Rethinking Education in the New Digital Landscape by Ian Jukes is a powerful article. For the past ten years Juke's statement has been my challenge." The starting point is to understand how much differently they (our students) learn from the way we learn and then to reconsider what we can do to modify what we teach and how we teach it and how we assess learning."

I am fortunate to have two teaching partners who share this quest and together we have had some successes. I believe our study of Lewis and Clark study has accomplished many aspects of the four action steps Jukes suggests. When our students are required to write journal entries they use higher level thinking skills and also blend the powers of both the left and right sides of the brain. When learning about Native Americans our students sit side by side and discuss information, unknown vocabulary, and confusing concepts. They compare and share notes.

Creating a Glog about one of the causes of the Revolutionary War unleashed some creative genius in our classrooms. One child added two videos expressing his personal opinion of the impact of the cause and selected graphics demonstrating an understanding of various concepts. This child became a star for two days...something that rarely happened to him! Leslie encouraged her students to complete an Oregon Trail webquest and their work blew their teachers away. Some examples were student created songs, storyboards with graphics and a big hit... videos. Using a Flip video camera some students decided to dress up and realized they needed to see Dottie Herschman to get clothes. Next ,scripts were written and practiced. With much giggling in the hallways, video productions were created. How much information was synthesized to create them! Tons!

Jaclyn and her students have explored a number of Web 2 tools. Her Shoshone study group used Skype to videoconference with second graders in a Shoshone school. Before the conference, children worked together to make up questions. They reworded them and decided whose were most valuable.

In conclusion we are trying to teach the students who are sitting in front of us today...a task that is extremely challenging but so important. There's much work to be done!