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Phones and computers contain dangerous metals like lead, cadmium and mercury, which can contaminate the air and water when those products are dumped. It's called electronic waste, or e-waste, and the world produces a lot of it: 20 to 50 million tons a year, according to the UN - enough to load a train that would stretch around the world. The U.S. is by far the world's top producer of e-waste, but much of it ends up elsewhere - specifically, in developing nations like China, India and Nigeria, to which rich countries have been shipping garbage for years.

"Twurdy is actually based on Google, but it analyses Google results for readability, so it can help you to find more lower level texts for learners without you having to read through every result from Google to see if it's simple enough. "

Twurdy is actually based on Google, but it analyses Google results for readability, so it can help you to find more lower level texts for learners without you having to read through every result from Google to see if it's simple enough.

"Are you buying iPads or other technology because you see an urgent need for change in our aging, "business as usual" system of education? If not, then it's simply not enough ... and our kids are screaming for more."

"But in order to see results like those in Singapore, a cultural change must take place in the classroom, points out Norris. It's not enough just to introduce technology into the learning environment and expect results, she says; you must change everything, from devices to curriculum to pedagogy. "You must give them curricula with the technology activities baked in," she asserts, "so students don't have to keep going back and forth from their paper and pencil textbooks to their technology activities." "

"We have been noticing that more and more students have been bringing their own iPads to school and thus the decision was made to purchase 20 iPad Minis instead of 30 with the anticipation that enough students would fall into the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) category to make it work."

"Earlier this month Google announced that a new version of Google Maps is coming. Some of us have been lucky enough to get invitations to use the new version. If you want to get guaranteed access to the new version and learn all about how to use it for more than just virtually stalking your neighborhood getting directions, you should consider taking Google's free course Mapping With Google. "

"Storage space is typically at a premium on our computing devices, and particularly on our mobile gadgets. The iPad is no exception and if you possess one for long enough you'll likely contend least one event where you've to look at managing and freeing up storage space. "

"This is the last post on iPad for this year. I have recently published several guides on the use of iPad in education starting with the best educational iPad apps for teachers and concluding with these tutorials and a soon to be released eBook that will be comprehensive enough to include everything we have covered about iPad so far. If you are an Android user and wondering why I don't talk about Android as much as I do about iPad , I recommend that you subscribe to my second blog Teacher's Mobile Technology to stay updated about educational Android tips and apps."

"etting enough sleep is an under-valued but crucial part of learning. Contrary to students' belief that staying up all night to cram for an exam will lead to higher scores, truth is, the need for a good night's rest is even more important than finishing homework or studying for a test."

"For those who do not know, here are two basic Twitter principles: 1. If you only follow ten people, you will only see the general tweets of those ten people. 2. If only ten people follow you, only those ten people will see your general tweets. Although some might argue that the right ten people might be enough, I would argue that ten educators is a very limited professional learning network. The never-ending task of building a PLN is to continually follow really good educators to get the information they put out."

"This afternoon I received an email in which I was asked how to write a hyperlink without relying on the visual editor in Word, Google Docs, or your favorite blogging platform. While the visual editing tools will usually do everything you need, at some point you might want to beyond the limitations of WYSIWYG. It's then that you'll want know how to write and edit HTML yourself. These are three resources that you can use to teach yourself HTML. The instructions in these resources are clear enough that middle school students can use them on their own too. "

"Right now I'm lucky enough to be collaborating with the amazing educators, Michelle Hiebert and Jason Graham. They've invited my class to work on creating a collaborative book. The idea is for one class to write a bit and then pass it on to the next class who in turn adds a bit and then passes it on etc. We've decided to use the Book Creator app on the iPad to create our book. My kinder students have had success in creating books with this simple to use app. We have decided to use DropBox as a way to share the book back and forth with each other. (I recently learned this process from @KLirenman, another awesome educator.) What I thought I'd do is provide a simple how-to on this process. "

"I was fortunate enough to watch a great webinar the other day about iOS apps that support students that are struggling with reading and writing. Many of the apps discussed were new to me which is always a plus. Here is the link to all of the apps but for this post I want to focus on just a few."

"Have you ever listened to a 5 year old tell about their work? Try listening to 25 of them. Daily. They have so much they want to tell and explain that I don't have enough ears to listen to it all. Their work is so detailed and there are like 40 bajillion things they absolutely must tell, and if you interrupt them even once, they must. start. over."

"Last night I had one of those incredibly horrifying moments that I hope you never experience. Just as I'm getting ready to go to bed at 11 PM in my hotel room I suddenly realize my iPad was missing. Losing an iPad is upsetting - knowing the damage someone could do if they accessed online accounts using my iPad was terrifying. Fortunately I knew I had some protection because I password protect my devices and had set up Find My iPad/Phone. Which can't be said for many of the educators I noticed using mobile devices at ISTE. But had I done enough?"

"I did a quick search, delving a few pages deep in the results, but couldn't find what I wanted. I thought that it would be useful if a trailer could be planned in advance, rather than shoot footage and hope that there was enough of the various types of scenes to fit the trailer templates. I know that we should design a trailer around our content, but it is also nice to be able to create one quickly from the templates."

"I recently read Why School? by Will Richardson, a great book looking towards the future of education and I thought I would put together a quick review of my thoughts on it. If you are anything like me, you are hoping that we are on the precipice of major change in education. I am hoping that we can break free from many of the traditions we have continued for far too long. Of course I am not bright enough to point us in the right direction, but I am ready and waiting to be a foot soldier for the cause."