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"Words are the primary tools we use to convey meanings , of course there are non verbal tools as well but particularly in formal educational settings like schools and classrooms, words take the lion share of our language.  Can you imagine yourself delivering a lesson with no words in it ? will it work? Well Peterson has an answer." Peterson is a guy who used to have dyslexia when he was young and he did not learn how to read till he was in grade five. As an adult now, he designed some great applications to help teachers teach students without having to say a word. These are basically interactive learning games based on formative feedback. Watch the 8 minutes video to see the revolution Peterson triggered by the use of his free-language teaching approach. Enjoy

"I have been doing a lot of apps review here in Educational Technology and Mobile Learning but I have never posted about the tools you as teachers and educators can use to create your own apps. Just lower your eyebrows down, you can do it without any coding knowledge. Of course Android and Apple do provide tech savyy guys with the tools necessary to create their own apps but for us who know nothing about SDK and app development skills, platforms like the ones below will serve the purpose. You can create your app in less than a minute and the process is completely free. Here are some of the apps I learned from Steven Anderson and which you can use to create your customizable apps. Enjoy"

"I recently read Why School? by Will Richardson, a great book looking towards the future of education and I thought I would put together a quick review of my thoughts on it. If you are anything like me, you are hoping that we are on the precipice of major change in education. I am hoping that we can break free from many of the traditions we have continued for far too long. Of course I am not bright enough to point us in the right direction, but I am ready and waiting to be a foot soldier for the cause."

"Tomorrow, I have the opportunity to reprise my role as Guhlin: App Smashing Fool (a la Gallagher) for the EC3 Teacher Academy. The audience is wonderful grade 6-12 teachers with an audience composed primarily of language arts, history and special education co-teachers. Workshop Resources - Become an App Smasher"

"My sixth-grader has challenges with math during the school year, so I can only imagine what a three-month break is going to do to his already tenuous grasp of the subject. Amazon company TenMarks is hoping to combat this kind of "summer learning loss" with its Summer Math Program, a personalized course tailored to nearly all grade-school students. Normally priced at $39.95, the program is free for the summer."

"I was honored to serve on the Best Apps for Teaching and Learning Committee this year. Over the course of the year we tested hundreds of contenders and selected a list of 25 apps "best of the best" for the Committee's third list. Our committee vetted apps in five categories connected to AASL's learning standards and in support of our instructional roles relating to inquiry-based teaching and learning.  The Committee recognized free and cost effective apps that foster the qualities of innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration and are user friendly to encourage a community of learners to explore and discover. Here are those fabulous apps with tips for their use in your schools and libraries: Books Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Organization & Management Social Sciences Content Creation"

"I'm in Minecraft, of course-the phenomenally popular, open-ended game that places players in a world in which they can live and build things infinitely. Marcus "Notch" Persson, the Swedish creator of Minecraft, started out by creating a simple game, allowing players to construct whatever they wanted, using a few different colored blocks, each equivalent to one cubic meter. Released in 2009, it has evolved into a massive, world-building video game in which players uses those blocks to create anything they can think of, from houses, caves, and machines to a scale version of the Death Star. Microsoft purchased Minecraft from Notch and his team for $2.5 billion in November 2014. There aren't any express objectives or any real way to win in Minecraft. It's a "sandbox," in gaming speak-offering free play without a specific goal and currently used by more than 18.5 million players, with some 20,000 more signing up every day. Users may choose between Creative Mode, in which they can build using unlimited resources by themselves or with friends, with no real danger or enemies, and Survival Mode, where they fend off enemies and other players and fight for resources and space. They can trade items and communicate using a chat bar. Modifications (or mods) can add complexity by creating things like economic systems that let players buy and sell resources from in-game characters using an in-game currency system. These downloadable mods can also add computer science concepts and thousands of additional features."

Many of the sites listed here were not available when we did our last list; although longevity is a mark of pride online, it is difficult for companies set up in the 1990s to reinvent themselves quickly enough to take advantage of new technologies. Although of course rapid change brings casualties too: it's possible that with all the economic turbulence going on that some of the sites here won't be around in a year from now, or that their now free services will have become paid-for. That doesn't diminish their usefulness, though; it just underlines their determination to survive.

Free online course

FREE online course on web design from OPERA.

via Sandy Munnell What if you had effective and powerful learning assets when you leave the classroom or formal learning environments? What if you could access them using the various digital environments that are a part of your everyday life? What if you could do all that for free or less than the cost of single online course?

"I liked News360 when a reviewed it last April. It uses several sources for stories, and it was interesting to see the different takes on any single event. Of course News360 was also an excellent news discovery tool, scanning thousands of news sources to keep me up to date. One of the issues with News360 is you had no control over the sources. The app was basically static, and you got what you got. That's all changed in version 2 of this free app, released today."

"MakerBot has officially launched its MakerBot PrintShop app, a free iOS-only tool that's designed to assist those of you looking to 3D print your own little trinkets and doodads. That is, of course, assuming that you have one of the company's somewhat-pricey 3D printers. If not, a virtual designer will you forever be."

"There has been a large body of work in neuroscience, psychology, and related fields offering more and more insight into how we learn. Below are five of the top tips from Barbara Oakley, Professor of Engineering at Oakland University, who has faced her own learning challenges (failing middle and high school math and science classes), and has made a study of the latest research on learning. She is also offering a free online course, Learning How to Learn, which starts August 1 on the Coursera platform with co-instructor, Prof. Terrence Sejnowski, a computational neuroscientist at UC San Diego and the Salk Institute."

"Are you looking for ways to integration technology in your lesson plans and courses that provide for an engaging experience for you and your students? Fans of instructional technology know that it can be fun and inviting, and engaged students are far more likely to be learning. I believe that if you can get students involved and motivated effectively enough, you can improve their learning habits over the long term. With that in mind, here are 10 highly engaging uses of technology in the classroom, along with dozens of tools and resources for implementation. Most of these involve free web based tools, so that's an added bonus!"