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Your Google Apps account can access the majority of Google products using the email address assigned to you by your administrator. It's important to note that your administrator has access to any data you store in this account, including your email. Please read the Google Apps Important Privacy Notice for more information.

"As children of all ages head back to school this fall, many of them will have the benefit of having a laptop computer all to themselves. But does having this level of access to technology guarantee the individual student will be successful in their studies? According to two University of Calgary professors, access to technology is only one part of the equation"

"Top five reasons why teachers love to rrripple 1 Makes connecting with students, parents, and other educators easy, meaningful, and secure. You can create groups comprised of people you know; no one can solicit membership, which makes sharing very secure. Moreover, teachers can moderate the groups to ensure appropriate online behavior. 2 Promotes creativity, collaboration and community by offering a fun and engaging digital platform. The media-rich interface makes viewing, uploading and downloading all sorts of media a fun experience. 3 Allows teachers and students away from the classroom to keep up-to-date and in-touch with classes, and to monitor progress on assignments. Even after you leave the school campus, or if a student is out of school sick, you and the student can access any of the media shared using various mobile devices. 4 Assists students with accessing, organizing and tracking materials and deadlines. The timeline interface helps students review lessons and assignments on their own terms, in their own way, at their own pace. 5 Provides web-savvy teachers the latest tools and technology to make class life more informative, fun, and exciting. Students have an insatiable desire to create digital content and to share it with others, yet public social networks are not safe venues for sharing and rrripple is ideal."

"Accessing music online and via mobile phones has never been easier, but it does raise legal, security and ethical issues. This new guide for parents, carers and teachers aims to give essential advice about how young people can get the best out of downloading and sharing music online and via mobile technology in a safe and legal way, as well as providing tips for discussion. This guide:"

Collaboration Our primary goal at this point is to prove or disprove the effectiveness of puzzles as a learning strategy. If you are a teacher who would like to experiment with these ideas in your classroom please contact us. We'd love to work with you. In fact, regardless of who you are, if these ideas seem promising and you'd like to help or try them out, please contact us. We're very open with our work and are interested in collaborating with anyone we can, within the constraints of our very limited resources. You can reach us at info@puzzleschool.com Our Mission The Puzzle School was started with the mission of creating educational environments that will inspire a greater love of learning. We strongly believe that learning is something people truly love to do when it is presented in a way that gives the learner a sense of progress toward their learning goals. We focus on puzzles as they provide one of the most effective ways of creating a learning environment that is interactive, giving students an immediate sense of progress as they try to "figure out" the material they are learning. The methods we use at The Puzzle School mimic the learning environments that children thrive in while learning how to walk and talk. This model can best be summed up as hypothesis and error driven learning, where students develop a hypothesis toward solving a problem and are able to test that hypothesis using feedback loops, learning from a success or failure as they move closer to a solution. This model has been used successfully in thousands of schools around the world, most notably Montessori Schools. We simply want to highlight this method and make it so that all students have access to environments where they can learn in this way. We believe this will encourage a love of learning in all students.

"We hear about it all the time: Universal access to research, education and culture-all good things, without a doubt-made possible by things like open source software, open educational resources and the like. But what are these various communities and what do they mean? How can we all learn more and get involved? School of Open has rolled the conversation back to square one so that understanding the basics is easy. Through a list of new courses created by users and experts, people can learn more about what "openness" means and how to apply it. There are stand-alone courses on copyright, writing for Wikipedia, the collaborative environment of open science, and the process behind making open video. These free courses start March 18 (sign up by clicking the "start course" button by Sunday, March 17): Copyright 4 Educators (US) Copyright 4 Educators (AUS) Creative Commons for K-12 Educators Writing Wikipedia Articles: The Basics and Beyond These free courses are open for you to take at any time: Get a CC license. Put it on your website Open Science: An Introduction Open data for GLAMs Intro to Openness in Education A Look at Open Video Contributing to Wikimedia Commons Open Detective "

Now your favorite music, books, movies, apps, and games are all in one place that's accessible from the Web and any Android device. Discover, buy and share like never before.

