the events as the papers revealed them. 
2. Math - check out the advertisements for food and other items. Simple math - what was the difference in costs between now and then. Complex math - what are the rates of inflation given the changing times and economic influences. 
3. Reading - have your students read the long news articles - or the short "local" articles in the back and reveal their impressions of the language used, bias revealed, conflicts explored, etc... 
4. Foreign Language - Check out some of the papers written in other languages. 
5. Graphic Design/Art - compare papers of the past to papers of the day. What has changed with the influence of technology?

The opportunities are nearly endless for coming up with lessons that could be applied at nearly every grade level and in every subject.

2) Jamboard: Google released Jamboard in 2017 as a stand-alone tool similar to other smart whiteboards on the market. What's best about Jamboard, though, is that you don't need to have the physical (and expensive) device to use the app or web-interface option with your students.

This tool can literally change the way you deliver instruction to your students and the way you have students interact with their learning. In its most basic element, Jamboard is an interactive whiteboard with all of the collaborative benefits of the other GSuite tools. You can create one for your class and share it with your students, or your students can create one and share it with you.

Better yet, if your students have a touch-screen Chromebook, Android device/tablet, or
iPhone/iPad/iPod, they can add the app to their phone with even more integrated features.

How could you use this? A few ideas:

1. Integrate the assignment with your LMS to force a copy of a template Jamboard to every student for completion. Canvas, Schoology, and Google Classroom all work really well with this product. 
2. Leverage the digital whiteboard capabilities to change backgrounds, add photos and pictures, practice handwriting, make graphs, do math, take notes, or save your hand-written content. 
3. As a collaborative annotation/note taking tool. Up to 50 collaborators can work on a single Jam at the same time.
4. As an eLearning activity. Post a picture/image of an activity/prompt/worksheet you'd like students to complete and students can write/draw/note directly on that image. 
5. As a blended-design tool to save your lesson/instruction to re-use with future classes or to post on your LMS as a learning tool. 

3) Flipgrid: If you haven't yet jumped aboard the Flipgrid train, it's totally worth doing! Flipgrid is a video-based response tool that allows you to post a video, resource, text, or website for students to view or complete and respond. Student-recorded videos can have a range of 15 seconds in length to 5 minutes, and they can be redone until students believe they're submitting their best work.

How could you use this? A few ideas:

1. Like Jamboard, this tool integrates really well with the most common LMS's used by districts across our region. 
2. Post your eLearning instructions / lessons here and assign students to record a video showing you what they produced during the lesson. 
3. Provide a thought-provoking or instructional video for students to respond. Students can respond to their peers for a "real-time" video-based discussion. 
4. Allow students to tell a story, read a book, or "show-and-tell" via Flipgrid, even on an eLearning Day. This tool allows teachers to quickly assess students and to quickly engage them in participation-based activities. 

4) YouTube: While YouTube isn't a new option, you might rethink your utilization of it, especially on an eLearning Day when students may already be drained or lacking focus by the time they get to the work for your class or lesson. Paired with a tool like Flipgrid, or EdPuzzle, students go from being passive viewers of the videos to engaged participants. Additionally, you might also consider the videos you're directing students to watch - are they information or inquiry-focused? Do they tell students what to learn or do they prompt students to find ways their learning is reflected or revealed?

Some of my favorite YouTube channels promote engagement while also prompting our students - young and old - to ask big questions about the content or topics covered.

1. VSauce - With over a billion views, VSauce reveals the science behind many of the biggest questions that exist, like - Is Cereal Soup? or Did the Past Really Happen? 
2. RealLifeLore - Similarly, RealLifeLore highlights and explores some of nature's biggest mysteries and offers viewers hypothetical answers to many of life's unknowns.  (How Big do Hurricanes Get?)
3. Dude Perfect - Trick shots at their finest. This group of friends makes clean videos that challenge our understanding of physics and patience. Are the makes real? How many attempts did they need to do that? How expensive was it to make this video? Not only are their videos relevant and fun, the science and psychology behind their videos can drive some great classroom conversations, no matter the subject.

The point is this: No matter the tool, what we're really looking to do is prompt our students to ask questions and engage in complex thinking. This is where learning happens. Providing them with a worksheet or a routine activity on an eLearning day won't advance learning and it certainly won't drive instruction further. Odds are, if your design isn't intentional, you'll find yourself reviewing and re-covering the content they should have already completed.

