The inspiration for this website, along with the articles, blogs and information it contains, comes from my personal journey through this world we call “education.” It encompasses time spent as an elementary and secondary student, a college student, a college instructor, a high school teacher, an instructional coach and as a life-long learner. These experiences, along with the research of many researchers and authors on educational topics, have led me to the conclusion that many of the assumptions we have had about the best way to “do education” are wrong, and research shows that there are many better ways to reach today’s students. Many of these envolve the use of technology but only with the caveat that the use of technology is student-centered and teacher driven. In my article, A Vision for Technological Classrooms for the 21st Century, I lay out one possible vision for what classrooms of the 21st Century might look like. It is this article that led to the conversations, discussions and questions that became a primary reason for the creation of this website to write about these conversations, conclusions, best educational practices, and practical use of technology.

My own elementary and secondary education was a lesson in how to succeed in the education system of the time but not necessarily in education itself. When a teacher told me to write something down, I wrote it down. When a teacher gave me words to look up, I looked them up. When a teacher said it would be on a test, I memorized it and made 100 on the test. I was the master of the worksheet, of the review sheet and of taking tests. Under the secondary education system I grew up in, I was the perfect A student! The only problem was that I didn’t actually know anything! When I reached college and was expected to think at higher levels, to analyze and synthesize information, and to reach conclusions on my own, I was not prepared and struggled. I was a walking storehouse of facts, formulas and terms but didn’t really know how to use any of it. I had to retrain myself to use the information that I had retained to create real knowledge. That issue is compounded in today’s world by the fact that a vast knowledge base is contained on computers and on the smart phones that we carry with us all of the time. The skills our students need today are those necessary to put all of that knowledge to use. Technology devices are a great delivery mechanism for information but skilled teachers are still necessary for instructing students in ways of using that information to construct real knowledge.

As a college instructor, I was called on to present knowledge and resources to students who were often left on their own to combine, synthesize and apply this knowledge to their needs. When I became a high school teacher, the obvious first step for me was to apply many of the same lecture-based strategies that I had used in college to my high school classroom; choosing to cover the material with little regard to whether students were learning anything from it or not. This approach, while effective for some was not effective for most and even though I was getting good feedback from many, there were many others who were “hiding” in the class, allowing others’ responses to cover their own lack of knowledge. It began to become apparent that there must be a better way for students to interact with each other and their teachers. All of this lead to a great deal of reflection, reading and research along with instructional trial and error in determining what works in reaching students in today’s classroom environment as well as what doesn’t work. The necessary interactions between teachers, students and technology in the classroom needed to develop student knowledge and skills inspired much of the content contained on this website.