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"With budgets tight, many schools are hoping to bring technology into the classroom without having to shell out for a device for each student. A solution for many has been to make classes BYOD (short for "bring your own device"), which allows students to bring laptops, tablets, and smartphones from home and to use them in the classroom and share them with other students. It's a promising idea, especially for schools that don't have big tech budgets, but it has met with some criticism from those who don't think that it's a viable long-term or truly budget-conscious decision. Whether that's the case is yet to be seen, but these stories of schools that have tried out BYOD programs seem to be largely positive, allowing educators and students to embrace technology in learning regardless of the limited resources they may have at hand."

"I am still amazed at the amount of educators, who believe that Twitter holds NO VALUE for their professional learning. Many hold on to the belief that Twitter is a waste of time, used to follow celebrities, listen to gossip and bad hair day complaints. If YOU were able to get past that initial Twitter reputation, diving into the Twittersphere can be scary, OVERWHELMING and participating in this global conversation platform does not necessarily come naturally to everybody."

"Social media offers some great opportunities for learning in the classroom, bringing together the ability to collaborate, access worldwide resources, and find new and interesting ways to communicate in one easily accessible place. Teachers around the world have found innovative ways to use Twitter as a teaching tool (including TeachThought's favorite), and we've shared many of these great ideas here with you. Read on, and we'll explore 60 inspiring ways that teachers and students can put Twitter to work in the classroom."

"If you are new to the strange land of Twitter, it might seem like the most ridiculous thing that has ever been created. What is the use in 'tweeting' something to millions of people in 140 characters or less? In education, Twitter is actually being used as a very powerful tool for learning and connecting with educators and students around the globe. With this handy Twitter guide for teachers, you'll be ready to jump feet first into the world of Twitter."

YouTube EDU brings learners and educators together in a global video classroom. On YouTube EDU, you have access to a broad set of educational videos that range from academic lectures to inspirational speeches and everything in between. Come here for quick lessons from top teachers around the world, course lectures from top-tier universities, or inspiring videos to spark your imagination. Learn something new today!

"Bringing multimedia into the classroom is a great way to engage students in learning. Supplementing lessons, opening up new interests, and offering inspiration, online videos make for an incredible teaching tool. In 2010, we covered our favorite 100 video sites for educators, and we've now updated our list for 2012 with more than 100 resources and more than 25 brand new entries. Read on, and you'll be able to check out the very best sources for educational videos on the web."

"This year at my school we've begun to dip our toes into the waters of online communication (some staff are already swimming while others are still sitting on the edge thinking they'll drown without support). We've introduced both Edmodo and blogging to varying degrees this year. In a nutshell, I see Edmodo as an all encompassing classroom management/teaching and learning/collaboration system. Blogging, on the other hand, while it can be used for all the purposes just mentioned, is a tool for writing, publishing and sharing your body of work, be it major writing tasks or quick reflections on life or school work. While it aims to share and craves feedback, blogging is a personal tool. Edmodo, however, it more group oriented. Because of the differentiation between the two, I think they should both be part of classroom practice."

"Below is an awesome infographic shedding more light on the use of iPad in education.It provides some amazing facts about the potential of this mobile device in learning and reviews the reasons behind this growing popularity of iPad in the educational circles. "

Even as we are seeing more schools and educators transform the way they teach and learn with technology, many more are not. Technology is often viewed either as a frill or a tool not worth its weight in gold. Opinions vary on the merits of educational technology, but common themes seem to have emerged. Some of the reasons for not embracing technology have to do with several misconceptions revolving around fear.

Google has developed an interactive curriculum on YouTube to support teachers in educating students on how to be safe, engaged and confident model netizens. The initiative is aimed at students aged 13 to 17 and will help them to develop digital literacy skills on YouTube that would be applicable across the web. A list of 10 lessons has been devised, in which students can learn about YouTube's policies, how to report content, how to protect their own privacy, and how to be responsible YouTube community members and, in the broader picture, digital citizens. Each lesson comes with guidelines for teachers and ready-made slides for presentation. There's also a YouTube Curriculum channel where videos related to the project will be posted.

"Here are 10 ideas I have gathered this summer to kick parent communication up to the next level so that never again will they have to ask, "What'd you do at school today?" and hear the annoying, "nothing." Instead, parents will have already experienced the wonderful things that have been happening in their child's world and dinner table discussions will turn into celebrations and extensions of the learning happening at school."

"This week, we're launching the official Edutopia Pinterest account. Whether you're an avid pinner or just a beginner, follow us! Get started by watching the videos below for some ideas about what Pinterest is and how educators are using it."

ABC Zoom is a browser-based game primarily aimed at year 9 and 10 students to bring back the fun in science learning. The core objective is to engage, via gameplay, with the fundamentals of charge and electromagnetic radiation, and gain a sense of their importance in the world around us.

Many is the blog post which highlights the ways in which Twitter is the best staffroom in the world but I've not seen too many that highlight the ways in which we can use Twitter in the classroom. Many teachers love to use Twitter as a resource to share, explore, discuss and 'magpie' ideas from other teachers and as a vehicle to help develop their own ideas and their own practice too. It's great for that… no, it's absolutely brilliant for that! So how can we capitalise on the 140 character legendary social media king to help learning in the classroom? Here are some do's and don'ts to help get you going.

"In our book, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom, Gary and I took what I would consider a fairly even-handed view of the current fad of celebrating "failure" in the classroom. I'm starting to reconsider a more radical stance."

"I have discussed and promoted the need for educators to reflect deeply on their beliefs, processes, and practices in several of my posts: Where is Reflection in the Learning Process and  Teacher Agency: Coming from a Strong Foundation.  As another strategy for engaging in this type of self-reflection, I developed these questions to have educators assess their pedagogical principles and instructional preferences:"

"Published on Mar 25, 2013 To learn what is RSS feed and how does it work"

Google+ for Schools is a short guide created by Eric Curts, a Google certified teacher. The Google Doc document walks you through a step by step process to learn everything you need in order to start leveraging the power of this social networking platform in schools.

"The internet is awash with exciting and innovative tools, and your students have grown up immersed in this world - get in on the act. The digital revolution has given us instant communication and easy global connectedness, with mobile technology in particular growing at warp speed: in 2013, there are almost as many mobile phone contracts as there are people in the world. This digital transformation has produced some extraordinary online tools for flexible education, which enhance students' learning and promise innovative pedagogy for teachers. However, they can also be daunting and challenging for educators. It is clear that teachers cannot ignore these tools, which go far beyond just Facebook and Twitter. Educators are now dealing with Generation Z - students born after 1995 who have hardly known a world without social media and have always lived a life measured in bits and bytes. Most have access to iPads and smartphones as well as textbooks and, therefore, the massive resource of the internet."

"Here is a handy cheat sheet made particularly for those of you who think they are not tech-savvy enough to carry out internet control safety planning for their kids. Check it out and share with us what you think of it. Enjoy"