21st Century School Tech

Introducing … The Lenovo Virtual Reality Classroom

Imagine being able to take your students on a field trip to the African jungle, the solar system and even back in time to the creation of planet Earth. It’s possible with the Lenovo Virtual Reality Classroom. 

The Lenovo VR Classroom is now shipping out to schools across the country. The kit includes everything administrators need to introduce this type of immersion learning to students. The entire VR system is easy-to-use, easy-to-clean, highly-durable and offered in 3-, 10- and 24-student kits, but adaptable for up to 30 students.

 

The Specs

At the heart of the Lenovo VR Bundle is the Daydream VR headset. No cables, no PCs and no smartphones are needed to use it. Everything your teachers need is right in the headset. The Daydream VR also offers WorldSense™ motion tracking with a 110-degree field of view. And, bonus, the face and head cushions can be sanitized.

 

The Lenovo VR kit also includes:

  • The Tab 4 10 Plus which connects to the student’s headsets, without disrupting the experience, and guides instruction to monitor student focus.

  • The Bretford Mobile Cart offers secure storage for the headsets and includes integrated device charging. It’s made of sturdy steel, constructed in the United States and is certified for safety. Note - it is only included with the 10- and 24-student kits.

  • The Ruckus R510 Access Point gives stunning, enterprise-grade Wi-Fi performance. It makes sure there’s a strong connection between teacher and student devices and is included with all kits.

 

Optional accessories are also available, like the Mirage camera with Daydream. This accessory allows teachers and students to create their own content that can be seamlessly uploaded to YouTube and Google Photos.

 

The Software

Virtual field trips go anywhere at any time, without the need of permission slips and bus rides, with experiences from Google Expeditions and The Wild Immersion with Jane Goodall.

 

The free Google Expeditions app has more than 700 virtual field trips. These can be integrated into included Scholastic STEM lesson plans that meet next gen Common Core standards. The environments support nearly every other subject as well.

 

The Exclusive Wild Immersion videos give students breathtaking views of Africa, Asia, the Amazon and more. Additional content is available from the Daydream OS store.

 

The Support

Rest assured, Lenovo has your back. Value-added services are included with every kit. Including:

  • A one-year school-year warranty that can be upgraded to two years.

  • Advanced Exchange for quick, no-hassle equipment swaps.

  • Premier Support with one direct number to call.

  • Device connection, testing, and access point provisioning all built in.

  • Full setup so you can open the box and go right away.

 

Virtual reality not only helps students keep up, but stay ahead in a world that’s learning faster every day. Lenovo is leading the way with solutions to fit your school’s needs. Contact us to see how we can help put this new technology into your teachers’ hands.

Seek Mentors Out On Twitter

Twitter is more than tidbits of daily news and tweets about trending television. It is a great source to find like-minded people in your field and even a mentor.

Twitter influencers, experts, thought leaders and kindred spirits can help improve your teaching by supplying information and ideas that you can put into practical applications. Once you find someone to follow, you can build on that virtual relationship and use them as a mentor, either virtually or face-to-face.

 

Figure out who you’d like to follow.

The first step is to actually figure out who’d you like to follow. Sounds easy. But, the Internet is a BIG place and Twitter is no exception.

Use Twitter’s search to seek out influencers and people you want to follow. Type your keywords in the top search. You can also use Twitter’s filters and Advanced Search to search locally, which gives you a better opportunity for an in-person meeting.

 

You can try these five hashtags to get you started.

  1. #GoogleET, #GoogleCE, #GoogleEI

  2. #MIEExpert

  3. #SkypeMT or #MinecraftMentor

  4. #GoogleTeacherTribe

  5. #STEAM

A search for these hashtags brings up the top results, but also people tied to them. This is a really easy way to start following an influencer and possible mentor. 

If you’re still having an issue finding who to follow, search through your other social media platforms. How many people do you know that use just ONE form of social media? You can increase your chances of connecting with a mentor if you can overlap social networks. 

 

Prepare to take the next step.

Once you find someone to follow that is mentor-material, do some research and learn as much as you can about them. Start a virtual conversation or check out any podcasts or blogs they have to find common areas of interest. Do they seem comfortable sharing their knowledge? If so, continue on.

 

The approach.

Build a rapport with your potential mentor. Promote their tweets, ask for their advice, comment on their blogs and so on. Treat the virtual world as you would the real one and get to know them slowly. The key is to build a dialog and show you have something of value to contribute. 

