Students and teachers across the United States are invited to voice their opinions on how technology affects their teaching and learning. The means of being heard is Speak Up Day 2005, an online survey that gives K-12 education's primary stakeholders the chance to suggest how technology should be used in their schools. Educators and students can register to participate in the survey until Nov. 18.

NetDay, the national nonprofit organization that sponsors the annual survey, hopes to collect feedback from 250,000 K-12 students and teachers from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and American military bases worldwide.

"There is so much that we need to learn about how children want to use technology and how teachers are actually using it, and that's the primary driving force behind doing this survey for the third time," said Julie Evans, chief executive officer of NetDay. "The Speak Up surveys provide a unique opportunity for students and teachers to share their authentic, unfiltered ideas about technology and education with both their local administrators as well as national policy makers."

The survey asks participants about their experiences while using technology for learning, and questions focus on the use of computers, the internet, gaming, instant messaging, cell phones, and MP3 players. This year's questions also give students and teachers a chance to address topics of global and local importance.

Evans explained that open-ended questions give students and teachers the chance to think on a national or global level. The first question, which asks how leaders can use technology to deal with challenges such as tsunamis, hurricanes, and hunger, attempts to get students to think creatively about the potential of technology to solve global problems.

The second question asks children what skills they think they'll need for the future and what their schools can do to provide those skills. "It's their 21st century, so let's get their opinions," Evans said.

The survey also asks which technology devices students think are essential to have in a 21st-century classroom, what students like best about using technology to complete assignments, and what one technology-related thing students would change in their school if they were principal for a day.

Teachers' questions ask whether pre-service education adequately prepared them to use technology for instruction, how much of a voice teachers have in their school's technology selection, and whether teachers see technology in the classroom as an asset or a distraction from meeting No Child Left Behind standards.

Also new to the 2005 survey are questions about the use and effectiveness of online learning programs. Teachers will be asked to indicate how they view the value of online classes for professional development, their experience in teaching online classes, and how online learning helps students.