Tech Expo’s Provocative Keynote Speaker Delivers Much-Anticipated Talk

The annual Tech Expo 2014, held April 11, drew close to 400 educators from a myriad of local school districts, many of them eager to hear education historian Diane Ravitch deliver a keynote on the importance of technology in education as well as recent developments in education policy.

Diane Ravitch delivers the keynote at Tech Expo 2014

She was among several other speakers and presenters to participate in the Tech Expo, sponsored by the LHRIC's Technology Leadership Institute and held at the Edith Macy Conference Center in Briarcliff Manor.

Ms. Ravitch, a research professor at New York University, an influential blogger and a contributing writer at the Huffington Post, said she is a fan of what teachers can do with technology in the classroom. “Technology can really inspire what we all want, which is the joy of learning.”

For centuries, educators have dreamed of such a learner-centered environment, which has become a reality for many of today’s students, said Ms. Ravitch, as they learn by using a variety of emerging tools in the classroom.

The emergence of technology shows the true “realities of life,” allowing students to take ownership of what they learn, in addition to fostering a new level of creation, invention and imagination, she added.

“What I envisioned is a world of open source learning led not only by teachers but also by students,” said Ms. Ravitch. “If you think students are dumb these days because of it (technology), please take the eight grade math test.”

A Hijacked Technology Revolution

This revolution has, however, been hijacked by entrepreneurs and policy makers seeking to standardize the curriculum through corporate-influenced school reform and the desire to create a “lucrative marketplace for profitable enterprise.”

The federal government’s control of the states’ educational policy matters has created a situation that Ms. Ravitch said would have been “unthinkable 10 years ago,” a situation that is unprecedented in the nation’s history, with pressure coming from Washington that urges states and, consequently, school districts to do more with less.

While New York State, she contends, is in “pretty good shape,” other states across the country, such as Florida, Indiana and Pennsylvania, to name a few, are experiencing turmoil and the kind of disruption that is not good for children or for learning, she noted.

As a result, the destruction of the public school system and its ultimate privatization is becoming a reality. “I presume your communities here in Westchester are strong enough to handle this, but watch out,” she told the crowd, many of them members of the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents, who later attended a private meeting with Ms. Ravitch.

Referring to the “wild, unrealistic goal of 100 percent proficiency” that has permeated the public education system since the creation of the No Child Left Behind policy in 2001 and the “more onerous” Race to the Top initiative, Ms. Ravitch added that such an aspiration is unrealistic and one that no nation in the world could ever achieve.

Such proficiency measures have since been turned over to private management, she said, with little research to support them. While testing is good for the testing companies, it does little for children and the quality of education, Ms. Ravitch added. “When it takes the place of instruction and the arts and play, it’s wrong.”

The Danger of the Growing Charter School Industry

Ms. Ravitch, the author of several books, including the newly-released “Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools,” took particular aim at the growing charter school movement, in particular the Success Academy charter chain run by CEO Eva Moskowitz.

Such charter schools, she said, have been able to take up free space in several public schools in New York City, pushing out students with disabilities and other disadvantaged public school students.

And if the owners of the charter school industry claim their existence is based on raising the test scores of American students, Ms. Ravitch countered that national test scores, together with graduate rates, have actually risen over the past four years − across all races, and dropout rates are at their lowest. Such statistics, she said, can be found on the federal Department of Education’s website.

Millions of dollars will continue to be spent by school districts on professional development efforts and on iPads and tablets that are a requirement of the PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) online tests, an initiative that is closely aligned to the Common Core State Standards. Many of those machines, she added, will come preloaded with content that is copyrighted by companies such as Pearson Education and others.

“We’re at a turning point,” said Ms. Ravitch. “Will there be more charters to drive funding from public schools, will teachers be free to teach with creativity and passion, will they be able to teach without following a scripted curriculum?”

“We are trapped by a love of data. This is the thinking of a world that is far too flat for me. Don’t let them flatten you.”

To follow Ms. Ravitch on her daily blog, visit www.dianeravitch.net.

TLI Experts Tout Way to Prepare Students for 21st Century

Failing to apply the advanced technologies that are being used in everyday life to the school environment and overlooking the connection between such useful, affordable technological tools and good teaching is what education experts Dr. Chris Dede and Rushton Hurley believe is still missing from today's schools.

