The current education model in the United States, a relic of the Industrial Age, is increasingly out of touch with the needs of society and the students it serves. The traditional model of education--where a teacher imparts knowledge to students through lecture and students recite memorized facts and solve fundamental math and science problems to illustrate comprehension of the information--is no longer appropriate given the context of today's society. The Internet and efficient global communications have fundamentally changed how individuals access information. Today's generation of students is growing up in an environment where information is available anywhere and anytime on any topic imaginable. They find the methods used by schools in stark contrast with how they learn and interact outside of the classroom. This paper describes how today's students are already integrating the internet into their work and how individuals are using these same innovations to create a highly efficient global society and economy. The challenge then becomes how the education system will use these tools to meet the needs and challenges of today's society. An annotated list of resources is appended. (Contains 3 charts and 92 endnotes.)