These are the roles of a 21st Century educator: Teacher as leader, Teacher as writer, Teachers as 21st Century literacy activist.

<p>According to the survey, the majority of middle and high school students (51 percent of students in grades 6 through 12) indicated that "games make it easier to understand difficult concepts. Forty-six percent said they'd learn more about a subject if information were presented in a game format; 44 percent said gaming "would make it more interesting to practice problems"; and about a third said that "the use of games in schools will help them learn how to work in teams and see the direct results of their problem solving activities."</p> <div id="square"><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=3,0,0,0" id="Ad" height="280" width="336"> <param name="movie" value="http://ad101com-images.adbureau.net/ad101com/THE/Collaboration 2.0/collaboration_336x280v4.swf?clickTAG=http://ad101com.adbureau.net/accipiter/adclick/CID=00003efce00ea3bb00000000/acc_random=36080713/site=THE/area=std/aamsz=336x280/pos=m03/pageid=93737584"> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"> <param name="quality" value="autohigh"> <param name="bgcolor" value="none"> <embed src="http://ad101com-images.adbureau.net/ad101com/THE/Collaboration%202.0/collaboration_336x280v4.swf?clickTAG=http://ad101com.adbureau.net/accipiter/adclick/CID=00003efce00ea3bb00000000/acc_random=36080713/site=THE/area=std/aamsz=336x280/pos=m03/pageid=93737584" wmode="transparent" quality="autohigh" swliveconnect="FALSE" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" height="280" width="336"> </object> <noembed>&lt;A HREF="http://ad101com.adbureau.net/accipiter/adclick/CID=00003efce00ea3bb00000000/acc_random=36080713/site=THE/area=std/aamsz=336x280/pos=m03/pageid=93737584"&gt;&lt;IMG SRC="http://ad101com-images.adbureau.net/ad101com/THE/Collaboration 2.0/336x280_Collaboration.jpg" ALT="Collaboration 2.0" WIDTH="336" HEIGHT="280" BORDER="0"&gt;&lt;/A&gt;</noembed> <noscript><A HREF="http://ad101com.adbureau.net/accipiter/adclick/CID=00003efce00ea3bb00000000/acc_random=36080713/site=THE/area=std/aamsz=336x280/pos=m03/pageid=93737584"><IMG SRC="http://ad101com-images.adbureau.net/ad101com/THE/Collaboration 2.0/336x280_Collaboration.jpg" ALT="Collaboration 2.0" WIDTH="336" HEIGHT="280" BORDER="0"></A></noscript> </div> <p>Teachers were apparently even more enthusiastic about gaming, as 65 percent indicated that they thought educational gaming would be an effective tool for students with different learning styles and would help engage students in coursework. More than half said they'd like to learn more about educational gaming, and some 46 percent said they would "like to receive specific professional development on how to effectively integrate gaming technologies into curriculum," according to the survey.</p>

<p>According to the survey, the majority of middle and high school students (51 percent of students in grades 6 through 12) indicated that "games make it easier to understand difficult concepts. Forty-six percent said they'd learn more about a subject if information were presented in a game format; 44 percent said gaming "would make it more interesting to practice problems"; and about a third said that "the use of games in schools will help them learn how to work in teams and see the direct results of their problem solving activities."</p> <div id="square"><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=3,0,0,0" id="Ad" height="280" width="336"> <param name="movie" value="http://ad101com-images.adbureau.net/ad101com/THE/Collaboration 2.0/collaboration_336x280v4.swf?clickTAG=http://ad101com.adbureau.net/accipiter/adclick/CID=00003efce00ea3bb00000000/acc_random=79093549/site=THE/area=std/aamsz=336x280/pos=m03/pageid=86059397"> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"> <param name="quality" value="autohigh"> <param name="bgcolor" value="none"> <embed src="http://ad101com-images.adbureau.net/ad101com/THE/Collaboration%202.0/collaboration_336x280v4.swf?clickTAG=http://ad101com.adbureau.net/accipiter/adclick/CID=00003efce00ea3bb00000000/acc_random=79093549/site=THE/area=std/aamsz=336x280/pos=m03/pageid=86059397" wmode="transparent" quality="autohigh" swliveconnect="FALSE" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" height="280" width="336"> </object> <noembed>&lt;A HREF="http://ad101com.adbureau.net/accipiter/adclick/CID=00003efce00ea3bb00000000/acc_random=79093549/site=THE/area=std/aamsz=336x280/pos=m03/pageid=86059397"&gt;&lt;IMG SRC="http://ad101com-images.adbureau.net/ad101com/THE/Collaboration 2.0/336x280_Collaboration.jpg" ALT="Collaboration 2.0" WIDTH="336" HEIGHT="280" BORDER="0"&gt;&lt;/A&gt;</noembed> <noscript><A HREF="http://ad101com.adbureau.net/accipiter/adclick/CID=00003efce00ea3bb00000000/acc_random=79093549/site=THE/area=std/aamsz=336x280/pos=m03/pageid=86059397"><IMG SRC="http://ad101com-images.adbureau.net/ad101com/THE/Collaboration 2.0/336x280_Collaboration.jpg" ALT="Collaboration 2.0" WIDTH="336" HEIGHT="280" BORDER="0"></A></noscript> </div> <p>Teachers were apparently even more enthusiastic about gaming, as 65 percent indicated that they thought educational gaming would be an effective tool for students with different learning styles and would help engage students in coursework. More than half said they'd like to learn more about educational gaming, and some 46 percent said they would "like to receive specific professional development on how to effectively integrate gaming technologies into curriculum," according to the survey.</p>