Dr. Christopher Dede speaks at the Jan. 10 TLI event

Dr. Dede, a Timothy E. Wirth professor in learning technologies at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, and Mr. Hurley, executive director of Next Vista for Learning, served as keynote speakers at the LHRIC's Jan. 10 Technology Leadership Institute event held at the Edith Macyin Conference Center in Briarcliff Manor.

In his talk titled, "Transforming Education for the 21st Century," Dr. Dede explained the challenges educators face and ways they can address them. Learning, he explained, can no longer be confined to the years that students spend in school or the hours they spend in the classroom. "It must be lifelong, life-wide and available in demand."

"What happens outside of the classroom in students' lives looks a lot like 21st century work as opposed to what happens inside the current classroom," added Dr. Dede, who served on the technical working group that helped craft the 2010 National Educational Technology Plan.

Dr. Dede suggested that the concept known as Digital Teaching Platforms (DTP) might provide the kind of technology support that would help teachers engage students.

The initiative is a category of products designed to bring interactive technology to teaching and learning in classrooms. Dr. Dede said it supports real-time, teacher-directed interaction where students and instructors all have laptops and are working together in a networked digital environment.

So, instead of passively watching an educational clip on their devices, students could become actively immersed. A good example is the work he and his colleagues at Harvard are doing with students in the Cambridge Public Schools.

The curriculum research project, known as EcoMUVE, uses multi-user virtual environments that look and feel like video games, but engage students in authentic ecological settings that teach them about ecosystems.

The use of such programs teaches enquiry skills, therefore honing the interpersonal and interpersonal skills that students will need later on in their careers, explained Dr. Dede.

Virtual performance assessments are also possible with this type of learning, he added. In fact, one of the important aspects of DTP is that there are opportunities to exploit the power of technology for formative assessment. That same technology that supports the learning is also gathering data on how students are using it. "Almost second-by-second, learners are being watched as the system identifies where they wander off track, alerting the teacher as a result," Dr. Dede explained.

This type of assessment, as opposed to summative assessment strategies, provides more leverage for improvement, he noted. "The digital curriculum, if it has this kind of diagnostic assessment built into it, can be much more informative for teachers."

Rushton Hurley speaks at the Jan. 10 TLI event.

Much like Dr. Dede, Mr. Hurley also sees the need to embrace technology in new ways. Part of the issue with many school systems, and indeed with teachers, he said, is their inability to deal with the rapid pace of technological change.

"A lot of people experience fear and stress, which seem to be the dominant emotions in relation to technology," said Mr. Hurley in his talk titled, "Evolving Technologies, Expanding Possibilities."

Why? Because many of them have a fear of something going wrong when a technology is implemented. But getting over that fear and allowing technology to be embraced is key, he noted.

Students who say that school is boring are often confusing the word "boring" with predictability, said Mr. Hurley. "Kids don't learn squat when they know what's coming up, but unpredictability can be a fascinating thing and a way to catch their attention, and technology allows that to happen in really, really interesting ways."

Accessing the plethora of free online tools that are currently available to teachers is a way of erasing the predictability that so many students experience on a daily basis, he said.

Mr. Hurley encouraged participants, many of them school district administrators, to give their teachers a reason to love technology. "Use what's freely available, gather feedback, show them that you will follow through, celebrate excellence, share what you're doing and build a shared vision."

To find out more about Dr. Dede's work, visit http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=chris_dede&pageid=icb.page362000. Mr. Hurley provides teachers with great resources at his website, http://www.nextvista.org.

TLI - Education Technology Advocate Shares Cool Tools and Gadgets for Teaching

Educators interested in discovering the latest apps that promise to make learning and teaching engaging for students were in for a treat this past January as the self-professed "chief geek" Leslie Fisher provided them with plenty of ways to energize the curriculum.



Leslie Fisher speaks at the January TLI event.

 The talk was one of two sponsored by the LHRIC's Technology Leadership Institute and held at the Edith Macy Conference Center in Briarcliff Manor.

Ms. Fisher, who serves as director of Fisher Technologies, Inc., provided a myriad of resources for those who might be feeling a bit overwhelmed by the sheer volume of new technology coming at them on a daily basis.

Some of those include the following:

Evernote – Ms. Fisher described this application as "gadgety but informative." The latest version, known as Evernote Clearly, captures everything, including text, audio, photographs and more, and makes blog posts, articles and web pages clean and easy to read.

