Yesterday I logged in to a live chat hosted by Manoush Robin of DailyLounge.comon the topic of New Ways to Engage Students.

I was afraid that I might find myself drooling on my desk as I sometimes did when I was a student, but sure enough the chat itself was very engaging.

Featured were Intel’s very own Dr. Wayne Grant, Director of Research & Planning for Intel’s Education Market Platforms Group. Also joining was Johnny Kissko, a tech savvy educator who runs the blogs K12 Mobile Learning and KinectEDucation (devoted to using the Xbox Kinect for education), James Paul Gee – professor of literacy at Arizona State (and an expert on the use of games in education), and Shelly Blake-Plock, faculty associate at Johns Hopkins and head blogger at TeachPaperless.com.

There were dozens of guests with various creative nicknames (in case you were wondering, yes, that was me, “guest525502″) who asked questions on a variety of topics ranging from professional development to games and social media.

I was impressed by Wayne’s ability to look at the process of student engagement from multiple perspectives – thinking about the needs of students, teachers, administrators, governments, etc.

His comments reinforced the breadth of the solution we offer through the Intel Learning Series and our alliance partners. I’ve seen it in action – kids programming LEGO robots on the Intel-powered classmate PC, and I can tell you that they were very engaged indeed!