Changes in technology are providing opportunities for corporate America to re-define what work "looks like." Cell phones, fax machines, and the Internet allow people to work at home as easily as in an office for a variety of functions. As many as 18 million Americans have been telecommuting since the year 2000! Consider the skills required by a telecommuter: project management; time management; self-discipline; resourcefulness; technology skills. Most classrooms today provide students with limited opportunities to build such skills. How can schools craft instructional environments that put more of the responsibility for learning on the students and thus prepare them for the work world that lies ahead?

• How the Internet is Boosting Telecommuting:
  http://www.momsrefuge.com/telecommute/survey.html
  
• Problem-based learning (PBL) provides students with wonderful opportunities for approaching curriculum content differently. Whereas teachers have traditionally presented lessons of skills they believe students need to learn, current thinking on teaching supports presenting students with an authentic, open-ended problem that creates a "felt need" for learning skills. Students then must manage the task and their time to utilize resources (the teacher, peers, the Internet, books, etc.) to learn the curriculum content.
• IDE's Web site offers you a PBL of the month along with those from prior months
• Many great Web sites on PBL can be found on the Web:

• University of Delaware
• Illinois Mathematics and Science Academic
• Ohio State University
  
  
• The IDEportal is an on-line resource for educators that offers a continually-updated collection of problem-based tasks with assessment rubrics for use in the classroom.