Livescribe.com – a paper-based computing platform that consists of a digital pen, digital paper, software applications and developer tools. Central to the Livescribe platform is the smartpen, a ballpoint pen with an embedded computer and digital audio recorder.

Class Dojo – improves student behavior and engagement by awarding and record real-time feedback. It also captures and generates data on behavior that teachers can share with parents and administrators.

Edcanvas – this allows users to create step-by-step guides on any topic. They will also be able to integrate video, audio, stills and links from YouTube. Ms. Fisher suggested that teachers use it as a tool to create quizzes for students.

Smalldemons.com – a web-based literary database, otherwise known as a "storyverse" that visually indexes, annotates and connects the people, places and things that are found in books.

Scoop.it.com – a curation service containing news and social media. Scoop.it allows users to create boards or web pages around a single topic. Users can use a Scoop.it page to aggregate educational videos, online quizzes, spelling resources, and other similar stuff. 

For educators teaching an active news item, Scoop.it's curation tools can be used to create a page that is constantly updated with the latest items on the topic.

Learnist.com – a good site to place nuggets of information or also to grab information from others, said Ms. Fisher.

Weebley.com – a free service that allows users to create websites quickly and easily.

Wufoo.com – a form manager that Ms. Fisher believes is much easier to use than Google Forms.

Fur.ly – users can collect the urls of various websites, enter the addresses into the fur.ly website and wait as the site creates one url for all of them.

Remind101.com – a safe way for teachers to text message students and keep in touch with parents.

Other cool applications that Ms. Fisher talked about include augmented reality for the iPhone and iPad, a video showing Google's powered glasses (not yet on the market) and Aurasma, an augmented platform operated by Hewlett-Packard.

To find out more, visit Ms. Fisher's website at www.lesliefisher.com.

TLI – Acclaimed Writer Argues for Better Perspective on Education

If there's one thing that Marc Prensky would like to see schools doing, it's giving students the credit they deserve.

One of the world's leading experts on the connection between learning and technology, Mr. Prensky urged participants attending the LHRIC's Feb. 13 Technology Leadership Institute to move away from the old system of top down teaching and in its place embrace the idea of partnering with students and using the powerful capabilities of technology to help do it.

Mr. Prensky, the author of five books on the digital culture and education, talks frequently about designing better pedagogy and curriculum for today's generation of students and how educators can learn to thrive in this digital age.

"We have to prepare these kids while avoiding something else that we often slide into, which is what I call cellophane kids," said Mr. Prensky, during his presentation titled, "Brain Gain: Technology and the Quest for Digital Wisdom," which is also the title of his latest book.

Despite what other experts say about the United States' education system trailing the schooling of other countries, Mr. Prensky, the founder and creative director of Spree Games and Games2train, believes the system is failing children worldwide. "The whole world is in this place and it is not a good place," said Mr. Prensky. "It's not just developing countries with problems; the world's education is in the toilet."

Educating to the wrong context

Much of the problem, explained Mr. Prensky, is that schools are teaching to a context that no longer exists. In a world with half its population under the age of 25, Mr. Prensky said educators need to come up with better solutions to engage students. 

The context we currently live in is described by Mr. Prensky as "VUCA," which stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. It's a context that is perhaps the biggest challenge to educators and to the world in general, he added.

Mr. Prensky sees education through the eyes of those who were born in this century and not through the eyes of the ones providing it. Today's students, he said, are disillusioned with the system, many of them feeling their primary role as students is to follow directions. Not that young people have all the answers either, he noted, but that adults' educational needs are very different and focused primarily on raising grades and test scores.

To combat this, Mr. Prensky suggested that teachers listen more intently to students, but also focus on the verbs of teaching rather than the nouns, which in this case applies to the tools or technologies that assist teaching and learning.

Nouns that have become familiar in today's learning environment include PowerPoint, e-mail, Wikipedia and others, but additional tools are quickly taking their place. The verbs of learning, however, often remain the same, he said. They include presenting, communicating, persuading, collaborating and learning, to name a few.

"It's important for us to focus on what those verbs are, even as the nouns to do it with are changing all the time," noted Mr. Prensky, who holds master's degrees from Yale University, Middlebury College and The Harvard Business School. "The question to ask is this: what are the key verbs we want our students to learn?"

Like all new challenges in life, technology can be scary, said Mr. Prensky. "I don't tell people to change, but I do remind them that we all need to adapt to the world we live in, to this new 21^st century context."

