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"Thanks to our fabulous ambassador Suzy Brooks, we've connected the dots with awesome New Zealand-based company Puteko to bring you this fantastic new International Dot Day colAR coloring activity. Watch your dot go from 2D to stunning 3D! Here are some photos from Peter H. Reynolds, author of The Dot. Peter created his dot, followed the instructions below - and voilà:"

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"One of our favorite times of the year is Dot Day and September 15 will be here before we know it! In fact, Dot Day is only 60 days away so it is time for all of us to sign up and start planning to make this the BEST celebration yet!  "

"Around this time of year I post a gift recommendation each Friday as part of a "Gifts for the Gifted" series.  The title is a bit misleading, as it might imply that the gifts are only for children who have been endowed with the label, and that is certainly not true. Just as with any gift, you should select a product that suits the interests of the receiver.  These lists of potential gifts that I provide are ones that I feel will be engaging for children who enjoy problem solving and/or creativity. Our first product in this year's Gifts for the Gifted recommendations is the lovable pair of robots, Dash and Dot. Wonder Workshop, the company behind Dash and Dot, knew exactly how to encourage youths to program and create when they put these robots on the market.  They definitely have the cuteness factor wrapped up, and they were designed with so much versatility that will keep imaginative children occupied for a very long time."

"There have been complaints leveraged against out of the box robots like Dash and Dot, Ozobot, Hummingbird, Sphero. The complaints usually revolve around the canned and prescriptive nature of their uses and programs, that they lack creative engagement by the younger users. I personally love the excitement my learners have using these robots. As with all tools and technologies and with creative framing, though, they can be used in creative and imaginative ways. Mention robots to many English teachers and they'll immediately point down the hall to the science classroom or to the makerspace, if they have one. At many schools, if there's a robot at all, it's located in a science or math classroom or is being built by an after-school robotics club. It's not usually a fixture in English classrooms. But as teachers continue to work at finding new entry points to old material for their students, robots are proving to be a great interdisciplinary tool that builds collaboration and literacy skills. (How Robots in English Class Can Spark Empathy and Improve Writing) This past term, I had my 2nd through 4th grade students work on their robot-enhanced creative writing and stories. In small groups, students were asked to create a fictional storyline and use StoryboardThat.com to create both the physical scenes and the accompanying narrative. As part of their directions, they were told that they were going to create a 3D setting out of cardboard boxes, foam board, LED lights, and other craft materials; and that they would use Wonder's Dot with the Blocky App and Ozobot as the characters in their stories. Preparation time was divided between storyboarding, creating the scene, and learning how to use/code the robots. Because of all of the preparation and practice, the recording actually went quite quick and smoothly. Here is a break down of the learning events that learners were asked to complete:"

"International Dot Day started in a few classrooms in 2009 and has grown into a celebration celebrated around the world. I am constantly sharing links on Twitter and Facebook to encourage more classes to participate, adults may feel free to connect with me. Official Page and Signup: http://www.thedotclub.org is where to send people first. There is a yearly signup and lots of resources and ideas to make your day (week, month, school year) successful. Please encourage people to check out the site and sign up!! "

"My cat is pretty unflappable, given that she shares a house with four children. But when a three-wheeled robot trundles into the living room, even Lola can't belt out of the cat-flap fast enough. Perhaps it's the barking that spooked her. The robot is called Dash, and like its smaller, stationary friend Dot, it's the work of technology startup Wonder Workshop. It's excellent at yapping cats off the sofa, but its real goal is teaching children to code."

"The learn-to-code movement is aiming younger. MIT and partners, for example, recently released a free iPad app with its visual programming language ScratchJr., so kindergartners could use it to code stories and games even before knowing how to read. Vikas Gupta, a former Google executive who founded the startup Wonder Workshop (formerly called Play-i), has taken a slightly different path. "We learned that in order to make programming of interest to young children, it has to be a tangible product. It can't be just software," he told Co.Exist last year. Enter Dot and Dash-Wonder Workshop's two new robots that teach coding skills to children as young as five that are now being field tested in a few dozen elementary school classrooms nationally. And they are definitely tangible: Dash hears and responds to sounds, navigates around a room and avoid obstacles, and comes to life with sound and lights. He can even play the xylophone. Dot, on the other hand, doesn't have wheels and is meant to interact with Dash via Bluetooth and act as a controller. Both have their own customizable "personalities." On the back end, through four apps that control both robots, they are secretly teaching coding skills such as "event-based programming, sequencing, conditionals, and loops.""

Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has taken steps to strictly enforce latest Radiation standards in respect of Electro Magnetic Radiations (EMR) for Mobile Towers that came into effect from 1st September 2012.

" Apple has long touted its device's assistive technology as a powerful tool for the educational development of physically and mentally disabled children. The iPad's touch screen makes it easier to manipulate than more traditional educational tools. For children with autism, "the iPad is not a toy, but a tool that works best when there is a 'team effort' between parents and therapists encouraging its proper use," said Marc Reisner, co-founder of Reach for the APPs. "Our goal is to provide schools with iPads so they can reach every child on the autistic spectrum." Reach for the APPs built their site with an initial donation from Managed Digital. Now, they're seeking out donations of money and/or iPads from both individuals and corporations to propel the program forward. According to reports from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 1-in-88 children have some form of autism, up 78 percent from just a decade ago. The demand for augmentative communications devices is growing. But the schools can't meet the demand, so the children are losing valuable time during critical developmental years. Lois Brady, a speech language pathologist and assistive technology specialist, said apps can help develop fine-motor skills, which will in turn make functions like writing and manipulating small objects easier for the students. "I have spent years working with the most challenging students that are considered profoundly disabled," she said. "And I have seen some small miracles when I introduce the iPad into our therapy, as the children have made huge gains in attention, focus, communication, language and literacy skills." Some experts also say that the iPad can lessen symptoms of autistic disorders, helping children deal with life's sensory overload. Brady will be contributing content to the Reach for the APPs website to inform therapists about the latest-and-greatest apps for children all over the autistim spectrum. Apps must be tailor

