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"How Pinterest Is Changing Website Design Forever"

"I grew up on a healthy regimen of Choose-Your-Own Adventure books, Nintendo, and role playing games, but even I am intimidated by the new brand of interactive storytelling that is flooding the iPad. More designers are exploring how the frenzy around Apple's tablet computer is evolving e-books into something new. Sure, you can find traditional children's picture books directly translated onto the iPad that simply let you flip through on a touchscreen, but there's so much more the medium allows. Embedded games, interactive backgrounds, responsive audio, non-linear stories - "books" on the iPad have become something much better: immersive experiences. I've got a host of videos to show you what I mean, check them out below. Combining games, books, music, and voices in compelling ways, these early attempts to revolutionize storytelling on the iPad are exciting…but they're just the beginning. Give it a few years and the lines between these different ways of telling stories will blur so far we'll have to come up with a new name. 'Books' just doesn't cut it anymor"

"Why is it that sometimes we only see the extremes in our work? Picture your strongest lessons, activities, and projects juxtaposed against ones that just didn't work, and that's how it's been so far with our Digital Shop capstone projects. Some experiences make me want to high-five the entire class all at once. Others deserve an epic facepalm. As of this writing, we still have a month of school left. How will the remaining capstones go? What have we learned in the process? Can we "fail up" and finish strong, sending kids into summer vacation with school-year memories that will last forever? As I explained in my April post, I wanted the capstone projects to: Be genuine design thinking experiences. Allow kids to showcase the skills and dispositions they worked to acquire all year. Be based on and help people from the community and the world. The results have been mixed, as this post will illustrate."

"Ten years ago, I walked past a newsstand and out of the myriad of multicolored covers, one jumped out at me: MAKE magazine. As someone who grew up making stuff, this magazine spoke directly to me. I bought copies and immediately brought them to the director of my school. I remember triumphantly exclaiming "We should show this to all of the teachers-think of the projects we can do!" A decade later, well-intentioned schools that create dedicated "maker spaces" worry me. For the uninitiated, a maker space often houses ultramodern tools like a laser cutter or 3D printers, mixed with drill presses, table saws, and soldering irons, or perhaps screen printing equipment or sewing machines. My fear is that stand-alone maker spaces will cause the powerful act of creation to be confined to only certain parts of the school building. I worry that yesterday's centralized computer lab-which we rightly democratized and decentralized by putting computers in every classroom-is today's maker space. When I walk past a new room being outfitted with a laser cutter or a drill press and hear, "This is our maker space!" I am tempted to ask: "What happens in all of the other spaces? What do people do there?" The act of creation is transformative. An individual's self-image is forever changed when he or she can hold up a real object-a real contribution to the world-and say, "I made this." In a time when students' lives are increasingly virtual, abstract and vicarious experiences, it is every teacher's job to make learning, and life, "hands-on." "

"Classroom discussions have been a staple of teaching forever, beginning with Socrates. I have taught using discussions, been a student in discussions, and observed other teachers' discussions thousands of times -- at least. Some have been boring, stifling or tedious enough to put me to sleep. Others have been so stimulating that I was sad to see them end. The difference between the two is obviously how interesting the topic is, but equally important is the level of student participation."

"Summer and vacation go together like, well, two of the best things in the world. Parents have time off from work, kids have time off from school, the weather is nice, the sun is shining, and travel beckons. Whether it's a day at a local fun spot, a trip across country, or an adventure half-way around the world, memories will be made. Amazing memories, crazy memories, shared memories. No matter how great a vacation is, however, you can never be there forever, nor can you take everyone you love with you. What you can do is bring the vacation home for you and for them! With your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, not only can you take videos and pictures of those magic travel moments, but you can edit and share them right in iMovie, even right away if you want to. Best of all, for kids (of all ages!), iMovie's trailer templates make it incredibly quick and easy to put together something short, sweet, and fun!"

"Let's face it - getting kids to learn their math facts can be a challenge. But once they know them, they know them forever. The process of "doing math" becomes more efficient and less frustrating when kids know their facts. Luckily there are plenty of fun apps that can help kids become "math fact" proficient. All of these apps are FREE or were "FREE for a limited time" when I reviewed them. Check them out - they're all great!"

"Everything we've been told about food and exercise for the past 30 years is dead wrong. FED UP is the film the food industry doesn't want you to see. From Katie Couric, Laurie David (Oscar winning producer of AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH) and director Stephanie Soechtig, FED UP will change the way you eat forever."

