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On November 4, a solution was discovered—in a videogame. That’s the day Microsoft released the Kinect for Xbox 360, a $150 add-on that allows players to direct the action in a game simply by moving their bodies. Most of the world focused on the controller-free interface, but roboticists saw something else entirely: an affordable, lightweight camera that could capture 3-D images in real time.

When DIYers combine those cheap, powerful tools with the collaborative potential of the Internet, they can come up with the kinds of innovations that once sprang only from big-budget R&D labs. In 2009, a PhD student named Daniel Reetz turned two Canon PowerShot A590s into an improvised high-speed book scanner. He detailed the project on a website, DIYbookscanner.org, where readers have since posted hundreds of tweaks, suggestions, upgrades, and entirely new designs. The open source MPGuino project, which uses an Arduino microcontroller to track gas consumption as you drive, has inspired a small community of fans who help refine and customize the gizmo.

In an interview with Yahoo! Singapore, 34-year-old Physics teacher Daryl Ang claimed that the Angry Birds game, if used in the right way, has legitimate educational value. "There are several laws Physics students can learn from the Angry Birds game, and they include mass, velocity, projectile motion, gravity, and Newton's laws," the technologically-savvy educator said.

So can computers actually help improve our concentration and contemplation, instead of leading us into distraction? The problem, as Pang puts it, is that "Technologies that were supposed to help us think better, work more efficiently, and connect more meaningfully with others now interrupt us, divide our attention, and stretch us thin."

In the paper he outlines give principles of contemplative computing; Build awareness through DIY and self-experimentation Recognize that we are cyborgs, and humans Create rewarding challenges Support mind-wandering Treat flow as a means, not an end

Pang suggests that we don't have to choose between information technology and contemplation, and suggests contemplative computing as a new way forward. He describes contemplative computing as something you do, not a product. But the principles of contemplative computing could be extending to application design. "The problem is that today's information technologies are often poorly-designed and thoughtlessly used: they're like unreliable prosthetics that we have to depend on, but can't quite control or trust," Pang says.

Easily incorporate Google Apps into your curriculum with these classroom-ready lesson plans.

Smart Education will change how we perceive textbooks,” South Korea’s Minister of Education, Science and Technology, Ju-Ho Lee, told the BBC. “The transfer from the traditional paper textbooks to digital textbooks will allow students to leave their heavy backpacks and explore the world beyond the classroom.”

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i) Periodicals – not more than 1 article from the same periodical publication unless it relates to the subject matter; ii) Published works – 10% or 1 chapter of a chaptered work, 10% of pages of a non-chaptered work and 10% of total bytes of an electronic edition of a work

Do you struggle to remember the periodic table of elements, but have no trouble recalling all of the Pokemon? Can’t find that French vocabulary word you crammed on the airplane to Paris, but still remember all the words to “We Didn’t Start the Fire?” The reason we struggle with remembering some things and have trouble forgetting others, some experts say, might not be simply because some things are fun and others are boring. It could be because, paradoxically, we learn better when we’re not concentrating.

the team has only five members. Sprints help squeeze a maximum amount of design education into a necessarily short amount of time.

1. Forced Constraints

2. Separate Processes for Pinpointing Problems and Solutions

In a few months, another graduating class of college students will stumble out into an unforgiving job market weighed down by staggering debt. But one school in one of the hottest hiring markets in the country is flipping the script on student loans: until you get a job, you don’t pay.