"I have been asked to return to teach summer enrichment classes on maker education for elementary-aged learners at a local school during the summer of 2016. One of the new classes I am designing is called Coding and Bots. The description is: Learn how to code first by playing games and then by coding some bots including Sphero, OZOBOT, and Dash and Dot. All ages are welcome but the child should have basic symbol recognition/reading skills. Two things to note about this class are, first, I learned last summer not to underestimate the learning potential of very young kids. These classes are mixed ages ranging from 4 to 10 year old kids. For most of the maker education activities, the very young ones could perform them, sometimes better than the older kids. Second, I am a strong proponent of hands on activities. Although I like the use of iPads and computers, I want elementary aged students to have to directly interact with materials. As such, I am designing Coding and Bots to include using their bodies and manipulating objects. This translates into having all activities include the use of objects and materials excluding and in conjunction with the iPad - not just using the iPad and online apps/tools to learn to code. The activities I plan to do follow:"

"Excerpted from Teach Like Finland: 33 Simple Strategies For Joyful Classrooms (c) 2017 by Timothy D. Walker. Used with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton.  Schedule brain breaks Like a zombie, Sami*-one of my fifth graders-lumbered over to me and hissed, "I think I'm going to explode! I'm not used to this schedule." And I believed him. An angry red rash was starting to form on his forehead. Yikes, I thought, what a way to begin my first year of teaching in Finland. It was only the third day of school, and I was already pushing a student to the breaking point. When I took him aside, I quickly discovered why he was so upset. Throughout this first week of school, I had gotten creative with my fifth grade timetable. If you recall, students in Finland normally take a fifteen-minute break for every forty-five minutes of instruction. During a typical break, the children head outside to play and socialize with friends. I didn't see the point of these frequent pit stops. As a teacher in the United States, I'd usually spent consecutive hours with my students in the classroom. And I was trying to replicate this model in Finland. The Finnish way seemed soft, and I was convinced that kids learned better with longer stretches of instructional time. So I decided to hold my students back from their regularly scheduled break and teach two forty-five-minute lessons in a row, followed by a double break of thirty minutes. Now I knew why the red dots had appeared on Sami's forehead."

Each Monday, Wednesday, & Friday a new wordle will be posted for you and your students to view. Each wordle will have a TOPIC and you will need to use your diciphering skills to figure out exactly what that topic is. Then by using the google form, you are invited to share what you think that topic is. You are also invited to create your own WORDLE and send it to me (jenuinetech (at) gmail (dot) com) You will be given full credit for your creation!!

"Think back to 2005. Since the dot-com bust, there had been a steep and steady decline in undergraduate enrollments in computer science, with no end in sight. The computer science community was wringing its hands, worried about the survival of their departments on campuses. Unlike many of my colleagues, I saw a different, much rosier future for computer science. I saw that computing was going to be everywhere. I argued that the use of computational concepts, methods and tools would transform the very conduct of every discipline, profession and sector. Someone with the ability to use computation effectively would have an edge over someone without. So, I saw a great opportunity for the computer science community to teach future generations how computer scientists think. Hence "computational thinking." I must admit, I am surprised and gratified by how much progress we have made in achieving this vision: Computational thinking will be a fundamental skill used by everyone in the world by the middle of the 21st century. By fundamental, I mean as fundamental as reading, writing and arithmetic."

"SAMR is a technology integration model that basically shows the way to get the most out of your technology in the classroom. The dotted line in the chart to the right shows where you cross over from doing what you've always done - just adding technology - to doing what you couldn't do before. Redefinition is at the top of the SAMR model, but that doesn't mean that you "win" or that you're doing it right only if you reach redefinition. Some tasks just aren't made for redefinition, and great learning can happen without redefinition. But redefinition is the Holy Grail. If you get there, you're providing learning that couldn't have happened a decade ago (maybe a year ago)."

"Just about when I thought I got everything out of Gmail, I discovered my top favorite Gmail address tip. We have published over 30 tools in Gmail RoundUp 1 and almost 80 tools and tips in Gmail RoundUp 2 but never mentioned anything similar to this one. Tribute for this one goes to my 'I am not into computers' type girlfriend. Let's say that your email address is 'GeorgeBush@gmail.com', basically everything sent to any of the following email addresses will be forwarded to your primary email. GeorgeBush@gmail.com G.eorgeBush@gmail.com Ge.orgeBush@gmail.com … … GeorgeBus.h@gmail.com GeorgeBush@googlemail.com G.eorgeBush@googlemail.com Ge.orgeBush@googlemail.com … … GeorgeBus.h@googlemail.com And that's not all, you can place as many dots as you want, it can be even something like 'G.e.o.r.g.e.B.u.s.h@gmail.com' and you'll still get it on 'GeorgeBush@gmail.com'"

Want to open a normal template in Microsoft Word? Then this Techvedic tutorial will surely help you out. The simplest way to change defaults in Microsoft Word is to open the Normal.dot or Normal.dotm template.

"iOS 7.1 is out today and you can update your iPad by heading over to Settings -> General -> Software Update. This dot update marks the biggest and bug-fixinest improvement to iOS since the release of iOS 7 last year. The major features you'll likely notice immediately are:"