Doing old things in new ways

While most schools simply recreate new ways of doing old things, Mr. Prensky believes that educators should be creating new ways to do what they couldn't do before. Websites, for example, even the best ones, are "trivial uses of technology," he said.

Activities such as Skyping with students and teachers around the world, using 3D printers, engaging in virtual worlds, playing complex games, creating robots and encouraging the use of the computational knowledge engine, WolframAlpha, which is not about giving students the answers to a problem but rather explaining how the result was obtained, are all worthwhile endeavors, he added.

Technology, however, can't provide students with all the answers. That should come from teachers who have empathy for them, which in turn will create a desire for learning and a passion to persist and do better, Mr. Prensky noted.

While educators over the years have been "bamboozled" with the idea of best practices, the notion of inventing has somewhat disappeared. "When something is moving as quickly as technology, there are no best practices," said Mr. Prensky. "There are only good practices and the need to continually invent better ones."

To enhance the practice of teaching, Mr. Prensky said teachers need to give students the credit they are worthy of. Not trusting them enough nor giving them the freedom they deserve is a frequent occurrence, he said. "The education of tomorrow has less to do with course, curriculum, degrees and exams," he added, and more to do with collaboration.

Mr. Prensky said schools have "gone off track," focusing more on high performance testing and deviating from the goal of creating better people. "What we should be doing is motivating our kids to figure out what they're passionate about, to think creatively, and to think critically and scientifically. I think kids would be more excited to be become better thinkers, actors and relaters."

For more information on Mr. Prensky's work or to order any of his books, go to www.marcprensky.com.  

TLI – International Speaker Lauds the Creative Use of Technology

Moving away from the "drill and practice" routine that encompasses technology instruction in many of today's schools and transitioning students to the "tinkering and making" of learning is a strategy that local educators were asked to consider as they create new ways to reinvigorate education.

The approach is the thinking of Gary Stager, a renowned international speaker, consultant and educator who spoke passionately about his beliefs at last month's Technology Leadership Institute conference held at the Edith Macy Conference Center in Briarcliff Manor.

He delivered his keynote speech titled, "The Creative Technology Revolution You Can't Afford to Miss" during the event's morning session and later in the afternoon provided educators with more detailed examples of revolutionary educational practices at the preschool level in a talk titled, "Lessons for K-12 and Edtech from the Best Preschools in the World."

Dr. Stager, the executive director of The Constructivist Consortium, has helped learners of all ages embrace the power of computers as intellectual laboratories and vehicles for self-expression.  

His belief is that children are capable of doing extraordinary things, but that our current education system does not provide them with ways to learn in a "natural, more fluid way."

His primary body of work for the past few years has been centered on the constructivist use of technology, which borrows from the work of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, whose theories on knowledge and learning are widely respected in the field of education.

Believing that the years spent in school are the most valuable to helping children evolve into artists, physicists, philosophers and more is something Dr. Stager promotes as he delivers presentations to educators around the country and across the world. "The endless time-wasting is staggering," said Dr. Stager, referring to a system that he believes doesn't provide enough intensity and creative learning for children.

"We have a perfect storm that's swirling outside of our school buildings," he said. The fast-moving technological changes are certainly making an impact on society, he added, but it's not something that schools are taking advantage of. "This technology revolution has an added benefit of being great for kids and rejuvenating teachers and reinvigorating education. There's never been a cooler time to learn."

Reality TV: A "DIY Revolution"

While others decry the evolution of reality TV, Dr. Stager believes it's a positive trend. What it represents, he explained, is a form of "apprentice expertise," where one gets to see people in their natural surroundings, discover what drives them and see what it is they do. It's also an opportunity, he added, to energize young people and to give them a chance to shine as well as to receive a mentoring experience they might not get in real life.

Describing some of nation's youths as being "dead behind the eyes," Dr. Stager, who founded Constructing Modern Knowledge, a minds-on institute for educators committed to creativity, collaboration and computing, said that many of them do not have enough meaningful conversations with adults. "We can worry all we want about how Finland is doing on long division tests, but the generation of kids who don't know how to talk to adults is astounding," he added.

To combat this, Dr. Stager suggested that schools move away from the notion of "hiring a pro" to acknowledging the societal shifts, economic trends and increased mobility in technology and then introducing the idea of "tinkering/making" in the classroom.