In fact, Jackson said, out of all the high schools in Illinois that implement online learning, a predominantly Hispanic high school has the highest online learning pass rate. This school has managed to recover dropouts and has encouraged parents raising children and/or working full-time to enroll as well.

<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">“Online learning isn’t just some remedial course we’re giving to minority or disadvantaged kids,” said Rose. “It’s a high-quality education that’s helping to meet individual student needs.”</div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">&nbsp;</div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Jackson argued that sometimes online courses are even more rigorous than traditional courses, because they are more interactive, require technology literacy, and provide a host of online resources for a student to take advantage of.</div>

the standards require teacher-candidates to exhibit knowledge, skills, and dispositions that equip them to teach technology applications. Candidates also have to show they can use technology to support student learning of content.

<p>Joel Colbert, who heads the committee on innovation and technology, says the handbook seeks to make the point that stand-alone technology classes are now obsolete. </p> <p>“We are saying that’s not the way to integrate technology into teacher training, because each subject area uses technology differently,” Colbert says.</p>

In his inaugural attempt using the application, Ferriter posted VoiceThreads about a variety of topics online, encouraging students to comment on them voluntarily on their own time. He got dozens -- even hundreds -- of comments on each. It was a revelation. "I can basically extend my classroom," he says.

Ferriter says more students participate more actively in digital discussions than in the classroom. "You don't have to be the loud one or the popular one," he points out. When he asked his students about their online involvement, he said they cited the sense of safety: "They can think about their comments beforehand." They also liked the fact that any VoiceThread has multiple conversations going on at once. "In a classroom conversation, there's generally one strand of conversation going at any one time, and if you're bored by that particular strand, you're completely disengaged," says Ferriter.

Ferriter says more students participate more actively in digital discussions than in the classroom. "You don't have to be the loud one or the popular one," he points out. When he asked his students about their online involvement, he said they cited the sense of safety: "They can think about their comments beforehand."

Well-integrated technology opens social networks for students and allows children to develop key social skills, according to two recent studies conducted by researchers at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Forty-seven percent of teen bloggers write outside of school for personal reasons several times a week or more, compared with 33 percent of teens without blogs. Sixty-five percent of teen bloggers believe that writing is essential to later success in life; 53 percent of non-bloggers say the same thing.

Most students (82 percent) believe that additional instruction and focus on writing in school would help improve their writing even further--and more than three-quarters of those surveyed (78 percent) think it would help their writing if their teachers used computer-based writing tools such as games, multimedia, or writing software programs or web sites during class.

<a href="http://www.mhprofessional.com/product.php?isbn=0071592067"><i>Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns</i></a> predicts that the growth in computer-based delivery of education will accelerate swiftly until, by 2019, half of all high school classes will be taught over the Internet.

The ability for teachers to understand and add value to the comment ‘back channel’ is a key skill for the ‘connected teacher’. Anyone can swap an writing pad for a blog, there is no value in that. The back channel is the conversation, and is the heartbeat of thought.

I can’t think of another way in which teachers can get such immediate access to the ‘thinking’ process that is playing out in front of them.

<p class="articletext">Researchers have found three consistent effects of using – and especially, emphasizing the importance of – letter or number grades:</p> <p class="articletext">1.&nbsp; Grades tend to reduce students’ interest in the learning itself.&nbsp;</p>

2.&nbsp; Grades tend to reduce students’ preference for challenging tasks.

3.&nbsp; Grades tend to reduce the quality of students’ thinking.