When student agency is amplified by the integration of modern technologies, students have great potential to solve real-world problems and learn in a deep and engaging way. And yet often schools are hesitant to provide students with true agency. Richardson looks at some powerful student projects and inventions that were possible through agency and…

Before the end of this decade, almost 5 billion people will carry mobile devices. Will Richardson asserts that because this technology creates ubiquitous, complex, immediate connections to the world, the most important skill is the skill of being able to learn. "Students moving into adulthood today," he writes, "need more than…

Women and non-white racial and ethnic groups remain underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). To achieve a more diverse and equitable STEM workforce, the recruitment and retention of these historically marginalized communities in postsecondary education will also need to increase. Recently, the lens has turned to…

The author of this article writes about how this moment of technological explosion raises a host of important questions for education leaders that speak directly to the way people think about the potentials of technology in school.The author asserts that if technology is seen simply as additive, the questions will be about the technology: Should…

In this era of access, personalizing learning means allowing students to choose their own paths through the curriculum. However, the ability to learn what we want, when we want it, and with whomever we want creates a huge push against a system of education steeped in time-and-place learning. Fundamental changes need to happen in schools to provide…

The idea of learning through games isn't necessarily new. In fact, over the past decade, researchers have been espousing the use of games to help both children and adults learn. But it's only been recently that games have begun to make serious inroads into classrooms. As the world becomes more and more driven by mobile apps and tablet…

Students need opportunities throughout the curriculum to follow their passions and publish quality work for global audiences to interact with. Social media afford the opportunity for students to contribute to the world in meaningful ways, do real work for real audiences for real purposes, find great teachers and collaborators from around the…

Being literate in the 21st century means being able to function in and leverage the potential of collaborative, transparent online groups and networks. Before educators can help their students make the most of this powerful potential, they need to understand that the willingness to share one's work--and to some extent one's personal life--fosters…

It's been almost 40 years since the teaching of writing in schools had its last major shift, a move to an emphasis on the "writing process," which still holds sway in most classrooms today. But with the advent of Web-based social networking tools like blogs and wikis, YouTube and Facebook, it may be that the next revision of writing pedagogy is…

Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) were founded with the principal mission to educate Black people during an era when they were barred from most postsecondary opportunities. Today, these institutions play a vital role in the higher education landscape and help to insure the long-term viability of the U.S. economy. This research…

The majority of educators today are locked in a system that prepares students for a world that has long since passed, instead of a future that is already here. While the world continues to change rapidly, the ability to react to those changes is stymied by age old beliefs about what education should be, increasingly irrelevant expectations and…

Blogs, wikis, and other nifty Web-based tools, ones that enable everyone to create and distribute content like never before, get all the glory, it seems. Then there are the applications that help them organize all that material that they consume online. Though not as sexy, perhaps, as blogging or podcasting, social bookmarking is equally…

This article takes a look at tech guru Will Richardson's new book, "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms." Whether it's blogs or wikis or RSS, all roads now point to a Web where little is done in isolation. The biggest, most sweeping change in the people's relationship with the Internet may not be as much the ability…

Details the use and appeal of Web logs to enhance classroom discussion and allow for outside involvement in the classroom. Defines a Web log, addresses discussing literature in a Web log, and describes the author's first attempts at using Web-log technology. Presents considerations for using Web logs as part of classroom instruction. (SG)

The Internet is no longer only a place to research information. It is now also a forum through which users can publish and disseminate their own writing. Richardson describes some of the main tools that make this new "Read/Write Web" work--blogs, wikis, really simple syndication, and podcasting--and gives examples of how each can be used to…