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"Now that we have ushered in 2013, we are at a point where we should look back on the applications that have been gracing the home-screens of many iOS users over the past year. 2012 as a whole was a year of social media advances: developers everywhere found amazing ways to improve and extend the way that we are using social networking websites, and moreover, users who were fed up with social networking being seen as useless have been finding educational ways of making use of social networking and iOS applications in general. Let's take a look at applications old and new that have made their mark over the past year."

"Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test. Go Back and Forth. Get Reactions. Rinse and Repeat. There are many ways of looking at the design thinking process. The main premise remains the same though: Take Action and Create Something to Solve a Problem of Some Sort. Below, I describe the most commonly used and taught Design Thinking Process. However, it is not about what the names of the 5 spaces are. Rather, "doing" design thinking is about understanding what each space involves and that the process rarely occupies a single space. In fact, any project will have the designers focusing in one area, but working within the constraints of several spaces. For example, new ideas will occur everywhere along the way to the "permanent" solution, even in the testing stage. And, the process is cyclical - it never ends... There are always improvements to be made."

"Nobody likes hearing their own voice played back. Now there is a science to why this is, but it really is no excuse for avoiding the time saving, class improving and future embracing process that is screencasting. And with amazingly simple, adaptable and free tools such as Screencast-O-Matic the excuses are even more thin on the ground. Just a matter of clicking a link and hitting record, it's easy to see why Screencast-O-Matic is the number one pick for screencasting educators everywhere."

"Maxwell Bogue, Daniel Cowen and Peter Dilworth began a Kickstarter campaign in February of 2013 for the 3Doodler - the only 3D printing pen in existence. After the success of the campaign, 3Doodler went on to build their company and improve their product. And now, the 3Doodler 2.0 is available on the recently launched Mashable Shop. The shop, powered by Visa Checkout, includes a multitude of products for tech-lovers everywhere, along with some exclusive Mashable gear."

"Over the past decade, millions of kids around the world have used Scratch to code their own interactive games, stories, animations, and more. This outpouring of creativity inspires us to continue to extend and improve Scratch, so that kids everywhere have new opportunities to express themselves creatively with new technologies. Today, we're launching Scratch 3.0, a new generation of Scratch that expands how, what, and where kids can create with code. As we've tested prototypes of Scratch 3.0, we've been amazed by the projects that kids have made - like a hedgehog that speaks French, a hippopotamus that dances to hip-hop, and a soccer game you control with your shoe."