Although concerns about the swine flu are subsiding, I've been very impressed by the role technology has played in keeping students, teachers, parents, and administrators connected during this unexpected break for some students and teachers. My colleague Michelle Davis and I talked to several school districts and disaster preparedness experts about the ways that technology can help ensure a continuity of education for this story that appeared on edweek.org. Since then, I've come across several stories about districts tapping their already existing or makeshift technological infrastructures to keep kids engaged in their studies. Take Michael Sanderson, for example, who ...

This article by the Asia Society, which aims to strengthen relationships between Asian countries and the U.S. and promote greater understanding of Asian culture and history, gives a number of tips to educators on how to use technology to increase global awareness in the classroom. The many resources available on the Web make it easier than ever before to connect with individuals around the globe, examine current events from multiple cultural perspectives, and tap into a global network of information, says the article. The Internet has also made it possible for students' work to be accessed by a global ...

May has just started, and I'm already starting to hear more and more about the National Education Computing Conference coming up this summer. NECC, which is hosted by the International Society for Technology in Education, is taking place this year in Washington from June 28-July 1. And yes, I will be flying back to the East Coast to attend. In fact, all the DDers will be at the conference—covering the goings on and learning more about the latest trends in ed tech. I've never been to NECC before, and I'm very excited to attend this year. For you veteran ...

No one should be surprised to learn that today's young people have a different sense of workplace behavior than, say, Baby Boomers. But this survey, which I learned about at the Read Write Web blog, shows just how vast is the divide between the kinds of work habits, skills, and tools people of various age groups find efficient and appropriate. "The generation gap at work is really wide with vast discrepancies when it comes to what the appropriate use of technology is - a problem that leads to increasing tensions in the workplace," Sarah Perez writes in her blog post. ...

Mary Ann Zehr, my colleague over at Curriculum Matters, has posted a reminder about today's Ed Week chat on International Comparison tests, and a bit of analysis about the issue. She also has a link to the McKinsey report everyone is talking about. Mary Ann, Sean Cavanagh, and I have a series of stories in this week's paper about the growing interest among policymakers here in analyzing the successes of other countries, as related to the international assessments. We have reports on reform efforts in Australia, Slovenia, and South Korea. Her report is here. The OECD, which oversees the PISA, ...

In case you needed a reminder about how far we've come in using technology in schools, I thought I'd send you to the Ed Week archives. Greg Chronister, our executive editor, passed along this story which ran in Education Week 25 years ago this week. "Number of Computers in Schools Doubles," said the headline, above the lede, which read: "Microcomputers were added to thousands of public-school classrooms during the past year, according to a new survey." The story goes on to describe how nearly 70 percent, or 55,765, of the nation's elementary and secondary schools reported using computers for ...

In honor of Earth Day, I'd like to direct your attention to the resources on the Consortium for School Networking's Green Computing Initiative Web site. There, you can calculate your technology energy use and learn how you could save even more, find resources on where to buy green technologies and how to properly dispose of old technological equipment in an earth-friendly way, as well as tips on how to reduce waste and preserve the natural resources in your area. In addition, the initiative has recently launched a new, free certification program for tech. administrators who are particularly interested in making ...

A new report put out by the Education Policy Research Unit at Arizona State University and the Education and the Public Interest Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder asserts that virtual education is growing at a rapid pace throughout the nation and suggests steps for policymakers to support high-quality virtual education for students. The first suggestion that the paper's author, Gene V. Glass, a regents' professor of education at Arizona State University, makes is to adopt new regulations to govern K-12 online learning. Policies should be set that define what certifications teachers should have, how much interaction they ...

It's getting increasingly complicated to keep students safe at school, especially as technology becomes more widely used in the classroom and for personal communication. Policies to keep students safe in the digital age are often crafted with painstaking detail to allow for a range of scenarios. But as this commentary piece in Sunday's Washington Post describes, the rapid pace of technology and trends in how it is used among young people make it difficult to keep up. And there's always the potential that such policies will have unintended consequences. Ting-Yi Oei, a school administrator in a Northern Virginia school district, ...

This AP article points to a possible change in the way virtual education will be funded in Idaho. Although it still needs to go through the Senate, the measure, backed largely by Republicans, allows schools to shift 5 percent of the money they use to pay teachers, which they either "use or lose," and put it into virtual education. One Republican asserted that this would be a big help to rural districts, which may not have the money to provide all the courses that larger, urban or suburban districts can offer their students. It seems to me that simply having ...