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"Discovering content is the easy part. Managing it all is the challenge. The gallery below by Shirley Williams is a strong collection of tools to better discover, manage, and share digital content. And with the imminent death of Google Reader, several of these apps could help fill that huge hole (though not the one in your heart). Have a browse and let us know if you find anything exceptional."

"Google Docs is an online suite of digital tools that provides teachers with some powerful features to help students develop 21st century writing skills. Since Docs are collaborative and available 24/7, the tool is well-suited for facilitating digital writing workshops that combine peer editing with cooperative grouping and small group fine-tuned writing instruction."

YouTube can be a great place to find educational videos to use in your classroom. But YouTube isn't the only place where you can find good educational video content. These services will allow you to organize playlists from multiple video sharing services. Please note that if YouTube is blocked in your school, the only tool in this list that will provide a work around for you is Miro.

"As a guy who delivers two-day #edtech workshops during my breaks from full-time classroom teaching, I'm often asked the same questions again and again: How can teachers use technology to motivate students? What digital tools do kids like best? My answer often catches participants by surprise: You can't motivate students with technology because technology alone isn't motivating. Worse yet, students are almost always ambivalent toward digital tools. While you may be completely jazzed by the interactive whiteboard in your classroom or the wiki that you just whipped up, your kids could probably care less."

"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."

"While the term has become controversial since Prensky penned the phrase, the idea is still relevant-and the social perception of the "new students" Prensky was talking about continues to shift with the birth of new digital tools. However, the question that many experts are asking remains: does a fluency in new media tools like Facebook and Apple TV equate to digital savviness?"

"Learning Suite by Microsoft is a set of innovative applications for education that create a robust, creative and collaborative learning environment for students and educators. It includes a new, integrated interface that lets you access all these applications in one place, where they are grouped around four categories aligned to how you work. It makes managing your tools simpler, and it is especially efficient when combined with Microsoft Windows® 7 and Office 2010."

"A new era of personalized professional development is sweeping into schools. We've created this guide to capture the extraordinary changes in PD tools and in the cycle of learning. We look here at tools that support how teachers engage with colleagues; that help teachers learn or find support for implementing fresh strategies and approaches; and that measure how that learning impacts practice in the classroom."

"Blogging in the classroom was a watershed discovery for me.  I had such an acute need for a better way to manage my student's writing, but I was wary of blogging.  There are challenges to helping students learn in an online community.  Until I met Matt Hardy from KidBlog, I viewed these risks as too big to manage on my own.  I believe that as a teacher I have to both innovate and protect my own professional reputation.  When I heard Matt talk about how he created KidBlog to support exactly the kind of connected learning I want to happen in my classroom, I realized how accessible this learning is now.  Using school specific tools like Kidblog, or  Edublogs, can give you more control and management potential than using conventional tools like Blogger, or WordPress"

Muvizu is an animation tool for hobbyists that's so easy to use its creators, Digimania, are increasingly targeting the classroom. The app can be used to create characters, sets and bring the whole performance to life with its character animation system. The software includes the following features: Create and customise 3D characters. Virtual lights, cameras and special effects. Automatic lip-synching for any language. Lightning fast rendering for quick results. Muvizu has recently added some powerful new tools with the launch of two new versions. Muvizu Play and Muvizu Play+ both feature customisable characters and sets and automatic lip-synching, while lighting quick rendering and full HD output is one of many enhanced Play+ features. A special educational version of Muvizu will be launched in September designed for K12 students and above.

"The internet has changed the way with think of information. The web as we know it is significantly changing our literacy and information encounters.Participative media tools have altered the shape and experience of learning, and provided teacher and librarians in this changing learning environment with the need to embrace new skills, new tools and new ways of working with literacy, information literacy and digital fluency. If there is any doubt about the scope and impact of the new technology environment, the Horizon Report K-12 edition (2011) issued annually since 2009 has identified and described emerging technologies that are having a significant impact on K-12 education, re-iterating the diversity of influences in the learning spaces of our schools."

"NSW Police have been made aware of a Facebook page that has allegedly made disturbing death threats against baby-faced singer Jack Vidgen. Telephones don't stalk children, Social Media doesn't intimidate them either. People do. Investigate People. Don't blame the online community tools. Thank the tools - they shine a spotlight on all that is horrid in our society. We cannot heal until we know what is wrong with us and acknowledge and address it. And newspapers are not here to heal us, believe me!"

""Curation" may be one of the big buzzwords of 2011. As the amount of information accumulates thanks to the Web, it becomes increasingly important that we use tools to help us find information that's relevant and useful. The role of the curator has always been to help pull together and oversee collections of materials. But just as Web 2.0 has expanded the traditional role of publisher to almost anyone, the role of curator now too is changing. Anyone can "curate" online material, pulling together their own collections."

"Twitter seems to be here to stay. As one of the most popular ways for teachers, students, and the general public to communicate, it's becoming a must-have tool in almost every teacher's toolbox. However, numerous recent studies have shown that education in general has been slow to adopt social media. In an effort to speed up this adoption process, below you'll find a boatload of resources on the past, present, and future of Twitter in education as well as some helpful guides to using the tool in the classroom. This guide is by no means exhaustive and is meant to be added to on a regular basis. To do that, Edudemic needs your help. Just share your favorite resource(s) on the Edudemic Facebook page and it'll get added to this Ultimate Guide."

"Here are some tools for creating outlines and mind maps to plan video projects, podcasts, or essays."

"While the first instinct in schools and districts is often to block services such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and even some blogging platforms, the positives of these tools often outweigh the negatives. When used well, social media tools connect all stakeholders in a school community in a ways that have never before been possible. "

"Discuss web-site or product interfaces with your team. Add visual materials and screenshots, mark-up, leave comments in mini-chat. Create simple sketches or complex infographics using shapes, texts and mark-up tools. Visualize any data and share it with others. Upload pictures and drawings of interior and exterior, discuss your design projects with your colleagues and clients using comments and chat. Plan and discuss your projects in RealtimeBoard - add your Google Docs and PDF-presentations, create mindmaps and collaborate in real time. Use business model template to structure your business activity. Add files, texts, pictures, comments and work together.

Mural.ly is a new tool (still in beta, launched last week) that is a cross between Prezi and mind maps. It's easy to use and share what you create (perfect for most students, teachers, and parents) but the real beauty of mural.ly is in its lack of structure.

"Google Alert allows you to create alerts around topics you are interested in and start receiving emails with updates about your search query. For instance as a doctoral student with a research interest in emerging literacies , I have created an alert with the name " emerging literacies" and each time something new published online with those key words in it I get an email with a link to it. This keeps me abreast of the latest releases in my area of research. I also use Google Alert to track down authors and scholars whose works are related to my research areas. I simply create a Google Alert with their names as the alert titles and next time they publish something I get it first. Another way to use Google Alert is to create an alert about yourself by using your full name and anytime somebody mentions you somewhere online you will instantly receive an email with a link to it. Here is how to create a Google Alert"

Straw Poll is a quick and easy polling tool that doesn't require registration, but has only four voting options, blocks multiple voting, can be embedded and records answers in a pie chart