<a href="http://www.photobus.co.uk/" target="_blank"><strong>aniel Meadows</strong></a> defines digital stories as "short, personal multimedia tales told from the heart." The beauty of this form of digital expression, he maintains is that these stories can be created by people everywhere, on any subject, and shared electronically all over the world. Meadows goes on to describe digital stories as "multimedia sonnets from the people"

<strong>Radio WillowWeb</strong> is a podcast for kids and by kids from the students at Willowdale Elemetary School in Omaha, Nebraska.

"There are a lot of terrible educational games out there, where you have to do something unfun, like solve five math problems, so you can do something fun, like play a game," said Ben Stokes, a games expert at the MacArthur Foundation.<br><br> Instead, the experts are interested in the educational benefits of commercially available games that were not expressly designed for school use--simulation games like Zoo Tycoon, in which elementary school-age children can build virtual zoos by selecting animals, creating appropriate habitats, managing food budgets and even setting the prices of popcorn at the concession stands.<br>

Some students spend many hours communicating asynchronously, having a much richer dialogue than could have been possible through the best face-to-face facilitation.

<p>The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative's (ELI's) <em>7 Things You Should Know About...</em> series provides concise information on emerging learning technologies and related practices. Each brief focuses on a single technology or practice and describes:</p> <ul> <li>What it is</li> <li>How it works</li> <li>Where it is going</li> <li>Why it matters to teaching and learning</li></ul>

Virtual schools are growing fast, though, at an annual rate of about 25 percent. Estimates of elementary and secondary students taking virtual classes range from 500,000 to 1 million nationally, compared with total public school enrollment of about 50 million.