"It's hard to believe that the Google Hangouts (GHOs) feature has only been around since May of 2013! For many innovative K-12 and higher education teachers, GHOs have become a tool that we can't live without. They allow us to connect with others around the world for impromptu meetings, live podcasts, global edcamps, and school-wide professional development."

"Editor's Note: Matt Weyers and co-author Jen Dole, teachers at Byron Middle School in Byron, Minnesota, present the seventh installment in a year-long series documenting their experience of launching a PBL pilot program. Project-based learning is a complex teaching method that, in our experience, requires a clear and established workflow to seamlessly accommodate the needs of teachers, parents, and students. Throughout this school year, we have found several apps, add-ons, and programs that have helped us best manage our workflow. Before we provide brief descriptions and links to each of them, it is important to state the current situation in our classroom: Students in our classes have individual iPads to use during the school day (they stay at school). Every student has a school-generated Gmail account. The majority of students have access to the internet outside of the school setting."

"What is qualitative formative assessment? Some call it anecdotal or informal assessment. However, such designations imply passivity -- as if certain things were captured accidentally. I believe the word "formative" should always be included with the word assessment because all feedback mechanisms should help shape and improve the person (or situation) being assessed. Wedging the word "qualitative" into my terminology differentiates it from the analytic or survey-based measures that some associate with the term formative assessment."

"Do you wish your students could better understand and critique the images that saturate their waking life? That's the purpose of visual literacy (VL), to explicitly teach a collection of competencies that will help students think through, think about and think with pictures."

" Searching by file type and searching by domains is a great way for students to refine their Google searches. Searching for and within a DOC, a PPT, or XLS file can lead students to resources that they might not otherwise have seen. But increasingly a lot of us are creating our documents, slides, and spreadsheets in Google Drive. Many of us are then publishing those files for anyone in the world to see. Thanks to the Google for Education Google+ page, today I was reminded that you can perform a Google search to look for publicly shared Docs, Slides, and Spreadsheets. The screenshots below illustrate how to do this."

Excellent post by Steven Weber! Provides links to worthwhile reads and resources related to digital citizenship

" have always been infatuated with libraries. As a child, my mom used to take me to the local public library for story time. During high school, I spent hours tucked into stacks, looking for a quiet place to learn. However, in college, I quit the library. Not because of computers, or eBooks, or any sort of technology, but because most of my work required collaborating with peers, and the library was not conducive to that interaction. Even Core, with its big round tables and study rooms, was considered a "quiet space.""

"When four South Carolina districts joined forces in 2013 to compete for a federal Race to the Top grant, their shared educational vision was clear: Teaching students to be creative innovators and independent learners will improve school performance. The challenge was finding a model to encompass all the sweeping changes they wanted to implement. What the districts' leaders eventually settled on was the term "enterprise learning," which refers to both a popular public education program overseas, and a model for professional development in corporate America. The South Carolina schools-working collectively as the Carolina Consortium for Enterprise Learning (CCEL)-are now trying to blend the two programs together with the help of $24.9 million in federal funding."

Gooru is via Google Incredible learning and teaching curation and connection resource

Public Radio clips - Great for students - includes lesson plans

"Whether you're a technophobe or a geeked-out early adopter, there's no denying that the world is run on computers, and the language of computers is code. It seems only natural that there's a wave of interest in the idea of teaching kids to code -- some say it should be a requirement in every school. I think no one would argue that every kid is cut out to be a programmer, but a basic understanding of code couldn't hurt. In fact, this knowledge could give a leg up in an increasingly technology-centric society. Hopefully this playlist of videos will help you learn more about some of the people and organizations who are working to change the opportunities available for kids to learn code."

"NEW YORK - Technology is in every room at P.S. 101 in Brooklyn - it's even in the hallways. Scan the QR code with your phone outside of the fourth-grade classroom of co-teachers Vanessa Desiano and Jamie Coccia and a video will pop up of a student giving a history presentation on early explorers. Step inside, and fourth-grade students are working together to discover the themes of chapter 13 in their latest book, The Birchbark House, and typing what they find on iPads."

"The report argues "that for technology to reach its greatest potential it needs to be better integrated into an instructional system we call the 'closed loop.'" The closed loop system suggested in the report includes creating learning objectives, developing curricula and instructional strategies, delivering instruction, embedding ongoing assessment, providing appropriate interventions, tracking outcomes and learning, then feeding the results back into creating new learning objectives. Technology must be integrated into closed-loop instruction to reach its full potential, according to a new report from the World Economic Forum."

"Looking for tools and strategies for effective assessment in project-based learning? To support you, we've assembled this guide to helpful resources from Edutopia and beyond."

" Admit it: you only read the list of the six levels of the Taxonomy, not the whole book that explains each level and the rationale behind the Taxonomy. Not to worry, you are not alone: this is true for most educators. But that efficiency comes with a price. Many educators have a mistaken view of the Taxonomy and the levels in it, as the following errors suggest. And arguably the greatest weakness of the Common Core Standards is to avoid being extra-careful in their use of cognitive-focused verbs, along the lines of the rationale for the Taxonomy."

"Intrigued by game-based learning, but not sure where to begin? Edutopia's series takes a look at game-like learning principles in action and commercial games in real classrooms -- and offers tips and tools for bringing them into your own practice. The Made With Play series is a co-production with Institute of Play; visit their website for many more resources around game-based learning for both educators and parents, including a comprehensive games and learning reading list (PDF)."

"College students could save an average of $128 a course if traditional textbooks were replaced with free or low-cost "open-source" electronic versions, a new report finds. The Student Public Interest Research Groups, state-based advocacy groups that promote affordable textbook options, analyzed open-source pilot programs at five colleges and found that the savings for students can be significant."

"In our rapidly changing world, how a school responds to emerging trends often determines that school's future. At the International Center for Leadership in Education, we find and analyze the nation's most rapidly improving schools so that we can learn about-and showcase-what makes these schools flourish. Through this work, we have identified five transformative trends that are changing the face of education."

"In the summer of 2011, I was handed an opportunity to design and teach a course loosely based on Apple's in-store Genius Bar. The driving force behind this course was the impending launch of our 1-to-1 iPad environment. That summer, the Burlington Public Schools (MA) tech team was preparing to deliver iPads to every student in the high school. We were a five-person team, and three of those positions covered every school and device in the district. We were taking on these additional devices without additional support. "

"Growing up, my family's Sunday night ritual was always the single word, dinner-and-a-movie. We were passionate about cinema, and a post-movie debate was always included in the evening's entertainment. In fact, one of the most memorable fights with my dad was over his inability to delay his analysis of Hoosiers before the end credits had even rolled."