I thought I'd use this space to share a recent blog entry from one of my favorite blogs -  Dangerously Irrelevant  If you aren't following Dr. Scott McLeod already, I'd suggest subscribing to his site.  

By Dr. Scott McLeod (Dangerously Irrelevant)

Dear principal or superintendent,

It’s a new school year, and that brings new opportunities...

• Is this the year that you begin the task of transforming your classrooms into learning spaces that emphasize hands-on inquiry, critical thinking, collaboration, and problem solving instead of teacher lecture, rote practice, and fact regurgitation?
• Is this the year that you get powerful digital learning tools into the hands of students - whether they be laptops, netbooks, or maybe iPads - so that they can start learning how to do knowledge work the way that knowledge workers in the real world do?
• Is this the year that you finally invest some money in better technology integration support for teachers rather than simply buying more stuff?
• Is this the year that you decide to confront what probably are brutal truths and survey your students in detail about how engaging and interesting their classes are?
• Is this the year that your teachers pilot a unit or two where they use no textbooks whatsoever (paper or digital) and instead use wikis or social bookmarking tools with their students to co-curate a set of online learning resources that accomplishes the same (or better) learning goals?
• Is this the year that your school system investigates what it means to effectively communicate.......

Read more at http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/