I grew up during the 1950s and ’60s, in a three-stoplight mill town in western North Carolina. Education was difficult for me – but learning was not. I enjoyed being in class, listening to teachers talk about our world and participating in discussions (in our continuing efforts to get the teacher off the subject). I had some outstanding teachers, who loved their work and who were magnificent lenses on the world that we lived in. I decided early on that this was what I wanted to do.

Today, the world is a different place. Our sense of the future has changed, our students learn differently, and the very nature of information has transformed into something more dynamic and vibrant. Technology has advanced at a rate that would have astounded us 50 years ago. This time of rapid change is forcing us, for the first time in decades to rethink education and what it means to be educated.

I do not consider myself a techie. I know techies, and I am not one of them. Techies have developed wondrous machines that provide brand new means and methods for accomplishing our goals. They are highly creative and knowledgeable, and they live the technology.

They are excited by the “light.”

I, however, am excited by what we can shine that “light” on…

..a new and exciting vision for classrooms that is changing our notions of teaching, curriculum and learning.