In recent years, several magazines have been created to cater to this maker movement, a term that encapsulates the practice and habits of millions of people who are into self-producing everything from robots to handmade crafts.

Those publications include "Make Magazine," "Made By Hand," "50 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Child Do and Why" and "Geek Dad." The "Maker Faire" is another example of experiential learning in action. The event, which last year attracted over one hundred thousand people in San Diego, includes a coming together of curious people who enjoy learning and sharing what they do.

"Generations of Americans have never fixed anything," Dr. Stager said. To solve that, schools can use the computer to "kick it up several notches," meaning that students can be taught to use technology creatively and at the same time develop their sense of perseverance, passion, choice, effort, purpose, mindfulness and so much more.

Becoming Their Own Problem Solvers

Engaging students in hands-on projects using computers ensures that students will make more interesting things, he noted. The increased use of 3D printers, for example, has made this even more exciting for students. In fact, Dr. Stager said he'd love to see such printers not just in an art room but in the physics lab and other places around the school where creativity is nurtured.

Dr. Stager, who has worked in schools around the world bringing rich mathematical and scientific thinking experiences to children and teachers, believes that students who are makers will have the ability to solve their own problems, forge their own path and be passionate about what they do.

For example, designing their own videos instead of merely consuming them would teach kids geometry, physics, motion, animation and a whole host of other things. Other interesting projects that have been made by children in the past include digital gingerbread houses, drum sets made out of bananas, a video controller made out of clay, digital origami and more.

"Most of what we are doing with computers in schools is incredibly disappointing," pointed out Dr. Stager. As a result, children have no chance to "get lost in something and to develop expertise." Providing students with rich opportunities for learning and a memorable education is most important, he added. "I think the highest, noblest calling of a teacher is to create memories."

For more information on Dr. Stager's groundbreaking work, visit http://stager.tv/blog/.

Pioneer Awards Honor Outstanding Work in Local Districts

A science teacher and a technology director from a school district that also received recognition were among those honored at the LHRIC's 19^th Annual Pioneer Awards May 18, which was held at the Edith Macy Conference Center in Briarcliff Manor.

Each year the award ceremony recognizes individuals who have gone above and beyond in exposing students to the latest instructional technology initiatives. It also honors districts that are forward-thinking in their delivery of technology.

The ceremony culminates a year-long series of presentations by well known speakers in the field of educational technology, as part of the RIC's Technology Leadership Institute series.

Science teacher Jasper Fox was the first recipient of the Distinguished Technology Teacher Pioneer Award. He teaches general science and a Regents Earth Science class at Copper Beech Middle School in the Lakeland School District. As a teacher, Mr. Fox knows that some students have difficulty completing their assignments, so he created screen casts of the science experiments he would normally do in class using screen capture software. In the past year, Mr. Fox has posted a myriad of screen casts to the class wiki, which his students can readily access.

Mr. Fox has created a learning environment in education known as the "flip classroom." It's a new way of teaching, he said, one that has transformed the practice for many instructors, allowing them to become coaches and facilitators rather than just instructors delivering a lecture.

In his acceptance speech, Mr. Fox thanked administrators and others in the district for their guidance and support. "My students are not only gaining the skills to be successful, but are gaining additional 21^st century study skills," he said.

Mr. Fox also credited the online social networking service Twitter for inspiring him and allowing him to communicate with other like-minded instructors. "This whole initiative started out as a way to provide extra help for my students," he said. "But it has now warped into something way more powerful than that."

The City School District of New Rochelle had the honor of accepting two awards during the hour-long ceremony. Director of Technology Dr. Christine Coleman was singled out for bringing mobile learning to the district. For that, she was awarded the Distinguished Director of Technology Pioneer Award.

For the past year and a half, Dr. Coleman has invested much energy in the "Mobile on the Go!" program, a Federal Communications Committee-funded grant, which involved collaboration with Verizon, the RIC and Carrot App. Referring to her can-do attitude and persistence, New Rochelle Superintendent Richard Organisciak praised Dr. Coleman for her efforts. "We as a district are very proud of the ideas and creativity from people like Dr. Coleman," he said.

The initiative has helped raise achievement levels among participating students and has closed the digital divide, said Dr. Coleman. Looking for ways to prepare its students for the 21^st century workplace, the New Rochelle City School District has made incredible strides over the past year. Since winning the FCC grant, it has deployed over a thousand mobile-filtered devices to students. As a result, the Pioneer Awards committee felt it was deserving of this year's Distinguished District Pioneer Award.