As Fisher, Frey, & Hattie reveal in their book, Visible Learning for Literacy,

“A teacher who emphasizes (and assesses) surface learning will cultivate surface-level learners. On the other hand, teachers who encourage learners to plan, investigate, and elaborate on their learning will nurture deep learners.”

What are you doing to engage and encourage deep learning? Check out the tools above for some help. If you'll be at the Indiana Connected Educators conference or HECC in the coming weeks, I'd love to see you at one of my sessions highlighting some of these tools, topics, and the way they can be tied into your day to day routines!

Is my lesson more relevant because I'm using technology?

It happens all. the. time. And the argument is often the same, despite the faulty reasoning behind the logic.


1. Students love technology.
2. Students don't love my classroom lessons.
3. If I use technology, students will love my classroom lessons.

A variation of the argument might be:

1. This lesson needs to be more engaging.
2. Technology is engaging (students love it!)
3. If I use digital resources, my lessons will be more engaging.

So where did the idea that simply adding technology to a lesson suddenly makes it more relevant or more interesting for students?

For some, the argument may be promoted by colleagues, or by administrators, or by students. But is technology really the solution to student disengagement?

I recently found a blog article focused on Digital Transformation in the business world, but one quote really struck me, particularly as we are examining similar shifts in education.

"If you want to deliver experiences that customers will love and your team will be thrilled to deliver — you must determine if new technology is what you really need. Is a digital transformation what your company needs? Do you understand what that really means?"

Let that sink in as you consider the parallels between education and the private sector. Who are our customers? Without a doubt, most teachers would say our students. Who is our team? Most would say our colleagues. Do your students need new technologies? Will our colleagues be "thrilled to deliver" lessons using new technology? Do we understand what a digital transformation of our classroom really means?

In many cases - No.

Using technology and integrating technology are not the same thing.  Technology has the ability to take our students further, to open their eyes to a world of opportunity, and to create connections between the content in our lessons and the challenges and experiences they have every day of the week.

If we really want to deliver an experience that our customer - the student - will love, we need to recognize that technology might not be the silver bullet that revitalizes a low-energy classroom full of disengaged students. As with so much else, if we don't have a vision for its use, beyond just using it, the digital transformation in our schools lacks a solid foundation.

At this year's Indiana Connected Educators Conference, I have the opportunity, along with my Casey Stansifer, to share and discuss the difficult challenge we all face with striking the right balance between promoting complex thinking among students and leveraging the technologies available within our classrooms. At the core of our presentation we'll examine how we can promote knowledge transfer and we'll share some key technology resources that can support our shared outcomes.
colleague,

We can't start with the technology. Alone, it won't make much difference and we're wasting the most precious of resources - our students' opportunities to achieve more.

Good lesson design isn't just about the technology. Rather, it's about the the purposeful, outcomes-focused inclusion of technology that helps move our lessons further (increasing the cognitive complexity (rigor)) and challenges our students to think differently about the skills (not just the content - we want knowledge transfer (relevance)) we are teaching.

In short, it's time for us, as teachers, to step back and take a closer look at "what" we are teaching - not just how we're doing it. We need to rethink the cognitive range we ask our students to span and we need to re-examine the depth of application we ask our students to demonstrate.

"As with any technology used in the classroom, its power to transform is only as good as its strategic implementation."

As my colleague, Andy Deatrick, so often asks - "are we teaching students to 'solve [math] problems' (content focused) or are we teaching them to be problem solvers?" Relevance is dependent upon transferability of knowledge.

So back to the initial question: Is my lesson more relevant because I'm using technology?

As revealed earlier, "Relevant" refers to something being closely connected or appropriate to what is being done or considered. What a great definition!

Instructional Relevance does not mean that students enjoy a lesson because we've integrated technology, rather it reveals that there is a connection between the designed application of technology and the skill students will improve during the learning exercise.

Image Source: Bryan Mather

The lesson becomes more relevant when we ask our students to use what we teach, not when we ask them to use technology to do something.

It becomes more relevant when we challenge them to demonstrate their mastery of the skills. 

It becomes more relevant when we empower them to embrace trial and error, to make mistakes and to revise and reflect on their thinking. 

