Editor's Note: Our guest blogger today is Ann Flynn, Director of Education Technology and State Association Services at National School Boards Association (NSBA, a member of the Learning First Alliance). This post was originally published on NSBA's School Board News Today.
The death of Apple founder Steve Jobs has triggered an outpouring of worldwide support by individuals touched by the innovations he enabled. One reporter compared Jobs to the Thomas Edison of our generation, and indeed his vision has transformed the way we create, connect, and communicate much as Edison changed the lives of those in the past century. We take the contributions of Edison for granted now, rarely thinking of his innovations with electric lighting or the phonograph as “technology”. They were simply devices, that over time, changed the world. The collection of devices attributed to Jobs’ vision, from the early computers to the latest iPads, are already regarded for what they enable us to do to simplify day-to-day living and learning, rather than just being the newest cool gadget.
His innovations allow adults and children alike to interact with their world in ways only previously imagined in science fiction. Many adults recognize the convenience of having the power of the Internet in the palm of their hand, the ability to manipulate content with the touch of a finger, the option to carry a lifetime of favorite tunes, or download applications to simplify everything from airline schedules to paying for parking meters. Yet some of those same adults have not embraced the idea that these tools can have the same transformational impact on education for today’s youth. Jobs’ Apple was among the earliest technology companies to recognize that their devices could impact learning and ...
Fall’s arrival heralds the start of school and classroom teachers are excited to welcome back their students for another year of learning. At the same time, they are faced with the reality that students seem to know less than they did last spring. On average, all students lose ground and begin the year a month behind where they performed in the spring. 
Last weekend, Matt Richtel wrote a piece for the New York Times that has 
Clearly we live in an age when customers have great choice in products and services, many of which can be delivered via computer applications. Education authors and former teachers and administrators Chuck Schwahn and Bea McGarvey want to integrate this reality into school learning. 
Clearly there are many worthwhile focuses competing for time, funds, and energy within public schools, especially in our current fiscal context. And while it’s often difficult to prioritize these issues, it is increasingly clear that technology is of critical importance in modern society—and thus for schools—and it will only become more important in the future.
Technology has redefined how we work, play and communicate at work and at home. For those of us involved in advocating for technology’s appropriate role and substantial impact on public K-12 schooling, the redefinition has been slower than we would have liked. The Learning First Alliance (LFA) hopes to accelerate more widespread understanding and implementation of technology for both instruction and information management by expanding our coalition to include, effective March 1, 2011, the 
Yesterday, the Commerce Department released a 
The news has been getting me down recently. And not just the news itself (depressing enough to those who share my views on a number of issues), but what people are saying about it.
We hear a lot about urban schools—their performance, the challenges they face, how we can make them better. We don’t hear nearly as much about rural schools, despite the fact that almost half of our public schools are rural and about a third of America's students attend these schools. 
We get federal impact aid under Title VIII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. We're right next to the Yankton Sioux Reservation, which is a checkerboard reservation. It was one land mass at one time, but pieces have been sold by different entities through the years and now it's a checkerboard. One piece of land may be reservation, the piece next to it may not be.
