What's essential?

If you're an educator interested in technology, chances are you can't keep track of all the new tools out there. How do you decide which applications are ripe for classroom use and which are worth passing up? Here's one strategy: Focus on the essential learning functions first. Are you interested in making ideas more visible? Connecting your students with peers in a distant community? Managing projects online? In the design world, form follows function. The same's true when it comes to instructional design. Here are eight essential learning functions that you're likely to encounter in the 21st-century classroom:

• Ubiquity
• Deep Learning
• Making Things Visible and Discussable
• Expressing Ourselves, Sharing Ideas, Building Community
• Collaboration
• Research
• Project Management
• Reflection and Iteration

Which technologies are you using to achieve them?