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"Chances are, you've had this experience: you weren't really paying attention to all the little checkboxes and fine print when you were installing a software application, and the next time you opened up your Web browser, you found out that you, like countless others before you, had accidentally installed the Ask.com search toolbar. "

"This post was motivated by my return to the north and the frigid temps. I realized on the second leg of my travels that no one was even remotely happy about anything. They were all connected to another world with a pair of headphones or earbuds, tuned out and removed. I love to fly and it used to be a very social activity and rather than be disappointed I threw myself into a happy app kind of mood and this is the result. My other intention was to point anyone with children toward exceptional downloads laden with abundant and diverse content for their children. Not just to keep them sharp when away from school and traveling, but go-to apps that are always an educational delight! Here is my list of 12 developers whose apps make for HAPPY learning; they are sure to develop your child's/student's sense of joy and wonder."

"If you build it, will they come? Just because you create a makerspace (PDF) in your school doesn't guarantee that your community will embrace it. Students who have had all personal choice removed by traditional educational models can be passive and feel overwhelmed when faced with real-world problems or design challenges. Academic passivity is common in schools where students swallow content and regurgitate it on multiple-choice tests. Students simply want to know how to get the "A." This type of learning does not stick. Teachers may find the role of facilitator (or "guide on the side") uncomfortable if they are used to being the "sage on the stage." New technology in these spaces may be intimidating. Teachers need encouragement and professional development to change their mindsets and become facilitators of learning. How do you change your culture and ensure that your shiny new makerspace will empower students to acquire 21st-century skills? How do you change the culture of student apathy to encourage a mindset of doing? Follow these steps and design tips to build a culture of making and active learning."

"Last year, I wrote this post on 21 Things Every 21st-Century Teacher should do and it became an instant hit (with the help of Sean Junkin's Infographic).   As tech tools come and go, I felt the need to update and refresh it for this school year.  However, I ran into a problem.  When I got done with my updated list (removing a couple of ideas, adding several more) I was up to 36 different ideas.  As luck would have it there are 36 weeks in a standard school calendar so this actually works out wonderfully.  While these aren't necessarily listed in the order you should do them, they are listed from least difficult (#1 - Selfies) to the most difficult (#36 - Creating an in-class incubator).   The last few challenges are especially geared toward real-world problem solving and will hopefully make a dent in those "Tech Problem-solving" stats in the future"

"f you build it, will they come? Just because you create a makerspace (PDF) in your school doesn't guarantee that your community will embrace it. Students who have had all personal choice removed by traditional educational models can be passive and feel overwhelmed when faced with real-world problems or design challenges. Academic passivity is common in schools where students swallow content and regurgitate it on multiple-choice tests. Students simply want to know how to get the "A." This type of learning does not stick. Teachers may find the role of facilitator (or "guide on the side") uncomfortable if they are used to being the "sage on the stage." New technology in these spaces may be intimidating. Teachers need encouragement and professional development to change their mindsets and become facilitators of learning. How do you change your culture and ensure that your shiny new makerspace will empower students to acquire 21st-century skills? How do you change the culture of student apathy to encourage a mindset of doing? Follow these steps and design tips to build a culture of making and active learning."

"Announcify is a free text to speech application that is available as a Chrome browser extension. With Announcify installed in your browser any time you're viewing a webpage you can simply click on the Announcify icon in your browser and have the text of the page read to you. A bonus aspect of using Announcify is that in order to make a webpage easier to read it enlarges the text of the webpage and removes all sidebar content. In the video embedded below I provide a short demonstration of Announcify in action."

FastStone Image Viewer is a fast, stable, user-friendly image browser, converter and editor. It has a nice array of features that include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping and color adjustments.

While on a YouTube video site, remove the " www." and replace it with "pwn" as in http://pwnyoutube.com/watch?v=5_tXcRYOYZ0 The resulting website has numerous options for downloading, converting or modifying the video.

Browser bookmarklet that lets you watch and share YouTube videos on a clutter-free interface. The application can remove all surrounding distractions and present the video on a clean clutter-free page. - comment by Jennifer Dorman

"The Printliminator is a bookmarklet with some simple tools you can use to makes websites print better. One click to activate, and then click to remove elements from the page, remove graphics, and apply better print styling. "

"Special programs are popping up in elementary schools to teach empathy as a means of stemming relational aggression, a psychological term to describe using the threat of removing friendship as a tactical weapon. Children also are being guided in ways to stand up for themselves, and to help others, in instances of social exclusion. Though both boys and girls exhibit relational aggression, it is thought to be more common among girls because they are generally more socially developed and verbal than boys."

"iOS 8 extensions make the world, or at least, the world of iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, a better place, and having already explored some great add-ons for those using the Mobile Safari browser, we're back with a run-down of some of the very best Photos app extensions available. There are ten in all, and if you're constantly taking, editing and sharing photos using your iOS device, then this is a checklist featuring plenty of experience-enhancing tools. All these extensions let you use the app's functionality right from the stock Photos app on iOS. You don't need to run standalone apps to apply photo or video filters, add texts, trim videos, remove metadata and duplicates, add date stamp and so on."

"Osmo was created by young parents and encourages social interaction by expanding interaction with games to the area in front of an iPad. It does this by providing a white stand and a red mirror that works with iPad and iPad mini. The reflector lets the front-facing camera recognize what is placed in front of iPad. Something to know is that iPad must be removed from any case in order to fit into the stand."