Gooru: Just launched in beta, Gooru Learning is a "search engine for learning" that harnesses the power of the web by organizing free, online education resources into searchable collections, accessible from any web or mobile platform. Using machine learning and human judgment, Gooru curates, auto-tags and contextualizes collections of web resources to accommodate personalized learning pathways. Gooru collections are aligned to US Common Core Standards for Math and to California Science Curriculum Standards.

Section 108 of copyright law allows libraries and archives to make copies of protected works in some situations. This tool explores the laws governing these situations. It cannot cover all of the complexities of the law, but it is a good introduction, and it provides links for further information. Access:

Open courseware offered by top universities allow self-learners to access high quality educational materials for no cost. Whether expanding your knowledge on a variety of topics or sampling the programs offered at universities, free courses can benefit you. The following universities offer free online courses to anyone wishing to complete them. University credit is not offered for any of the free courses provided at these universities.

" Create structured meeting minutes and share them easily with your team. Take minutes quickly and easily using keyboard shortcuts and an intuitive interface. Track the results of meetings: see if tasks are completed, create follow-up meetings to discuss results. AgreeDo is secure! HTTPS encryption by default, access rights, and more... "

"Kodu is a new visual programming language made specifically for creating games. It is designed to be accessible for children and enjoyable for anyone. The programming environment runs on the Xbox, allowing rapid design iteration using only a game controller for input."

Also free microsoft programming language for kids. We use Scratch in the LRC from 7th grade on, but need to move it down to 6th. We also want to begin programming clubs for creating games and apps. This might be a good starting point for Primary.

Today's post, however, is about a great work that has been done by our colleague Tom Barret. He has created awesome example forms for different topics. He has also , thankfully , made all these forms availabe for us to download and use with our students. I have checked all his forms and I was really amazed by the great efforts he has put into them. You can use these forms with your students for sure but remember to keep in mind the great things you can do with Google Forms if you give it a little time. Check out this list of forms below and click on any title to access its corresponding form. The pictures you see below are only  half snapshots of each form:

Given the unprecedented quantity of information learners are exposed to, the librarian's role is more important than ever. Librarians help all students gain access to, evaluate, ethically use, create, share, and synthesize information. These skills are easily grouped into the following categories, she and Miller said.

"Pinterest's members are solely responsible for what they pin and repin. They must have explicit permission from the owner to post everything." What's more, Pinterest places all blame and potential legal fees on its users. It writes: "You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold Cold Brew Labs, its officers, directors, employees and agents, harmless from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses, including, without limitation, reasonable legal and accounting fees, arising out of or in any way connected with (i) your access to or use of the Site, Application, Services or Site Content, (ii) your Member Content, or (iii) your violation of these Terms." Basically, if a photographer sues you for pinning an image illegally on Pinterest, the user must not only pay for his or her lawyer, they must also pay for Pinterest's lawyer. In addition, the defendant must pay all charges against him or herself, along with all of Pinterest's charges. Kirsten likens Pinterest to Napster as an enabler of illegal activity. It wasn't just Napster that went down -- 12 year old girls who downloaded music were sued too. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/pinterest-copyright-issues-lawyer-2012-2#ixzz1nsmeSGHc

Cell Phones in the Classroom More and more students have access to cell phone technology. How do "we" (educators) embrace this technology, utilize its updated cellfoneart.jpgtechnology in the classroom as well as ensure the safety of our students? Below are a variety of websites, articles, slideshares (online powerpoints) and research - all discussing cell phone use in the classroom."

I have requested access to the resources.

Interesting if perhaps a bit naive when it comes to using cell phones to access outside internet providers. How on Earth would you monitor this. I know that that isn't the point, there is a certain expectation and students need to live up to it.

"Why the Facebook Group My Students Created for Themselves is Better than the Discussion Forum I Created for Them."

"# International Review of Curriculum and Assessment Frameworks Internet Archive: INCA provides descriptions of government policy on education in Australia, Canada, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the USA and Wales. It focuses on curriculum, assessment and initial teacher training frameworks for pre-school, primary, lower secondary and upper secondary education in schools (3-19 age range)."