Who would deny the sweet irony of a 70-year-old man stepping into his very own classroom of the future? James Richmond certainly would, if it would mean fast-forwarding the premiere of the digital, domed theater his district has in the works, which has been pushed back to 2013 due to funding snags. Richmond, the superintendent of Charles County…

Teachers at Irvington High School in Fremont, California are looking for meaningful and relevant connections between what students are learning in the classroom and the job skills companies are looking for in the years to come. For Irvington, a Bay Area public high school serving about 2,000 students, that pursuit of a "logical link" led…

The lack of U.S. students entering the science, technology, engineering, and math fields is one of teachers' primary educational woes. Surveys show that the small percentage of U.S. college students who choose to major in a math or science field gets even smaller by the end of students' freshman year. While the responsibility of STEM (science,…

In the old days, professional development didn't extend any further than the workshops teachers would attend to learn new applications. After the workshop, the teachers were on their own once they returned to school and had to figure out how to use their new tools. Today, things are different as technologies are too complex and the need to…

Hiring substitute teachers used to be an early-morning calling burden for staff members at schools in Oregon's Coos Bay School District. Now that work has been passed off to Aesop, a service from Frontline Placement Technologies, which springs into action upon receiving a notification, either by call or log-in, from a teacher reporting an absence.…

Two years ago, Mandeville High School (http://mandevillehigh.stpsb.org/index.shtml) in Louisiana purchased a mobile wireless computer lab with grant funds from the state. This lab not only helped improve the writing and research skills of the school's ninth-grade students, but also improved its overall performance score to become one of the…

As a pioneer in education technology, Bishop Hartley High School, a Catholic high school in Columbus, Ohio, has sought to embrace change with a revolutionary computer from Hewlett-Packard known as the Compaq Tablet PC TC1000. In February 2003, Bishop Hartley became the first high school in the country to give an entire student class their own…

The PDA was originally conceived of as a portable handheld electronic device that provided a user with a tool to organize his or her life through easy access to a personal calendar, daily planner, and address book. Over the years, these devices have expanded to include many new functions, which have helped more applications in diverse fields. This…

The Fort Vermilion School Division (FVSD) covers an area twice the size of Vermont, yet the school system only has 3,600 students. This region of northwestern Alberta, Canada, is a mixture of agriculture and oil exploration, with most towns having fewer than 5,000 people. The mandate of the school district is to provide the best possible education…