Jody Passanisi is in her tenth year teaching and currently teaches eighth grade U.S. at an independent school in the Los Angeles area. She has a degree in psychology from San Francisco State University, an M.A. in religious studies from the Graduate Theological Union, and an M.S. in education from Mount St. Mary's College. She has been actively involved in the DeLeT program at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles, both as a fellow and a mentor teacher. 
Shara Peters is in her fourth year teaching and currently teaches middle school at an independent school in the Orange County, CA area. She has a degree in Jewish studies from California State University, Long Beach, was a fellow in the DeLeT program at Hebrew Union College where she received her teaching credential, and earned an M.A.T from American Jewish University. Jody and Shara's writing has been featured on Scientific American, Education Week Teacher, and MiddleWeb. Follow them on Twitter @21centuryteachr.
Technology has abstracted the educational sphere in the way it has abstracted all other aspects of our lives. Pencils and paper have given way to the more amorphous cloud-based computing, kids are presenting more with Prezi than on poster boards, and work can be turned in online instead of in-hand...
Make a prediction: how would you think a student today would answer these questions? If you were creating a classroom, what would it look like?
We are told that the students that we teach are “digital natives.” This term implies that from the time they were born, technology has played such a large part in students’ lives that they know no other way...
The Role of Research in the Digital Age We all know that the Internet has led to an explosion of available information. When students search for information about a topic, they are met with a plethora of articles, from both credible and non-credible resources...
When we were in school, there were certain moments that were considered to be learning dead zones. For us, these were times when a teacher showed a movie, or when other students were presenting their own book reports or science projects that we were not so interested in...
@thomascmurray: I learn more on Twitter in one week than I did in ANY grad course, which by the way, I paid for. Who's with me? #edtech #edchat #satchat @sjunkins: Twitter is everything a teachers lounge should be.....
I never realized how hard it would be to limit my toddler’s screen time. Despite my efforts, he has developed a proficiency with my iPhone that is, as far as I can tell, standard for his peers...
Last year, our principal posed this question to our faculty: “Can we be rendered obsolete by online learning?”The Khan Academy was receiving widespread attention for propagating the idea of an online learning experience for younger students...