When you’re ready, email the influencer and simply ask if they would be willing to act as a mentor to you. Email works great because it is - literally - the electronic equivalent of a letter. It is more formal than a DM but not so formal as a mailed piece of paper.

 

Once you create and facilitate that online relationship, you can decide both decide if, when and how you want to meet in person. Even if you never get to that stage, there’s so much powerful information out there that just following posted advice provides a great opportunity for personal and professional growth. Reach out to Arey Jones for more advice on your professional development.

Tech Cleaning Tips From Your Grandmother

My grandmother fit every grandmother mold possible. Impeccable hair. Crisp aprons. Mouthwatering homemade bread on the counter. She ran a tight ship with even tighter hair. For Grandma, spring cleaning was as much a celebration as it was a chore (but then she always smiled most when she was working).

I have more than a little of her blood coursing though my veins, and now that the weather is shaking off winter’s chill, I have the urge to clean as she used to do. And I can apply her methods to my phones, laptop, and tablet just effectively as I do everything else in my home.

Get sorted. While my grandmother had an eye and a hand for organization, my grandfather had a different method. Every weekend, she would group the mail, his receipts, and his tools and put everything back where they should have gone in the first place. Take the time to organize your documents and files in a system that makes the most sense to you, and delete files that are no longer relevant. For every minute spent here, you’ll save twice. 

Put the right things into the right storage. It’s okay to hold onto things (I myself am pretty sentimental). The trick is figuring out where to put them so that they can be reached where you need them and out of the way when you don’t. Consider organizing your files in bulk by year, and clearly label each file and folder with its exact contents. This saves you stress and energy, whether you are looking for Aunt Lucy’s china or last year’s lesson on volcanoes. And no, “Science stuff” doesn’t count.

Clear your desktop. If Grandma could see my laptop screen, she would sigh, “Clutter, clutter, clutter, dear. How can you see what you mean?” It was an odd expression, but I understood it. If you save everything to the desktop, you’ll never find what you really need. This works just as well for your desk as well as your desktop. Save it only for items you need to find quickly or things you use every single day. Rely on your filing system for the others. Delete the rest.

Clean your Windows. Grandma loved a clean window (even if the birds didn’t). If you are running the digital version on your laptop, Windows 10 has a handy Disk Cleanup tool to clean up temporary and unnecessary system files that could be obstructing your computer performance. Use this handy guide for additional information.

Empty the trash. Now that you’ve gotten everything where you want it, it’s time to remove what you don’t need once and for all. My grandma always emptied the trash as the last part of her cleaning routine, grabbing a bag and hitting every bathroom and bin on her way out the door.

Grandma made the most of everything (I can still taste her creative leftovers), and I hope these above tips help you make the most of your time and managing your technology this spring. If you found any of these valuable, we’d love your feedback--follow us on Facebook for more!

Greener Pastures: The Dawn of the Paperless Classroom

I picked up my son’s backpack the other day, and the weight of it astounded me.

It was so...light. Empty even.

I remembered my school days. I didn’t just wear a backpack; I lugged it. I measured my progress in school by the physical weight of my assignments. I remembered how frustrated my mother would get when I home--yet again--with a broken arm strap or a ripped seam because I had demanded too much of it. After all, aren’t backpacks crammed with notebooks, worksheets, books, and scratch paper a normal part of education?

Not if technology has anything to do with it.

According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, technology--when appropriately used--can reduce paper usage by up to 30%. Take Bank of America for example (they did). When the largest bank in the country turned to online reports, forms, email, double-sided copying, and lighter-weight papers, it reduced is paper consumption by over one billion sheets of paper. That’s a 32% reduction--on internal operations alone. 

And if Bank of America can do it, so can your school district.

There are several ways to save paper and money through the use of technology. 

  • Use emailed school and class newsletters instead of sending home printed ones.

  • Direct parents toward a consistent website or web page for frequently asked questions, the latest news, or the most recent homework assignments.

  • Store documents in electronic archives for instant retrieval (rather than relying on file cabinets).

  • Encourage the use of on-screen editing features, instead of printing and editing by hand.

  • Share events on a shared calendar with reminders.

  • Use Google Forms instead of worksheets, quizzes, and paper tests.

  • Use Google Drawings for scratch paper.

