We talk about Differentiated Instruction but what does it mean today? In my mind the goal was always to allow for customization of the learning process to meet the needs of learners, in short to put learning in the palm of a kids’ hand.
The powerful invention that ushered in the last Renaissance was the printing press. Suddenly, every person could learn whatever suited them. Knowledge for the first time became readily available and affordable to obtain. You didn’t have to physically visit knowledgeable people to access knowledge. Sound familiar?
Educational institutions sometimes watch passively as amazingly powerful tools are birthed into existence on a nearly daily basis. The “crazies” in education are playing with new tools today and test-driving them as potential new learning vehicles. In the early days of the web and personal computing and in some places still today, these educational innovators are seen as risk-takers or distractors, people upsetting the natural order of things.

I see these people as essential trail-blazers in the educational relevance game. Whether the goal is to get the most out of shrinking resources or maximize our ability to engage learners, these people are the modern day educational Moses’ helping us find the promised land.
iPods, GPS, Kindles, netbooks, laptops and all of the other tools of the digital revolution are NOTHING without educators who are willing to drive them and systems that are willing and committed to integrating them into learning. What are we doing about that?