By Lewis Diuguid, Kansas City Star Editorial Board Columnist

La Vonne Neal surprised everyone at the opening session Wednesday of the 19th Annual International Conference of the National Association for Multicultural Education Convention in Denver.

Instead of telling people to "turn off their cell phones," which is a common request at public gatherings, Neal told people to turn on their cell phones.

Neal, dean of the College of Education at the University of Colorado - Colorado Springs, wanted to demonstrate how educators have to use the tools that children have and love to help attract them into learning the things they need to know.

It is a refrain that John Covington has been preaching since he took over in July as superintendent of the Kansas City School District. Covington, after all, did come from the Pueblo, Colo., School District.

To demonstrate cell phone use, Neal had people watch video clips of a music performance, and then she asked the audience to text responses to questions she asked such as what group was performing and what some of the lyrics were. The interactive nature of the demonstration was fascinating. That opens great doors to interactive learning in classrooms with teachers asking students to also do math to compute the percentage of students who correctly answered the questions.

Neal played clips of President Barack Obama in which he said in a speech to Congress, "We know the countries that out teach us today will out compete us tomorrow."

Neal showed a quote from Obama that said, "Schools don't just need more resources, they need more reform."

Reform has to be more than the Bush-era "No Child Left Behind" law, which continues to be woefully underfunded and offers no national uniform standards for student achievement.