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"When the AP United States history students at Aragon High School in San Mateo, California, scanned the professionally designed pages of minimumwage.com, most concluded that it was a solid, unbiased source of facts and analysis. They noted the menu of research reports, graphics and videos, and the "About" page describing the site as a project of a "nonprofit research organization" called the Employment Policies Institute. But then their teacher, Will Colglazier, demonstrated how a couple more exploratory clicks-critically, beyond the site itself-revealed the Employment Policies Institute is considered by the Center for Media and Democracy to be a front group created by lobbyists for the restaurant and hotel industries. "I have some bright students, and a lot of them felt chagrined that they weren't able to deduce this," said Colglazier, who videotaped the episode in January. "They got duped.""

"The concept of literacy is notoriously elusive and hard to define. Aside from the shallow and intellectually-impaired  definition that sums up  literacy in  reading and writing printed text, any serious and profound investigation of literacy does, by implication, entail an analysis of the new ways of learning and meaning-making afforded by digitality. New digital media have provided learners with novel and revolutionary ways of producing, discussing, sharing and interacting with text. These ways, to say the least about them, are multimodally complex and call for an integrated set of skills that go beyond the mere ability to code and decode meaning. In this sense, to be literate in such a multimodal environment requires understanding and using a wide range of interconnected literacies. We are no longer talking about a single literacy as was the case since the invention of writing some 6000 year ago, we are, instead,  in front of multiple new emerging  and interdependent literacies. Today's students are asked to have a working knowledge of these literacies in order to be able to thrive in a globalized knowledge economy. Katchy Schrock has this wonderful resource where she features some awesome mini-posters defining the key literacies making up today's Literacy (with capital letter) landscape.  These visuals are ideal for classroom inclusion. I invite you to check them out and share with your colleagues."

"Research and analysis blog ZMags recently commissioned a research project involving tablet owners from Equation Research. According to their findings, 87 percent of tablet owners are doing their holiday shopping from their devices and they enjoy it."

With the interest of helping teachers improve their instructional practices and enhancing student learning, FADS (Formative Assessment Delivery System) is a computerized system that will allow classroom teachers to design, develop, and deliver formative assessments and to monitor and report student progress within an interpretive context. This online accessible system will allow teachers to accurately diagnose students' comprehension and learning needs by providing real-time assessment, logging, analysis, feedback, and reporting. The current five-year FADS project, funded by the National Science Foundation, is focused on designing activities deriving from middle school mathematics and science curricula aligned with state and national standards.

"In recent weeks I have playing with the exciting combination of Easy Portfolio and Coaches Eye inside of the PE classroom. This has enabled the easy recording and storing of video analysis activities. Check out the apps working in concert together below."

"I love word clouds. It is the best way to deconstruct a piece of text with students. It lets you start that conversation about language, text types, literacy and the power of the written word. It is also a great way to do a text analysis. Marco Torres talks about using them to compare two political speeches to analyse the types of words each of the candidates use but this idea would work just as easily with characters in a book, types of poems or even a series of artists you are studying."

"Here's one more Super Bowl analysis to motivate your students: 4 million dollars for 30 seconds of ad time. That is how much a 30-second commercial costs during the 2014 Super Bowl. Wonder how much it will be in the future?"

"As the new school year ramps up, teachers and parents need to be reminded of a well-kept secret: Across all grade levels and academic subjects, girls earn higher grades than boys. Not just in the United States, but across the globe, in countries as far afield as Norway and Hong Kong. This finding is reflected in a recent study by psychology professors Daniel and Susan Voyer at the University of New Brunswick. The Voyers based their results on a meta-analysis of 369 studies involving the academic grades of over one million boys and girls from 30 different nations. The findings are unquestionably robust: Girls earn higher grades in every subject, including the science-related fields where boys are thought to surpass them."

"Kyle Schwartz teaches third grade at Doull Elementary in Colorado. By now, you've likely heard of her-or at least one of her ideas, #Iwishmyteacherknew. Every now and then, there's an "Education" story that the masses take notice of-standardized testing, Michelle Rhee, Waiting for Superman, the flipped classroom, the iPad failure in LA, the testing scandal in LA, among others. The most recent to crossover is the hashtag #Iwishmyteacherknew, which is what it sounds like it might be-an asynchronous conversation (or rather, series of statements) illuminating the realities that many students face every day. On one hand, there's an inherent kind of other disconnect at work here that makes the whole thing a huge act of spectacle, while inviting frank discussions about privacy. We'll talk more about that in a follow-up later this week. To provide context to that kind of analysis, first the tweets themselves."

"GIS (Geographical Information Systems) is everywhere. From your smartphone to your tablet, location enabled devices are present in almost every household. With over 80% of all data having some type of spatial (or geographical) component, GIS and the principles of geographic data have relevancy everywhere. This course will introduce students to GIS and the principles of spatial data in their personal life as well as applications of GIS across various industries. Major components of the course include computer representation of geographic information, the basics of GIS databases, spatial analysis with GIS, and application areas of GIS. At the end of the course, students will have an understanding of elementary GIS theory and examples of GIS-based solutions in the world around them."

""When I have a camera in my hand, I pay closer attention," she tells me. I feel the same way. I've written about using photos to document learning before. The process is as efficient as it is powerful, particularly for those who keep a cell phone tucked into their pockets most days. Begin by thinking about the most critical moves learners might make in a given period of time, make sure your phone is charged and easily accessible, and start shooting your data. When you're finished, these four tools can help you curate, share, and analyze the evidence you gather. Be sure to invite company. Accessing other voices will deepen your perspective and help you develop insights you may not have otherwise. This enriches data analysis."

"Beginning with a central question and driven by curiosity and personal passions, science students at Casey Middle seek answers through research, experimentation, and data analysis."

Analyzing the Social Web - a text book for social network and social media analysis.

StickySorter supports Affinity Diagramming, a data analysis method used in many disciplines including user research, product planning, and design.

So the question is, how do you ensure that students are truly taking their writing to a new level? How do you make sure that instead of just participating in low-level recall, students are moving on to the higher levels of analysis and reasoning that we want them to reach? One way is to rethink how you pose your writing topics. Here are some ideas and examples:

"Geospatial" technologies--which include geographic information system (GIS), global positioning system (GPS), and remote sensing (RS) tools--are becoming increasingly important in our everyday lives. These technologies use "smart" maps that can display, query, and analyze geographic databases; receivers that provide location and navigation; and global-to-local imagery and tools that provide context and analysis.

Twine's features presented in bullets: 1. Social bookmarking service, 2. Central storage for documents, images, videos and other data (from your machine or from the web, 3. Media viewable inside Twine, bookmarked or uploaded. (videos, images, etc.), 4. Collaborative platform with wiki-like editing/built in text editor, 5. User-created groups with discussion boards, 6. Intelligent analysis of added content (more on this below), 7. A recommendation engine to help discover information & people relevant to you and your interests Do note that this list is not complete

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Multiple grades (k-12) with lessons and iwb manipulatives for numbers and operations, algebra, geometry, measurement, data analysis and probability.