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All K-12 and Higher Ed Teachers, Administrators, IT Directors, and Tech Coordinators! Have you heard about the New Zealand Summit? Are you interested in how Google Apps in Education can promote student learning and motivation? The program features Google Certified Teachers, Google Apps for Education Certified Trainers, practicing administrators, solution providers, Google engineers, and representatives from the Google Apps for Education team. Register now to send teachers, administrators, tech directors, library media specialists, tech support staff, CTOs, and anyone who is interested in finding out more about leveraging Google Apps for Education to support student learning.

When people say that I'm an ed-tech leader, I am always shocked. I don't think of myself as a leader in this area - just someone who really likes what he does. So, what makes someone an educational-technology leader? Are there certain qualities that make such people stand out from everyone else? Do they have fancy degrees that make them special?

"Web-based tools continue to proliferate, giving teachers more to add to their arsenal, but it can be hard to determine which resources are worth spending time exploring. At the International Society of  Technology in Education (ISTE) conference this year, Adam Bellow, founder of EduClipper, and Steve Dembo, Online Community Manager for Discovery Education offered a quick run through of some favorite apps. The two educators are early adopters of ed-tech classroom strategies and have a lot of experience with tech integration."

"Web-based tools continue to proliferate, giving teachers more to add to their arsenal, but it can be hard to determine which resources are worth spending time exploring. At the International Society of  Technology in Education (ISTE) conference this year, Adam Bellow, founder of EduClipper, and Steve Dembo, Online Community Manager for Discovery Education offered a quick run through of some favorite apps. The two educators are early adopters of ed-tech classroom strategies and have a lot of experience with tech integration."

"Actually teaching a class of students with iPads, is a very different scenario than any other tech integration. As comfortable as I am with technology, it is new territory teaching kids when they have the world at their fingertips and the majority of them are way more tech savvy than you or I will ever will be."

"Technology and education are pretty intertwined these days and nearly every teacher has a few favorite tech tools that make doing his or her job and connecting with students a little bit easier and more fun for all involved."

"YouTube is loaded with tools and settings that teachers and students often overlook. The YouTube audio slideshow tool is one of those overlooked tools built into YouTube. I often demonstrate it in my workshops on video creation. In the video embedded below I provide a demonstration of how to use YouTube's audio slideshow creation tool."

"Not even one decade ago, educators considered cell phones and laptops a most egregious classroom distraction. These days, though, many tech-savvy teachers actively try to incorporate them into engaging lessons rather than snatching them away. While tablets, smartphones, and other mobile computing devices have yet to enjoy universal implementation, many in the business adore exploring emerging technologies to unlock their full potential as learning tools. Such as these folks, listed in no particular order!"

"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."

"Vannevar Bush foreshadowed the impact that such technology would have on our contemporary lives. By doing so, Bush inspired critical aspects of current online tools, including the hyperlink and the World Wide Web. Bush's vision directly influenced researchers to create digital technology we nowadays consider commonplace. Today's equivalent of Bush's breakthrough is just as radical, except it's far beyond the conceptual stage and is already in extensive development. This technology is termed "Augmented Reality" (AR). AR has the potential to act as a harbinger of future hi-tech transformations whilst irrevocably altering the basic nature of everyday life."

One of the perplexing things that teachers and educators encounter when trying to understand educational technology and leverage it  to their classrooms is the abundance  of those baffling  techy terms. Blended Learning is different from Differentiated Learning, Educational Technology might not be necessarily Instructional Technology, a Virtual Classroom is different from an Electronic Classroom or Flipped Classroom; There is also asynchronous, synchronous, and personalized learning, these and many more are but some examples of the growing terminology in this field.

"The Google Chromecast is one of the hot tickets in the tech world right now, and while it has somewhat limited functionality compared to something like an Apple TV, there's a lot to be said for it. It's only $35 for starters, and has cross-platform functionality - though Google's idea of cross-platform is still limited to ChromeOS and the Chrome browser, iOS and Android. That's great news for us however, as with Netflix and YouTube initially - and likely Google Play Music when it finally makes the jump to iOS - supported already, we can get in on the action. So, if you're tempted, keep on scrolling for everything you need to know!"

"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"

"Being able to write clearly is an essential skill for all students. It can be hard for kids to pen what they mean, though. With simple online writing tools and blogs like these, students get practice writing informally in settings that aren't too daunting. Get them writing with their peers and they may soar even more."

"The biggest risk, then, may be that the sockpuppet affair gets too much attention - and that the focus on internal police work ends up distracting from the deeper problems of quality, vibrancy and diversity that the MIT Tech Review story explored. Wikipedia may not be in decline, but it will be hard-pressed to significantly improve until it can figure out how to attract more talented and dedicated editors with different interests and backgrounds from around the world. In the end, it's conceivable that will require more paid editing, not less. The question is, who will do the paying, and how can Wikipedia make sure they put the site's interests - and those of the public at large - above their own?"

"Older teachers, who tend to have more experience in the classroom, are more likely to say they feel ready to make use of the reams of data available through digital learning tools, according to a new survey. Younger teachers rate themselves as less ready. More broadly, teachers of all ages report feeling inadequately prepared to use technology to enhance teaching and learning, according to a survey from the Software and Information Industry Association that was released Tuesday at the conference."

""Blogging - an essential online space" (link to the recording)  was the theme of this week's Tech Talk Tuesdays. I feel stronly that blogging should be open and online. Why?  Otherwise students should use offline tools to document their learning etc. A question was asked "How can we ensure that students are safe and secure whilst blogging?" Here are some suggestions:"

"Need to translate a pdf from one language to another? Technology blog Tech Dows advises uploading the pdf to your Google Docs account, then opening the document and click on Tools then Translate document. Google Docs will make a copy of that document in the new language."

Andy Affleck is debating whether to allow his 11-year-old son, Jack, to have a Facebook account. Director of engineering at a small tech company near Providence, R.I., Affleck says he feels very strongly "that children need to be socialized in the online world just as much as they do in the real world."

An infographic from Digital Learning Now which looks at how "Blended learning can create new career opportunities and improved conditions for teachers. As student roles evolve within a more personalized, tech-rich learning environment, teacher roles should evolve accordingly."