  • Use OneNote for notetaking.

  • Embrace the cloud system for swift data recovery and increased collaboration and distribution of resources.

But it’s more than just paper schools are saving. Printing supplies--everything from copier purchases to toner to maintenance contracts--are expensive line items. With reduced paper comes reduced printing costs, and printing supplies--everything from copier purchases to toner to maintenance contracts--are expensive line items. Moving to educational technology also saves more precious resources: family time, patience, creativity, sanity, and wear and tear on a backpack you can keep for years.

How does your school save natural resources while unleashing productivity, innovation, and collaboration? We can always help you find more ways.

6 Markers of Memorable Mentors

We’ve all had at least one teacher or adult make a notable impression upon our lives. They singled us out, pushed us out of our comfort zone, guided us in our chosen craft, or put us on the road to our destined career--or all of the above.

Being someone’s mentor isn’t easy, however. It takes time, dedication, patience, self-control, and generosity--all the qualities that make a great educator (and a pretty decent human being). Here are ways to develop those traits and use them to benefit your mentee.

 

Make sure you’re ready.

Being a mentor is an important job--and it’s one you must do on top of the other important jobs that fill your life. Make sure you have the time, emotional intelligence, mental bandwidth, and organization skills to properly nurture a mentee, and you must be willing to work with students and young professionals who may have different backgrounds, education, opinions, and strengths. Remember, this is mentoring, not cloning. There’s a good chance you’ll both come away learning something valuable.

 

Light the fire with a good match.

One of the reasons your mentee approached you (or the other way around) is likely because you both share an enthusiasm for your job or your field of study. Embrace this and use it to shine a light on your mentee’s potential strengths, opportunities, and challenges. While this enthusiasm will fuel your initial arrangement, pay close attention to how well the two of your work together. Chances are the arrangement will either add to your own fires, or it will sap your energy and burn you both out. Be aware of this chemistry early so you can either mix it up or dissolve it before any damage is done.

 

Remember where you started.

It can be easy for those of us established in our respective fields to forget what it was like at the beginning of our studies and careers. Your mentee may enter into the relationship with idealism and unrealistic expectations; your job is to harness that passion and direct it toward what’s possible. Help them focus their efforts, find the tools, and develop the necessary skills. Meet them where they are, so they can determine for themselves the best way to go.

 

Be generous with your knowledge.

Great mentors are teachers, and great teachers are always learning. Take the time to clearly share what you know about your field, the industry, or the task at hand, and don’t let your mentee be the only one asking the questions. Make sure you both stay in tune with the process by asking how they are doing, what they are getting from the experience, and how you can be of greater assistance.

 

Stay available and accountable.

Establish a regular schedule for meetings so that you both can plan your time accordingly and hold each other accountable. Set the tone for these sessions, and have specific objectives. These expectations also serve as boundaries so that you can both tend to the other important aspects of your lives.

 

Remain objective and fair.

Perhaps one of the hardest parts about being a mentor is attempting to be an active observer. Mentorship is not friendship (think more LinkedIn and less Facebook); you are their advocate, but you do not owe them any favors, nor do they owe you any allegiance. For a mentorship to work, the mentor must feel comfortable conveying honest assessments and constructive feedback, and the mentee must feel comfortable approaching you for advice and guidance, even if one of their challenges is working with you or your field. Your role is to guide. Their role is to learn. There should be no hidden agenda or ulterior motives.

 

Mentorships can have a profound effect on education, careers, and personal lives. If you have a moment, we’d love to hear your stories about what being a mentor (or being mentored) meant to you. 

5 Ways to Strike the Right Keys (And Keyboard Shortcuts) This Semester

While we wish life outside technology offered this sort of efficiency, it’s nice to know that these quick keys are there when we need them. They won’t solve all of your woes this semester, but they may create a little more time to make them easier to handle.

Find what you are looking for, instantly.

Want to know when an internet article mentions a certain concept or name? Hit CTRL + F. This Find function will not only tell you how many times the word or name occurs, but it will also highlight them throughout the document. Use the F3 key to toggle in between mentions. Want to find something in your files? Use the WINDOWS + E quick key to search File Explorer.

Want to use this quick key to find something more valuable? Give it a whirl. Click CTRL + F and type “sanity” in the field. <--See? Win.

 

Go back in time.