It becomes more relevant when we allow healthy and safe spaces for collaboration and for asking difficult questions and justifying complex answers, building each student's collective competency to transfer understanding to unforeseen situations.

It becomes more relevant when students create solutions, not just PowerPoint presentations.

So let's start planning our lessons by focusing on the skills students gain not on the technology students use. 

Let's start planning our units with an awareness of how students will demonstrate the depth of their knowledge, and not with the task they will complete.

And let's start planning our school year by focusing on the relationships we will develop with our students, supporting them when they take risks, encouraging them to persevere in the face of difficult experiences, and challenging them to revise and reflect on their experiences.

What about our use of technology? Yes - use it when it empowers students to go further and to do more than they ever thought possible.

“It is much easier to add technology to do exactly what has been done before—the same curriculum, same assessments, same schedule, same assignments—than to fundamentally redesign the work and the culture of learning.”

- Alan November

The Modern Classroom: How can technology expand student horizons?

With the coming of a new school year, the challenge to reflect on the year before and to improve is never stronger. Reflection, I’ve found, is a natural partner during the planning and lesson design process. And change is a natural element in that cycle. How are you doing with it?

Change, often, is complex, but as educators,we’ve got to consider how technology in the modern

Image courtesy of Nick Youngson

classroom can expand our students’ opportunities outside of the school walls.

You’ve heard it already, so say it with me: We're training today's students for jobs that have yet to be invented. And, bottom line, there's a tremendous amount of truth in that. But we also have to be very attentive to the fact that many of today's jobs will still exist, but they're certainly going to look different in the future.

Mechanic? Sure, if you’re willing to forego the wrench and program small computers. If you’ve had to bring a car into the shop recently, it’s just as likely the repair was electrical as it is that it was mechanical. The combustible engine isn't here to stay in the same way that the gas streetlamp was replaced by the electric one. Your neighborhood mechanic is quickly evolving into a technician.

Construction? It's in the midst of an evolution, as well, moving from the building site to the factory. Prefab is where it’s at, and homes can be built at a much faster pace when weather and travel doesn't hinder the time-frame. The nature of skilled labor is changing, and with it, so are the craftsmen and laborers doing the work. Oh.... and about those computers...... again.

Photo courtesy of University of the Fraser Valley

Okay, so maybe not a trade, how about the "educated" professional world. Let's say Designer, maybe? Dang... yep. Once again, the technology has found its way into that job, too, and robots may soon replace us. And let's be blunt. Even if it hasn't happened yet, it's going to happen. Computers will show up, something "better" than the current computers will show up, and the cycle for improvement and advancement will continue to happen, just as it has for hundreds of years.

In almost every industry and professional field, an evolution is occurring, and as educators, it’s our duty to help students prepare for success in these fields and to develop the skills that ill allow them to comfortably transfer their learning into application, especially with the increasing integration of technology. Our students must be capable of leaping the gap when the transition occurs.

We’ve all heard the comparison: Today's classroom still looks like "yesterday's classroom" - whether we go back 100 years, or further. While some aspects are true, we must challenge that premise and recognize that highly effective instruction has little to do with the teacher and everything to do with the learner. We’re better when student needs are met.

Technology allows us to do more for our students than we've ever been able to do previously. No longer do our classrooms have to be silos. No longer do our students have to live in a community limited by its borders, or its demographics, or its location. Technology allows them to go everywhere, to see everything, and to reach across the world in order to connect with peers and with experts, no matter the topic.

Image courtesy of Denise Krebs

This year, as you reflect on the successes of the past school year and design (redesign?) new lessons to help students experience greater growth in their challenge areas, consider the potential of technology and the challenges that could be designed that leverage it. Allow your students to engage deeply with your content and to get their hands dirty by transferring their learning into knowledge with meaningful and application-focused activities.

So start small. Start simple. Don't eat the entire cake.... just take a bite. And, if something goes awry, don't reject the technology, take another route. In fact, students will grow from the way we handle it!

It's not about the world that we grew up in, we've got to prepare students for the world they are growing up in, helping them develop the skills necessary to thrive. No longer should we talk about helping our students develop 21st century skills - we’re 19 years into it, we cannot wait any longer.

Today's classrooms are rapidly evolving and teachers are left only two choices, start now or catch up later.