According to Dr. Coleman, students participating in the mobile learning program are displaying an improvement in reading, writing and literacy, and the formal structure of the classroom has "flipped," creating an environment where they now work in clusters as opposed to working alone, and where engagement and interactivity are the primary goals.

The district's Board of Education president, Chrisanne Petrone, was equally delighted with the honor. "We know that our district is amazing, and we also know that all of our children can learn, but we must continue to ensure that we provide them with the tools to keep them learning," said Ms. Petrone.

Innovative Ideas Discussed at TLI Kickoff

A Kentucky-based math teacher and an upbeat digital learning consultant, who encourages instructors and others in education to experiment with digital media, provided plenty of food for thought during the Nov. 4 launch of the 2011-12 Technology Leadership Institute series.

The 180 Degree Classroom Concept

Lisa Johnson, who serves as a technology resource teacher in the Jefferson County Public School District in Louisville, Ky., told the story of how she became a math educator in the Kentucky schools.

Having been taught to script lessons, Ms. Johnson said she longed to teach math as it had been taught to her in college. After trying several different methods of instruction that often left her frustrated, she eventually created "The 180 Degree Classroom," a novel approach that allows for the switching of roles, where the students create teaching modules that are traditionally taught by a teacher.

Ms. Johnson said she got the impetus for the enquiry-based project after hearing educational technology leader Alan November speak at the 2008 ISTE (International Society for Technology Educators) conference. "I heard him proclaim that students should be creating products in classrooms, not teachers, and that was huge for me."

Student-Centered Learning

Rather than learning through a teacher lecture, the high school students worked together to understand specific math concepts and then created video lessons that would teach these concepts to their peers. Ms. Johnson explained that the students prepared the lessons on Tablet PCs that were provided to them by the district.

During class time, the teacher walked around the room providing instruction as needed. At home, the students were expected to watch the same videos they had created in class, but on an iTouch, and then take an online quiz to assess their learning. Because the teacher was logged into the same online network as the students, he or she already knew which topics they had grasped and which ones they were struggling to understand.

There were some hiccups along the way, said Ms. Johnson, such as the unavailability of Wifi in some students' homes and the lack of direction from students who chose to use their iTouch devices for entertainment purposes. Despite those and some other technical snafus, Ms. Johnson said the project was worth it.

"Being actively engaged with their classmates, having 24/7 access to content, and the fact that teachers were able to interact with students in a more meaningful way and were facilitating learning rather than being a constant source of information were all benefits of this flipped classroom project," she said.

This year, the project has been expanded to three other schools in the district, and Ms. Johnson is currently exploring other projects, part of a Capstone Project she is working on.

Blended Learning

Digital learning consultant and author Wesley Fryer is a big proponent of creativity in the classroom. In his presentation, titled "Roadmap to Blended Learning," Mr. Fryer noted that having a vision is critical to promoting creativity among students and teachers. "The choices you make as a leader in your school are so vital," said Mr. Fryer, the author of "Playing with Media: Simple Ideas for Powerful Sharing."

Not only do schools need knowledgeable leaders, added Mr. Fryer, but they also need to dispel the common notion that all students are digital natives. "Kids are very good at entertaining themselves, but that doesn't equate to digital literacy and good communications skills. In fact, we need to do more to equip our young people to be good communicators and to be literate in our society," he stressed.

Creativity in the Classroom

Mr. Fryer believes that students can be more influenced by the conversations they have with each other and with their teachers than by the lectures they listen to in class. "When students make something they're proud of, they are going to talk to people and will want to show it," he said.

Because blended learning is a combination of face-to-face, online and hybrid learning strategies, Mr. Fryer said instructors need to maximize student engagement and interactivity. "It's not just about sitting in front of a screen answering questions," he noted. "We need to encourage creation, because students these days do not feel challenged."

Mr. Fryer contends that learning is often boring for many students. "Don't make them wait until they leave your school to get involved in the process of solving real problems and communicating with powerful tools that can make a difference."

Mr. Fryer suggested that K-12 schools need to examine the university framework to not only encourage creativity among the classroom, but also to acquire more robust connectivity. To find out more, visit Mr. Fryer's blog at http://www.speedofcreativity.org.