I’m guessing you already know the ever-useful CTRL + Z quick key to recover previous material and undo the most recent change.

Add to the time traveling ability while also eliminating the minutes (hours?) you spend moving your hand down to the trackpad or mouse to hit the back button on your web browser by using the CTRL + LEFT ARROW instead. Use the time you’ve saved to close the 13 tabs you aren’t using (and CTRL + SHIFT + T to open them all again).

 

Improve your vocabulary.

We all want to keep our conversations and papers engrossing, succinct, and perspicacious, which is why it’s nice that a thesaurus is just a SHIFT + F7 away.

 

Be in two (or more) places at once.

When you want to output your screen to a projector, broadcast to a wireless display or connect to one or more external monitors, you can find all of your options with the WINDOWS + P command. It will bring up an interface screen that will provide you with display options, all at the click of a button.



Start over.

We all need a do-over button once in a while, and your Windows machine has several to choose from. CTRL + R will refresh your browser. CTRL + ALT + DELETE will restart your computer. There’s also the handy power button quick-key for when you really feel like shutting down.

Want to learn how to save time with your educational technology in other ways? We can help with that.

Global Learning Opportunities with Classroom Technology

The Internet is a global marketplace--not just for the exchange of goods and services, but also the exchange of ideas and experiences. Communication, collaboration, and innovation are now operating on a worldwide workspace, and today’s students now have the chance to not only learn about the world but also immerse themselves in real conversations with the people who live in it--in real time.

Researchers are finding that there is a difference between the digital divide and what’s becoming known as the “participation gap;” it’s one challenge for students to not have access to the digital media experiences, and quite another to have those opportunities and not use them to access, participate, and create connections with information and people. 

How to Use Technology to Enhance Global Learning

Harness worldwide news to capture cross-cultural context and understanding.

As we’ve seen in our own country’s news sources, there are at least two sides to every story. Use this opportunity to help students learn how to uncover, identify, analyze and evaluate news sources, not just from the United States, but from around the world. Use these real-time sources to grow students’ awareness of how different countries, cultures, and peoples respond to events--and how those reactions are represented in global mass media.

Assignment idea: Take a recent global event and compare headlines from around the world.

Uncover personal opinions through research.

By widening students’ exposure to the opinions of others while also giving them access to factual commentary, resources, and collaboration, students are better equipped to discover their own opinions about global matters--all the while understanding the tools to form their own opinions about issues closer to home.

Assignment idea: Look for “citizen journalists” on the internet who find and report on breaking news as it happens in their countries. Ask students to analyze the difference between these reports and those broadcasted on the news and help them identify fact from personal opinion. Take it one step further and uncover the possible roots for those opinions and context.

Log into global knowledge networks.

Gathering our collective intelligence on a global scale is possible through the use of global learning networks where information is collected and analyzed. Reading and participating in these networks allows students to grow their cross-cultural understanding while actively and responsibly collaborating to build on existing knowledge. 

This is most evident in the world of science, where people can collect information and share it with people around the world for a common goal.

  • Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) is operated by NASA and the National Science Foundation in 110 countries. It engages youth, educators, community members, and scientists in collecting and sharing data internationally about critical environmental issues.

  • The National SEED Project (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) opens up conversations between communities.

  • ePALS: Explore ways to connect students, classrooms and learning opportunities.

  • iEARN invites students to “learn with the world, not just about it.”

There are many ways classrooms are reaching across oceans and borders to learn about each other. How are you incorporating technology into your quest for to learn and teach greater global understanding? If you aren't sure, be sure to reach out.

Your End-of-Semester Tech Checklist For Google Classroom

Wrapping up a semester takes more than just accounting for all the class laptops, cleaning off your desk, and unplugging the printer; you should also spend a few minutes organizing your Google Classroom.

The emergence of technology in the classroom has given teachers something else to think about before locking up their classrooms for a long winter’s nap (or a much-needed summer break).

Google Classroom is a wonderful tool, especially when it is organized and maintained year after year. Here are a few suggestions to help you clean up after your last semester so that you can strike the right key with the next one.

 

Return all student work.

Google Classroom makes light work of homework by adjusting sharing permissions when it is assigned, and then once again when it is turned in. When you are done grading the assignment, don’t delete it; instead, turn it back to the student. This will remove the file from your drive and return it to the student (and they can delete it if they want). Emptying classroom files of assignments is a fairly cathartic process. Enjoy it.

