Social networks are rapidly growing in popularity and use by all ages in society. The most popular social networks are web-based, commercial, and not purposely designed for educational use. They include sites like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, and Xanga. For individuals, social networking sites provide tremendous potential opportunities for staying in touch with friends and family.   Other educational networking sites are also growing in use. These sites are usually restricted to only certain users and not available to the general public. These include resources such as Moodle, educational wikis, a professional online communities such as the Classroom2.0 Ning, or district adoptions of online applications such as Google Apps for Education.

Now altogether in one place, the components of inquiry-based media literacy using the Five Core Concepts and CML's Five Key Questions of Media Literacy for Deconstruction and Construction. Q/TIPS™ addresses questions from the viewpoints of both consumers and producers of media messages, enabling participation in a global media culture.

There was a time when books, newspapers, magazines and journals were the prime source of content and information.  It was always your move! navigating the authority maze,  enjoying slow reading of (limited) information sources in order to gain a knowledge base that matched a particular curriculum outline. This was when content was king and the teacher was the sage on the stage. Now communication is the new curriculum, and content is but grist to the mill that churns new knowledge. Why?  I came across a few good reads this week that set me thinking and wondering about the changes that we must support in our teaching and in our library services.

Glogster is proud to present Glogster.com/edu, a NEW addition to the site for all your educational needs! This is just the first step in making education and technology more engaging for educators and students! We will continue to add more and more features and improvements to make sure all your educational needs are fulfilled! Feel free to give us any feed back that you think would make this site better for educators and students.

It is hard to reconcile what Bauerlien says (Educational technology has little or no effect on learning because no-one is using it properly) with what I know instinctively happens (Kids get excited about learning when technology is added to the mix.)

LooseStitch lets you create and share outliner documents. Brainstorm ideas. Jot them down. Call friends over. Get feedback. Make changes. Share... Now on the iPhone

Blogs are naturally "publish at will" platforms. While blogs certainly CAN be configured to have new posts "moderated" by someone serving in the role of a gatekeeper, by default most blogs allow users to publish INSTANTLY. If you're interested in setting up a blog for moderated posting by students, I'd recommend using Class Blogmeister for this purpose. Wordpress blogs can be configured for contributor posts to be moderated as well, but this requires a bit of configuration. (This is the setup we're using here on ISTEconnects, btw.) On the Wordpress dashboard, under SETTINGS - GENERAL SETTINGS, we've checked the MEMBERSHIP box ANYONE CAN REGISTER and set the "New User Default Role" to be CONTRIBUTOR. With these configuration settings, new posts must be reviewed by a user designated as an "editor" or "administrator" before they become "live" on the site. For more on this, see the Wordpress.org CODEX article "Roles and Capabilities." To setup a free classroom or personal Wordpress blog you don't have to host yourself, I recommend using EduBlogs or Wordpress.com. Blogs setup with Blogger can similarly be setup as "team" blogs with moderated contributions from members which can include students and/or teachers. See the Blogger help article "How do I create a team blog?" for more details. My post from July 2008, "How can our school set up a team blog for teachers?" also gives more information about this for Wordpress users.

Freelancers, small business owners, college students and family members have found that the Internet has made it easier to work from home, collaborate on group projects, and share important files and links. This list of web tools is ideal for anyone working on a group project, whether you're looking for task management support, scheduling and calendar organization, or just a place to collect all your materials and brainstorms.

From the hallway, Abby Brown's sixth-grade classroom in a little school here about an hour northeast of Minneapolis has the look of the usual one, with an American flag up front and children's colorful artwork decorating the walls. But inside, an experiment is going on that makes it among the more unorthodox public school classrooms in the country, and pupils are being studied as much as they are studying. Unlike children almost everywhere, those in Ms. Brown's class do not have to sit and be still. Quite the contrary, they may stand and fidget all class long if they want.

This guest blog post by New York School Superintendent Neil Rochelle provides insight about his district's journey to integrate Web 2.0 tools with teaching and learning. Neil is the superintendent of Iroquois Central School District. His personal blog is titled "Changing High Schools" and he also blogs on LeaderTalk.

Tikatok is where kids channel their imagination into stories - and publish those stories into books for you to share and treasure with friends and family.