"Facts and statistics about online safety."

Henrico County Schools System has adopted the TPACK as the Framework for professional development and 21st Century Learning in the Henrico County Schools System.  Henrico County is one of the largest and earliest districts to pioneer and implement a one-to-one initiative.  They have adopted this model as its conceptual framework to guide their progress towards the 21st Century Learning. The following video will set the stage to provide insight into how this school district uses technology for relevant and real-world learning.

"On Monday Steve Wheeler wrote a blog post on mobile and student owned devices which I thought I'd respond to here. Please read the post and comments and then come back. In answer to your question "Should students' personal devices become a part of the delivery strategy..." without a doubt we should be considering mobile. It would be foolish not to consider mobile. However this is not to say that mobile must dominant the agenda."

"An interesting question was raised today during the Effective Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age event at the University of Birmingham. Organised by the Higher Education Academy, the one day conference attracted around 40-50 people from a number of universities across the UK. One of the invited speakers was Professor John Traxler (University of Wolverhampton) who spoke on how mobile technologies are extending and enhancing learning. In a 'hot off the press' publication from the HEA, which he also edited, John writes about mobile technologies, (of which he includes smart-phones, media players, games consoles, netbooks and handheld computers):"

A google custom search engine that returns results under a range of tabs including lesson plans, printables, practice, videos and games.

"Imagine hundreds of thousands of great short videos, and other media, explaining every topic taught to school kids. Imagine them rated and sorted into a giant Directory, making them simple to find. WatchKnow--as in, "You watch, you know"--is a non-profit online community devoted to this goal."

"Have you been gamified yet? Perhaps not a painful as it sounds, gamification is on its way to becoming THE buzzword of 2011. Social media engagement tools such as badges, points, levels, leaderboards, etc are making their way out of hipster apps to every online engagement you can think of. Yes, it all sounds oddly familiar (green stamps, reward cards, etc.) but of course, it's all NEW NEW NEW, with gurus and pundits claiming that gamification will change the way we live and of course, spend money."

"More than 5 million online U.S. households experienced some type of abuse on Facebook in the past year, including virus infections, identity theft, and for a million children, bullying, a Consumer Reports survey shows. And consumers are at risk in myriad other ways, according to our national State of the Net survey of 2,089 online households conducted earlier this year by the Consumer Reports National Research Center. Here are the details: "

"SOME 7.5 million of the 20 million minors who used Facebook in the past year were younger than 13, and a million of them were bullied, harassed or threatened on the site, a study released yesterday said. More than five million Facebook users were 10 years old or younger, and they were allowed to use Facebook largely without parental supervision, leaving them vulnerable to threats ranging from malware to identity theft to sexual predators, the State of the Net survey by Consumer Reports said."

The video is a great example of what kids are able to do with Minecraft and what educational value can be derived.  And kudos to Ethan's teacher for being open-minded enough to accept a Minecraft creation in lieu of a traditional history project.

"We're excited to announce the Grand Prize of the 2011 What's Your Story? Internet safety video contest!"

"For those wondering what a game-based classroom looks like in a traditional school, take a peek into Ananth Pai's third-grade class in Parkview/Center Point Elementary school in Maplewood, Minnesota. Using his own money and grants that he applied for, Pai has managed to round up seven laptops, two desktops 11 Nintendo DS's, 18 games for math, reading, vocabulary, geography, and 21 digital voice recorders. "

"Companies who want to know more about prospective employees can learn a lot by checking their Facebook profiles, according to a new study. Jennifer Golbeck and colleagues at the University of Maryland surveyed the public profiles of nearly 300 Facebook users for information about their favourite activities, TV shows, movies, music, books, quotes, and membership in political or other organisations. They also looked at the "About Me" and "blurb" sections. The work did not include status updates or other data that is only available to users' online friends."

"Every teacher is taught that back up plans are a must. Things change constantly in education and there are a variety of factors that can make plans change - computer breaks, internet goes out, file is corrupted, forgot your flash drive at home, you finish a lesson early with a class, your class has very low attendance due to a school activity or event (like AP testing, prom, etc), lesson runs long, students don't understand the material, class is interrupted by a fire drill. To deal with these issues, teachers must have back up plans ready to go and be flexible and organized. Here are some tips and resources for backup plans."

"Communication centers, computers, laptops, mobile phones and tablets have all been spoken about at one point or another as technologies with promising applications for education. But mobile phones stand apart in an important way. In United States high schools, 98% of students have access to some kind of smartphone, according to a report by Blackboard and Project Tomorrow. The United Nation's International Telecommunication Union estimated that there were 5.3 billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide at the end of 2010 - and that a full 90% of the world population now has access to a mobile network. In contrast, only about 2 billion people have Internet access. Students around the world are increasingly bringing their own mini-computers (or some connected device) to class. Whether this creates a distraction or a boon to learning is debatable, but these four uses of mobile phones in education - and countless others - could one day help prove the latter."

"Game-based learning (GBL) is a seemingly simple concept - learning through the use of games. But wait, let's look a little closer. Most people see the term "game-based learning" and think of students playing some sort of educational computer game. But, there's more to GBL than just that. Let's take a look at GBL in terms of the game and pedagogical considerations:"

"Scott McLeod, in his blog, Dangerously Irrelevant, recently reminded us of a line from Mission Impossible, and we must apply that challenge to all of society. "Your assignment, should you choose to accept it" is to take education truly into the 21st century. It is not enough to say that we are already living there. Technically it is the 21st century, but our schools are not there, and our challenge now is to reinvent schools for the 21st century - for the sake of our children, our students and the welfare of our world. Making such a paradigm shift is not easy. After all, when any of us thinks of education, we usually think of what we knew as school - the way it has always been. That is how parents, policy makers, politicians and many students think of school. But we have to make the paradigm shift to 21st century education. So what is 21st century education? It is bold. It breaks the mold. It is flexible, creative, challenging, and complex. It addresses a rapidly changing world filled with fantastic new problems as well as exciting new possibilities. Fortunately, there is a growing body of research supporting an increasing number of 21st century schools. We have living proof, inspiring examples to follow, in schools across the United States. These schools vary, but are united in the fundamentals of 21st century education - see Critical Attributes of 21st Century Education and Multiple Literacies for the 21st Century. Scott McLeod has issued the challenge of creating a plan to get us from "here" to "there"."

A listing of some of the things you can learn on YouTube

This article reports on a five-year longitudinal study which investigated teachers' use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the classroom. The study, involving five teachers at primary and secondary schools in New South Wales, looked in particular at how ICT was incorporated into the participants' teaching practices over time, and why. The teachers clearly developed their use and understanding of ICT over the five years of the study; however, they did not adopt constructivist styles of practice in their use of ICT, as is often expected of teachers. The teachers largely held to teacher-centred practices, but had nevertheless incorporated ICT into their teaching in ways which reflected knowledge needed for today's society.

A neat set of videos from the ABC looking at the Digital World, Mobile and portable devices, New ways to watch TV, Podcasting and Social Media.