More directions on how to return Google Classroom assignments here.

 

Remove students from old classes.

If you don’t want past students accessing (and potentially sharing) current class content, it’s a good idea to remove former class members from your student roster at the end of each semester. It may not prevent all forms of cheating, but it can be a strong preventative measure. 

Learn more about how to remove students from a Google class here.

 

Archive completed classes.

Archiving classrooms allows you to remove the class from your main Google Classroom page while still allowing you to copy, reuse, and access previously created material. The biggest reason to archive is that it helps make your page cleaner and easier to navigate--something most teachers appreciate, especially when logging in the first time after break. 

More about how to archive a Google class here.

 

Don’t forget about class calendars.

Every time you create an assignment with a due date, you automatically create a calendar entry in the class’s Google Calendar (yes, Google Classroom is just that good). Once the class is done, however, that calendar link just becomes one more thing to clutter your sidebar. Delete or hide the unwanted calendar in the Google Calendar Settings.

 

Clean up Google Drive.

Google Classroom is just a shinier, automated interface for Google Drive, which is doing all the heavy lifting of creating folders, sorting documents, and more. You may never want to dive this deep with your cleaning, but on the off chance that you want access to files in a different way, here’s your chance to keep your current files where you need them (in the Classroom folder) and to remove old ones to other locations as you see fit.

A good tip here is to create a Google Drive folder named “Archived Classes” and drag and drop completed classes from Google Classroom into this folder for safekeeping.

NOTE: You may never need or want to do this. This process doesn’t affect Google Classroom performance; it simply makes it easier to work within Google Drive for current classes.

 

Google Classroom has quickly become an invaluable tool for many teachers around the world. To keep it--and you--running most efficiently, it’s important to keep it maintained and organized. The good news? Unlike your physical classroom, where you have to move desks, take inventory, and haul boxes, you can clean up your Google Classroom at your kitchen table, coffee in hand, and in your pajamas--and it will still feel just as good when it’s done.

Want to learn more about what Google Classroom can do for you? We'd love to talk.

Experiential Learning: To Learn By Doing

How and what we learn is determined in large part by how and what we experience—at least if Psychologist David Kolb has anything to say about it. His experiential learning theory combines traditional cognitive and behavior theories to create a more holistic approach.

Kolb believes that experiential learning incorporates emotions, environment, cognitive function, and experience as part of the transformative process of knowledge acquisition. We don’t learn in a vacuum; our feelings, the classroom, the concepts, and our past experiences influence how we absorb, retain, and recall information.

In other words, we don’t just have to learn the meaning of something to retain it fully; it has to be meaningful to us.

One-to-one technology can be a vital tool for the experiential learners as it’s often been shown that we as humans learn better by actively participating in our own learning and exploring. To fully harness the power of this type of learning with technology, a thoughtful approach is in order.

How to use technology for experiential learning.

  • Use technology to relate curriculum to real life and personal experience, rather than rote recitation of facts and trends.

  • Encourage online collaboration and positive relationship-building

  • Record lectures and teaching plans so they can be accessed by students in a more familiar or comfortable environment.

  • Empower students to use given technological tools to uncover their own research, resources, and opportunities.

  • Adapt social networks as part of the interactive learning experience.

  • Use technology that employs sensory input, like being able to take pictures, record sounds, and take notes.

  • Virtual and game-based environments can increase the ‘fun-factor’ for many lesson plans, increasing the rate of retention.

While you can’t always make every lesson mean something for your students, you can give them tools to be active learners in their own lives. By stimulating them emotionally, developing a positive classroom environment, and providing them with self-guided resources, you can help them use technology to transform their experience in real and impactful ways.

To give your students the tools to be active learners, click below.

7 Reasons Why Technology In The Classroom Makes Today’s Schools Better

Tablets are replacing textbooks. Keyboarding is replacing cursive. Coding languages are just as important as developing conversational Spanish, French, and Mandarin. Technology in the classroom is changing schools just as much as it has changed the world we live in; it has made the world smaller as we become exposed to the different-yet-similar lives that live upon it, and made it bigger in revealing all there is still left to learn about the planet and the universe it swirls in.

Here are seven ways technology has improved the classroom experience. 

  1. Technology makes classrooms more fun.
    Technology allows teachers to reach students with ways and means that interest them, whether by digital cameras and Smart Boards or a deep-dive into a subject matter with videos, interactive STEM experiments, and self-guided learning opportunities.

