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Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments." Arduino is one kind of inexpensive microcontroller now available to the masses. Microcontrollers allow for physical computing, using programming to control physical events, without a high degree of difficulty. 

Divided into Consume Collaborate and Produce. Looks useful.

uses in music, dance, movement, ergonomics and anatomy

"What does it cost? You can use most features* free for a 14 day trial period. There are no call time limits during the trial. After the 14 day trial, these features continue to be free for all calls to people running the VodBurner free or licensed version. If you wish to use VodBurner for calls to non-VodBurner users after the 14 day free trial, a purchase is required." $99

"Google Sites is a powerful but easy to use tool to create great websites. In this class we will cover the basics of setting up a classroom or organization website using Google Sites including a welcome page, calendar page, files page, links page, pictures page, announcement (blog) page, and more. This class will help you transition your existing site over to Google Sites, or help you start a new Site from scratch, or just give you a great introduction to what can be done with Google Sites."

This is an amazing site that allows you to share your screen live with up to 250 viewers for free. You can even view the screencast on ipad/iPhone and Android phones. Perhaps most exciting of all is that you can use the site to control the viewed computer remotely, a useful feature for fixing any computer problems from afar. You need to download a small file to start sharing. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

Tracks - I've tried a number of task tracking software, I've even tried creating my own task tracking software in OneNote and Evernote.  Unfortunately every system/app I tried fell over and I stopped using it. That is when I found Tracks.  Tracks is an open source software (free) that is built to work with the GTD system for organization.  Whether you are a follower of GTD or not, the software is simple, well written, and has the core things that you need to stay on top of your tasks.  Other software tends to have so many features that the core purpose of the software gets lost.  For go the features and use this software, it works.  I signed up for a free account at My.GTDify.com.  I also downloaded the Android app called Shuffle and have it syncing with my online account.  You can even have it sync with your Google calendar.

Seamlessly integrate content with dozens of popular websites, apps, and social media services. Make ANY web content engaging, interactive and shareable using the same tools your learners use every day.

A couple of infographic résumé sites, vizualize.me and re.vu, sprouted up that use your LinkedIn data to show your career stats. Just create an account, connect it to LinkedIn, and you get some graphs that show when and where you worked. It's a visual form of your LinkedIn profile with a goal to replace the "old" and "boring" résumé that uses just text.

How to use canvas to submit assignments (only) though you can use this as part of a larger whole from U of Mary Washington

standards should emphasize creative thinking, not content  My students are learning some content-instead of a textbook, I use a primary-source reader in which the sources are accompanied by commentary by historians-but they're learning it as they perform analysis and synthesis, not before. So, for example, I don't have them read them about Puritan conceptions of salvation and then give them photos of headstones and ask them to explain how the headstones reinforce Puritan ideas.  I have them undertake Prownian analysis (description, deduction, speculation, research, and interpretive analysis) of children's headstones and furniture (e.g,. a walking stool); perform close readings of children's literature and Puritan poetry, letters, and sermons; and build an argument concerning Puritans' beliefs about children's salvation.  As they craft this argument, they must evaluate the usefulness of, as well as synthesize their findings from, these sources, along with earlier ones from the course.  The whole exercise is done in small groups, followed by discussion among the entire class.

iFree Skype Recorder is a powerful and easy-to-use tool for recording Skype voice conversations. You can free use it to record Skype2Skype / SkypeOut / SkypeIn / Skype Conference calls.

Colleagues, Last semester 30 faculty and staff participated in a reading group focused on Clayton Christensen and Henry Eyring's "The Innovative University." The reading group came together face-to-face on a number of occasions and continued the rich discussion online. It was a great experience and a fascinating book. This semester the faculty and staff participating in the American Democracy Project recommended that we invite the campus community to come together to read "A Crucible Moment: College Learning and Democracy's Future." The work was completed by the National Task Force on Civic Learning and Democratic Engagement, under the leadership of the American Association of Colleges and Universities. It's a brief volume, rich in examples, on how colleges and universities must reclaim responsibility for civic learning. "A Crucible Moment" is available in PDF here: http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/research/pubs/college-learning-democracys-future/crucible-moment.pdf The reading group will meet once in March and once in April, with opportunities for online discussion. More information will follow later in the month. In the meantime, if you're interested in joining us for this discussion, please email Kim Schmidl-Gagne (kgagne@keene.edu). If you would like to commit to the reading group, but would prefer to read in hard copy, Kim will also order a copy for you. I look forward to this discussion, and I hope you will consider joining us for our spring reading group. Mel

A great example of "Why I don't use technology"  Its black and white pronouncements are infuriating. How can we talk to this argument? "No technology today or in the foreseeable future can provide the tailored attention, encouragement, inspiration, or even the occasional scolding for students that dedicated adults can, and thus, attempts to use technology as a stand-in for capable instruction are bound to fail."

I found this post about using blogs in the classroom to be a helpful curation of teacher tips for student blogging. Mike G

Studying humankind can give us great insight into the complexities of society and culture. However, any research involving human subjects comes with a thorny set of ethical considerations. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Ethics Center has curated this collection of online resources related to ethical dilemmas and situations in anthropology. The materials are divided into four areas: Case Studies, About, Additional Teaching Resources, and Codes of Ethics. The Case Studies area is quite well-developed, containing 20 rigorously vetted case studies from SUNY-Buffalo, the Society for Economic Botany, and the Smithsonian Institution. For those just entering the field, the Codes of Ethics area might be quite useful. It offers up professional codes from organizations like the American Anthropological Association, the American Association of Museums, and the American Folklore Society

The developing themes have influenced the design and strategy of media production at SCE, including: Strategizing videos to tie directly to course assignments and/or assessment Advising faculty members to use conversational language in production; also encouraging them to use humor and draw on past experiences Adding audio/visual elements to the video that supplement the content; the videos should not convey information that students could just read as text Producing high-quality videos (despite mixed findings related to production values, elements such as professional sound, lighting, and graphics are considered important when creating high-quality media) Keeping the four-minute view time as a design consideration, especially when producing longer-form content lectures that can be broken up into shorter segments

Higher education conferences over the past few years have been full of presentations, papers and panels on the processes involved in migrating a campus and its people to Google Apps for Education. While it is useful to hear about marketing tchotchkes, data validation, and the pros and cons of web clients, what seems to get ignored is the process that led to the decision to move to Google Apps in the first place. At North Carolina State University, where students were already using Google Apps, the decision to move employees involved almost as much time, effort and heartache as the technical migration. As the users saw it, they had a working system, even if that system only worked because of huge expenditures of time and money both on the backend server maintenance and the client need to implement terribly complex workarounds for simple functionality. The end result: a 94-page white paper and the realization that it's hard to sell ice to Eskimos1 , even if you show them that their ice has already melted. This paper and presentation will discuss the information gathering and needs assessment done by NC State prior to the decision to move employees to Google Apps, and the successes and difficulties involved.

You can just use Photoshop Alternatives to edit for simple piece of work. These Alternatives allows users to resize photos, some can does cropping and adjust colors, brightness, contrast by using various usable functions. Give up Photoshop for a while and try hand on web based online photo editing sites. There is no need of any expert knowledge just follow few simple steps and put final touch to your project.

"Numbers are used in every area of public debate. But are they always reliable? More or Less tries to make sense of the statistics which surround us. A half-hour programme broadcast at 1330 on Friday afternoons and repeated at 2000 on Sundays on Radio 4."

podcast or downloadable file