Just got back from the North American Jewish Day School conference where I spent 2 days engaged in presentations and great discussions with new friends. On Monday I co-presented with Rabbi Jan Katzew from the Life Long Learning Team at the URJ for the PARDES Day of Learning. We engaged in a "Tag Team" presentation focused on a the idea that in order to connect the dots moving forward you have to look back (Steve Jobs Quote). While Jan focused on the history and future of the URJ I focused on the history and future of technology, the Internet and the Law of Accelerating Returns. We had a great time and it was very well received. On the second day I invited 3 leaders of the day school community to join me in presenting on the subject of 21st Century Learning Environments. Jon Mitmacher, Gil Perl and Drew Frank are all young innovators in the day school community that are breaking new ground and leading with vision. My second session of the day focused on 21st Century STEM and how STEM redesigned in the Challenge-Based and Studio-Based model could ignite student passion for the subject. You can access resources from each of the presentations at the PARDES Google Site I created for the event. Overall, I learned a great deal about the Jewish Day School community, made a lot of new friends and was very impressed with the level of passion and expertise amongst their teachers and leaders. I look forward to expanding my collaboration beyond PARDES and the URJ to others in the community.

2012 is shaping up to be the year of Mobile devices with over 6.8 Million iOS and Android devices activated and over 242 Million Apps downloaded on Christmas day 2011 alone. (source: Flurry Blog) No doubt many of the devices activated ended up in the hands of kids, either as a gift or as a result of the "pass-back" effect. Pass-back occurs when adults pass their mobile devices to their kids either intentionally for "play" or unintentionally to act as a baby-sitter while Mom or Dad are engaged elsewhere. With over 50,000 education apps listed in the Apple App store alone, it is not surprising that mobile phones and tablets are ended up in the hands of kids. What is surprising is the age at which kids are using the devices often with little or no help from an adult. Check out this You Tube video of a 2 year old using his fathers iPhone. The explosion of Mobile Devices taken together with the pass-back effect means that more and more kids will have access to sophisticated internet enabled devices at younger and younger ages, years before they ever step foot inside a formal education environment. The impact of this is potentially profound, revolutionary and definitely disruptive. Read this report by the folks at Sesame Street Workshop; "Learning, is there an App for that?", to learn more about the Mobile learning wave that is coming and how it can be harnessed by parents and schools.