  2. Classroom technology preps kids for life beyond school.
    Studies have shown that students believe technology helps them prepare for life in the digital future. Almost every career—even the sought-after trades like mechanics, electricians, and plumbers—has been transformed with technology, and the advancements aren’t slowing down. Students need exposure at every level to keep up with trends and to be able to positively contribute to them.

  3. Technology creates an improved classroom experience.
    We’re learning more and more about learners; it turns out we all absorb, retain, and process information in a myriad of different ways. Technology helps teachers identify the specific ways their students handle new material in order to teach them where they are and in a way they best understand it.

  4. Technology connects students.
    Technology, when used appropriately, connects us to the world in ways we've never seen or experienced. Social media can bring cultures to life, live streaming videos can connect us to current events, and digital libraries can bring a wealth of knowledge and adventure right to our fingertips. Forming the connections is an important part of making the most of them, and that’s advice we could use both online and in person.

  5. Classroom technology makes teaching more effective (and enjoyable).
    Technology has allowed teachers to move away from abstract theory and into hands-on learning by tapping into their collective knowledge, skills, and resources. Audio-visual presentations, online videos, live interviews with experts—the opportunities are endless to give students the breadth of knowledge needed in any subject.

  6. Technology makes communication smoother.
    Parents have more access than ever to their student’s progress in the classroom. Google Classroom, Blackboard 24/7, Dreambox, and more allow parents to check in on their students from time to time, giving them big-picture and detail access to the ins and outs of their child’s day. It’s not quite eyes-in-the-back-of-their-heads, but it’s just as useful as a conversation starter and a way to connect more deeply at home.

  7. Technology has improved collaboration.
    Online apps and tools offer a unique way for all students to engage in a group project without having to fight for attention or the turn to speak. Contributions are tracked, and students are held accountable for their roles and responsibilities so that no one is left out and no one is left doing it all.

Naysayers protest that classroom technology is disruptive, and supporters may agree wholeheartedly; disruption, after all, is what keeps us moving forward. Classroom technology allows us to teach kids as the world continues to learn, preparing them for the future as it forms around them.

If you're looking to disrupt the classroom, reach out to us.

8 Things That Are Obsolete In 21st-Century Schools

Times are a-changing. If you were born before 1990, chances are you can walk into today’s 21st-century classroom and only find a handful of the items you used while you walked those hallways as a student. Here are eight things that are missing from today’s schools and what’s replaced them.

The Computer Lab

Remember the computer lab, the room filled with huge monitors, the smell of static, and the hum of twenty small fan blades cooling off core processors? No more. Computer labs have been replaced by mobile laptop carts and in-classroom device learning, and they are now used as additional classrooms and space for STEAM and STEM learning environments.

The Oregon Trail

Goodbye, wagon wheels. Hello, SimCityEDU. Instead of working to avoid dysentery, students are braving a new frontier of civil engineering and anthropology.

The School Newspaper

Also phasing out is the paper copy of the school newspaper. Thanks to schools embracing social media, there are far more effective methods to distributing information, events, updates, and more. 

One-Size-Fits-All Learning

Thanks to improving technology, teachers can now more easily identify the types of learners in their classroom and provide customized instruction based on a student’s ability to process information visually, audibly, or kinesthetically. By using test scores and software, teachers are better able to equip students to learn in a way that is most efficient and most effective.

Three-Ring Binders

The Trapper Keeper is to Google Docs as the ditto machine is to the copier. Schools and students alike are using less paper and more cloud-based solutions for note-taking, homework, and collaboration.

Chalkboards

Gone are the dusty slate walls of yesterday, as is the dreaded end-of-day task of clapping erasers and washing the boards. Today most schools use white boards and smart boards to provide more than just math equations and verb conjugations; they can share informative videos, visual aids, guest speakers, and more.

Cursive

Dropping cursive from some curriculum has been a bit controversial as of late, but with typing and keyboarding such a crucial part of learning and connecting with the world these days, something had to go.

Floppy Disks

Five-and-a-half or three-and-a-quarter? If these sizes mean something to you, it may be hard to believe they don’t mean a thing to today’s learners, who operate solely on thumb drives and cloud storage.

These are just a handful of the ways today’s learning environments are different from the past. What are we missing from this list?