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"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 "

We're chomping at the bit to get our grimy little hands on the new Google Drive. We wrote about it in our March issue of the Edudemic Magazine, featured it a couple weeks ago, and now want to start figuring out how the basically-real tool will help teachers around the planet. After all, that's what Edudemic is all about! We throw caution to the wind and just start trying to figure out fun and useful ways to use technology in the classroom. Who cares if that technology isn't available yet?

" One-Click Sharing Click the button above and start sharing your screen in under 5 seconds (Java required to share). Hassle-Free Viewing View from any PC, tablet, or smartphone with a web browser. No software to download or install. No Setup Allow people to see your computer screens without needing to set up an account."

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.

"A student-run Web site at Stanford University seeks to convince students to input their class assignments to keep themselves-and their classmates-more organized. It could, founders hope, grow into a student-run course-management system."

Web search can be a remarkable tool for students, and a bit of instruction in how to search for academic sources will help your students become critical thinkers and independent learners. With the materials on this site, you can help your students become skilled searchers- whether they're just starting out with search, or ready for more advanced training.

"Don't use Google forms for anything somewhat private This is a problem and although no one is talking about it, we need to start. Every day we ask for parent permission. We ask for addresses, we ask for phone numbers, and we ask for emails. If Google will randomly scan our work and also will not define for us what constitutes "private information" then Google forms is NOT a suitable alternative for collecting information for schools."

You should read this, it could happen to any of us unless google apps has a different version of the terms of service. I am going to have to download all my spreadsheets with users and passwords on then asap and suggest you consider doing the same.

" Thanks to the folks at HackCollege, a number of my "secrets" are out. The infographic below offers a helpful primer for how to best structure searches using advanced operators to more quickly and accurately drill down to the information you want. This is by no means an exhaustive list of search operators and advanced techniques, but it's a good start that will help set you on the path to becoming a Google master."

"Start small, make training personally relevant, pair staff with knowledgeable co-workers-and keep it fun, readers recommend"

"When you see as many apps as we do at RWW, you begin to feel like it's all been done. So many of the everyday jobs for apps to do can already be done by at least one app (if not dozens). How many ways can you share photos with your friends? How many social networks and check-ins and restaurant-discovery services do we need? Lately, we've started to see a new class of app emerge just for managing these tasks across their various apps. The idea of apps for our apps sounds ridiculous, but some of them are neat, and some are downright lifesavers. Here's a round-up of apps you should use if you want to bring your many social networks into one dedicated place."

"Microsoft SkyDrive has been around for a while, but was recently given a fairly significant update. We took some time to talk to Microsoft about the new features and play with it all, so here's a breakdown of what you can expect. You'll need a Windows Live account to start making full use of SkyDrive. For those too lazy to read - there's 25gb of storage, web-based versions of popular Office apps; collaborative editing that doesn't require everyone to login; and an iPhone app you should probably avoid for now."

I have played with this a bit. It is quite good.

Welcome to Piazza-a place where students can come together to ask, answer, and explore under the guidance of their instructor. It'll save you time, and your students will love using it. It's also free, and easy to get started. Learn more...

"Wufoo is a web application that helps anybody build amazing online forms. When you design a form with Wufoo, it automatically builds the database, backend and scripts needed to make collecting and understanding your data easy, fast and fun. Because we host everything, all you need is your web browser and a few short minutes to build a form and start using it right away. While we've collected a few of our favorite features here, the best way to experience Wufoo is first hand. So be sure to sign up today for free or try out the demo see how form building was meant to be done."

might be worth playing with

"Good learning starts with questions, not answers". Guy Claxton, Professor in Education and Director of CLIO Development University of Bristol. Questioning enables teachers to check learners' understanding. It also benefits learners as it encourages engagement and focuses their thinking on key concepts and ideas.

"Hot on the heels of my Ed.D. thesis submission, the presentation below (click through if you don't see it!) will hopefully be of help some of those looking to grapple with developing digital literacies in their institution or organization."

"Some Google projects really do start from one person hacking around. Last summer, an engineering intern named Pieter Senster joined the mobile advertising team to explore how we could display Flash animations on devices that don't support Adobe Flash player. Pieter made such great progress that Google hired him full time and formed a team to work on the project. Swiffy was born! Today we're making the first version of Swiffy available on Google Labs. You can upload a SWF file, and Swiffy will produce an HTML5 version which will run in modern browsers with a high level of SVG support such as Chrome and Safari. It's still an early version, so it won't convert all Flash content, but it already works well on ads and animations. We have some examples of converted SWF files if you want to see it in action."

"One of the hardest thing with using the iPad in the classroom is finding the time to go through all of the apps in the iTunes Store listed under the education banner. We have started to list some of the apps we've found under each of the Key Learning Areas."

# According to Picasa, If you've signed up for Google+ photos up to 2048 x 2048 pixels and videos up to 15 minutes won't count towards your free storage. (hat tip to Greg Grothaus) # To add people who have added you to their circles, but you haven't add them, go to the "People who've added you" tab and select "Not yet in circles" from the sort menu. All the people not in your circles will be listed first (hat tip to Owen Prater) # Right click on a circle and select "View circle in tab". This is a terrific way to see who's in a circle and allows you to do neat things like drag all the people inside it to another circle. # If you have a lot of Circles and/or a lot of people in your various Circles views (e.g. "People in your circles", "People who've added you", etc."), Mac users can use the pinch functionality to make the Circles section smaller so you can view all of your Circles. # Order of Circles in Left-Hand Nav: Default Circles appear first in this order - Friends, Family, Following, and Acquaintances. Then your personal circles are arranged alphabetically. You can rename any of the circles, including the default ones, and renaming a default one makes it part of the normal alphabetized list. Put an underscore in front of one that you want at the top of the list. You could also delete the default circles and start over in the order that you want.(hat tip to Donna Fontenont and Joe Hall)