"Minecraft is a cultural phenomenon. The block-based exploration and crafting game was snapped up by Microsoft for $2.5 billion last year and has helped inspire competitors from giant toy companies like Lego. Even the government is interested in building on Minecraft's success: The Department of Education is helping fund a project known as "Eco" that looks a lot like Minecraft, except with a few added twists: There's a looming ecological disaster and players must band together to make a community -- agreeing on laws and living in harmony with the environment. If they fail, the world dies forever. Strange Loop Games, the company behind the game, describes it a "global survival game" and says failure results in "server-wide perma death.""

"You bought your iPad new three years ago, and now it's getting a bit long in the tooth. Opening apps can take forever. Sometimes they crash, stop responding, or won't open to begin with. If you want to extend the life of your little glass rectangle-and make your iPad faster in general-the following tips can help. And all of these tips are simple(ish)-nothing crazy like jail-breaking or changing hardware."

With no software to download or install, Dimdim forever democratizes webbased live meetings. In seconds - right from your browser - you easily host or attend web meetings complete with audio and video conferencing, desktop and document sharing. So get started today and experience the freedom and ease of Dimdim Web Meetings.

Generation We - How Millenial Youth are Taking Over America and Changing the World Forever by Eric Greenberg with Karl Weber Free 297 page eBook

Record up to five memories of your day and make them memorable forever. Memiary is the weightless pocket diary. Great presentation on using Memiary as a learning tool. Use Wordle to examne the data recorded.

"It is amazing how much technology can do for students to enhance their learning and personal development. I wish we had these tech affordances when we were students, things could have been much easier. Technology, however, is only effective when it is leveraged in the right way and to the right purposes. The first step in the effective use of technology is to have access to the educational tools available out there. This is usually a daunting task as the web is teeming with all kinds of tools and it could take you forever to find, assess and evaluate the tools you want to use. To this end, the folks in Open Colleges have compiled this excellent list featuring 20 educational apps and gadgets. Students can use these tools to perform a variety of learning tasks from writing and researching to managing their time efficiently.  Together with these apps there are also some handy study tips for students to boost to their creativity. I spent sometime going through these tips and found them really worth a share here."

"Mahatma Gandhi once said, "Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." If this sounds like a philosophy you can relate to, then you'll love TED talks. These informational 17 minute presentations are given at annual conferences by some of the world's greatest thinkers. Their aim is simple: To inspire ideas and change attitudes around the world. As of April 2014, there were over 1,700 of these incredible talks available free online to choose from. Sadly, listening to them all would take 20 days solid. Happily, you don't have to because we've picked the most life changing for you. Listen and learn and enjoy."

"As teachers and educators, we are constantly required to review, evaluate and renew our teaching strategies to align them with  the cultural, technological and pedagogical ethos of the era we are living in. In today's era, the digital component is at the foreground which obviously calls for a new mindset, a novel conceptual framework that views technology not as an end itself but solely a mean to an educational end. It is a truism that digitally has opened a new horizon of unprecedented learning opportunities and experiences  but we can only tap into its full educational potential when we equip ourselves with the proper mindset: a growth and open mindset that as much as it adapts it also disrupts the century-old orthodoxies underlying teaching and learning practice. Teaching is a dynamic concept which is constantly evolving and expanding and that is why teachers and educators are forever learners. Engaging in such a life-long learning journey entails that teachers develop a set of robust thinking habits that allow them to fit in the rapidly evolving educational landscape.These habits are, according to Reid Wilson, what make the profile of a modern educator. Below is an awesome visual created by Wilson featuring some of the characteristics of a modern teacher which I want to bring to your attention. Have a look and share with us what you think of it. Enjoy"

"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."

"In this simple but informative TED Talk, Julian Treasure offers up seven things that effective communicators must exclude from speech. This list of seven is a kind of "bad habits to avoid" list. They are not the only elements that can derail effective communication, but it is a good list from which to start. "I call them seven sins somewhat tongue in cheek," Julian says in the comments section on the TED Website. "I am not saying these things are bad or wrong, simply that they tend to make it harder for people to listen, especially when they become habits." Yes, suggesting that one avoid these behaviors always and forever can become a sort of dogma as well. However, he is right that these behaviors are for the most part injurious to our reputations, credibility, and over all effectiveness."