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interesting advent in the digital textbook market - Discovery's Techbooks. iBooks competitor? From the article: Discovery's Techbook series is cloud-based, meaning students can access the materials from wherever they have an internet connection; the company says that's because not all school districts have the funds to give every student his or her own device. The Techbooks are also platform-agnostic to work with whatever hardware a district or student might have-iPads, tablets, mobile devices, laptops, or desktops.

From the blog post: It is not so much about the tool and what it can do, but more about the purpose for using the tool. Obviously, if students want to share pictures of a project they are working on, a digital camera and a blog make a lot more sense than a flipbook. Still, don't count out older technologies just because you are trying to be a "21st Century Educator." Sometimes a dry erase marker and a wipe-off slate will do the job just fine.

From the article: South Forsyth High School in Georgia made the leap to BYOT in 2009 and saw the number of discipline referrals for technology abuse drop dramatically, principal Jason Branch said. In its first year of BYOT, the school had four discipline referrals for technology abuse, after amassing 400 over the previous two years. Instead of working to subvert tech barriers, students were protecting their privilege with what Branch called a "mutual respect and instructional understanding between teachers and students." Sion made its leap trusting students - and trusting teachers. "We have to change the way we teach," said Sion world history teacher Beth Ingram. "Our concept of what knowledge is is changing.

From the article: "The problem, I began to realize, was my own understanding of how the iPads should be utilized in the classroom. I had seen them as a supplement to my pre-existing curriculum, trying to fit them into the structure of what I'd always done. This was the wrong approach: To truly change how my classroom worked, I needed a technology-based redefinition of my practice."  Interesting to think about going forward.

"Project2Manage is an online project management application that helps you stay up-to-date, on task and connected with your team. We've taken the hard work of staying organized and simplified it for you."

How to search by Google. In most cases, a simple search works really well. But for more specialized questions, a bit of instruction in how to search improves all searcher--from middle school students to trained professionals--and lets you discover and use more, higher quality sources than ever before.

"Promoting critical thinking, education, and informed citizenship by presenting controversial issues in a straightforward, nonpartisan, primarily pro-con format." We accomplish our mission by researching issues that we feel are controversial and important, and we work to present them in a balanced, comprehensive, straightforward, and primarily pro-con format at no charge on our websites. 

Cool videoconferencing option for social studies and history classes, and a way to work with some historically relevant primary sources

The SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) is a national consortium of states that have been working collaboratively since December 2009 to develop a student assessment system aligned to a common core of academic content standards to apply for a Race-to-the-Top Assessment grant.

One district's model to integrate the most appropriate technologies into their classrooms - ask teachers to test different products to determine what works, and what doesn't.  Also note: this district underwent an infrastructure upgrade before introducing new devices.

Really curious about this theory, and it might work to help eyes track.

great piece on how instructional and educational pedagogy must shift if technology like cell phones and tablets are to be used successfully in educational situations

"How are we supposed to use technology responsibly if we don't use it at all?"