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Teachers across the country have been incorporating Twitter into classrooms for a few years, but the site's adoption by educational institutions appears to be limited. A survey of 1,920 U.S. teachers published in April found that 2% of them use the micro-blogging site in college lectures. About half those polled said the use of Twitter and Facebook in class is harmful to the learning experience, according to the study from consulting firm Pearson Learning Solutions. Still, Legaspi is hopeful. When he explained the plan to his students at Hollenbeck Middle School in East Los Angeles, he learned that only one of them had used Twitter. But most, he said, live on their phones. So getting them started wasn't difficult.

Legaspi said shy students are benefiting the most. For "a lot of them, what it did is help find their voice," he said. "I have many students that do not participate in my classes or share what's on their mind, so Twitter became that vehicle." Several students praised the new approach. "It's a great way to get people to notice you," said Oscar Lozoria, a shy 14-year-old with long hair that other students used to tease him about. He said Twitter has changed how his peers view him. "They see me as somebody now -- as an equal," he said. Ivan Sabaria, also 14, said Twitter makes learning more fun. "I'm paying attention and doing all my work," he said.

Occasionally, the students will type in something inappropriate during class. Still, Legaspi is convinced he has discovered the future of education. "I get feedback on the spot. Not only that, all the students can see what they're sharing," he said. "This is powerful."

Is location-based marketing a no-brainer now Foursquare has 10m users? Brian Solis certainly thinks so. In this piece, our favourite dapper guru investigates the data Foursquare released to celebrate reaching 10m users. A couple of choice quotes: “Services such as Foursquare bring the Yellow Pages alive”.

Google+ is already indexed and searched by Google, making marketing searches much easier than other platforms. Just drop “site:plus.google.com” before any search in Google, and you’ll see what people are saying about you inside the platform.

Don’t think “social network.” Think “communications backbone.” This tool allows for private collaboration (privacy is much easier to understand here, but it does require some learning), and permits a “one stop” kind of area for talking internally and externally without causing problems. And it works with email, not in lieu of email.

Google+ evolves from Gmail. No matter what the kiddies say, email is still the digital communications backbone of the modern world. SMS might feel like second place, but it’s a distant second. Google+ is very tied to Gmail, with hundreds of millions of users. It feels very natural as an extension in a way that Twitter and Facebook do not.

New study reveals the prime motivators behind why people follow brands If you’re still looking to justify your social media activity to the board, perhaps the following stat will help: 97% of people say that social media has influenced their decision to make a purchase of a brand or product. Pretty emphatic. And one of several very interesting findings from the team at get satisfaction. They’ve recently released a new infographic on why people follow brands. If part of your role is encouraging people to follow your brand, then it’s worth having a look.

Historypin is a non-profit website and mobile app aimed at sparking inter-generational conversation and interest in history. The concept is simple: It uses Google Maps to “pin” old photographs to their location.

Users have content across many Google properties: YouTube, Picasa Web Albums, Google Docs, and more. Now we have a common interface for your users to select Google content. The Google Picker API provides a familiar-looking dialog box that’s easy for you to integrate into your apps. Your users can quickly browse their own content without ever leaving your page or app.

Capture the flag. Hide and seek. Marco Polo. These location-based games brought hours of fun to many of us as children. Then video games came along and suddenly the only location you played in was the living room. Now this shift is coming full circle as innovative mobile games are using geo-location, image recognition and augmented reality technologies to combine the real and virtual worlds.

Noah Rahman has moderate Cerebral Palsy affecting his communication, cognition and upper and lower body movement. When he turned two, his language, cognitive abilitity and fine motor skills were diagnosed by a developmental specialist as being at least 12 months behind. Then Noah got an iPad. Four months later, his language and cognition were on par with his age level. His fine motor skills had made significant leaps.

With its open-ended nature and robust creation tools, Minecraft has been used to create some amazing things. And as one teacher learned, those very same elements that make the game so compelling also make it a great educational tool.

A hybrid app is a native, downloadable app, that runs all or some of its user interface in an embedded browser component. To the user, a hybrid app is almost indistinguishable from a native one: it is downloaded from the app store or marketplace, it is stored on the device, and it is launched just like any other app

simply load some pages from their web site as part of the app

many companies are not already jumping on the HTML5 bandwagon is the belief that HTML apps cannot access native device features. Indeed, pure mobile web apps