Outside of school, today's students are accustomed to a high level of interaction and collaboration with one another and with technology. Inside school, we ask them to power down, assuming that we can help them achieve their fullest potential through traditional stand-and-deliver textbook-driven methods of teaching. It shouldn't surprise us that these students are bored and disconnected from learning. Creating a Digital-Rich Classroom demonstrates how standards-aligned curricula can be enhanced with powerful technological resources to transform and enrich content and make it more accessible and relevant to students. The author stresses that technology by itself does not create an active-learning classroom. While Web 2.0 tools are very effective in increasing student participation and interest, the focus needs to be on creating lessons designed for engagement. The purpose of this book is to provide a research base and practical strategies to help teachers design and deliver lessons in which technology plays an integral role. If we want to engage students in solving real-world problems of today and tomorrow, we must use the technological tools that are shaping our world.
