Lane County, Oregon, has 16 school districts, and up until last year, every one of them had its own online learning program. Some were more like correspondence courses, while others were closer to online curriculum delivery. No one had ever explored the options available, the cost savings that district collaboration might provide, or the benefits…

The author has been encouraging teachers, students, and others to join Twitter and build their personal learning networks (PLNs) ever since she delved into this great social networking site. In this article, she offers a few other tools and tips that can improve the Twitter experience of those who have opened up an account and dabbled a bit but…

Think teachers can post what they want on their own time? Think again. Many have lost their jobs over social networking gaffes in recent years. In this article, the author shares what he has learned about how school districts cope with teachers and online social networking sites, and offers recommendations to teachers who want to have an online…

What will technology-based teacher professional development look like in the next few years? In this article, teacher training curriculum designer Mary Burns presents her 5 top picks from the professional learning technologies now emerging around the world: (1) IPTV; (2) Immersive Environments; (3) Video; (4) Social Media; and (5) Mobile…

Just as participation in social networking has grown, so has media coverage of inappropriate activity online. Teacher-student relationships and cyberbullying are just a few of the stories that seem to make the news on a regular basis. For educators, this is particularly troubling, considering how few students know what is appropriate when using…

Many educators know that web 2.0 tools can transform learning and teaching, but teachers need support to make this happen. This article discusses how principals can encourage teachers to learn how to use these powerful tools. Over the past decade, Intel has provided the Center for Children & Technology with funding to conduct numerous studies…

Web-based applications offer teachers, students, and school districts a convenient way to accomplish a wide range of tasks, from accounting to word processing, for free. Cloud computing has the potential to offer staff and students better services at a lower cost than the technology deployment models they're using now. Saving money and improving…

Total technology immersion doesn't happen overnight, but with vision and determination, transformation can take hold and start to grow. Floydada Independent School District (FISD), winner of the 2010 Sylvia Charp Award for District Innovation in Technology, is a great example of what a district can achieve when starting with a modest tech…

Today, information and communication technologies such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter are some of the most popular technologies available on the Internet, with millions of users worldwide. Research is still trying to discover how people use them, for what purposes, and in what settings, and investigate how they may be shaping the ways they…

Personal learning networks (PLNs) are not new. People have long relied on their families, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances to supplement their knowledge about the world. But the times are changing. Information and communication technologies (ICT), including an ever-growing repertoire of open source applications, have freed content from the…

Web 2.0 tools should be an important part of every district's communication strategy, creating environments for collaboration in ways never possible before. Most of them are free, inexpensive, easy to use, and require little set up. When combined with basic communication principles and careful planning, they can expand a district's reach, increase…

When it comes to technologies like digital games, simulations, and social networking, teachers and students may find themselves at cross purposes. Often, students find that these technologies, so prevalent in their lives outside of school, are unwelcome in their classrooms. Many teachers can tell stories about the disruptive influence of video…

With no specific state or federal mandates to districts to maintain comprehensive technology infrastructure, how do districts, in the face of mounting financial pressures, continue to build and maintain their networks, integrate their systems, and expand their resources in a way that is reasonably "budget-proof?" In this article, the…

Lots of things have changed since the baby boomers began overfilling postwar schoolhouses in the 1950s. The sparkling new buildings erected across the United States to handle the population surge have lost their luster, and in many cases, their functionality. This is not new information; in a 1995 General Accounting Office report, nearly half of…

Education technology leaders are ever seeking new ways to eliminate the traditional social and geographic boundaries that hinder communication and collaboration for both K-12 students and educators. Larger districts with geographically dispersed schools often find that innovative ideas for technology use and integration are balkanized into…