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After exam boards have been conducted, letters signed and mailed to students, external examiners thanked and supplementary assessments created, there is a moment - a fracture in time - where academics breathe, reflect and consolidate. Before writing courses for the September start, I take a week to think about the semesters that have passed. I review my teaching journal, think about student reviews and locate the literature that has emerged in the past few months while I've been buried in marking, moderating and examining. This year has been special. All my students - from first year through to doctoral candidates - have been engaged, challenging and provocative. They have big personalities, work hard and care about both personal success and wider social justice. There was Alex who saw every concept, from postFordism through to information literacy, through the gauze of Lady Gaga. Toby never knew how extraordinary he was until the final seminar of his first year when fellow students burst into spontaneous applause in response to one of his comments. Aimee thought deeply, read widely and arrived 30 minutes before each lecture to make sure she did not miss it. Sophie discovered Google Scholar early in the course and proceeded to give her colleagues updates of the conference papers she had read during the week.

I'm a pre-tenure professor and the father of a special needs child. My last year in grad school, I was trying to write my dissertation, hunt for academic jobs and work on two start-ups. Wasting time hasn't been something I could afford to do for a long time. Read on below for a write-up of the time-saving tips and tricks I've accumulated over the last few years. If you have tips of your own, please send them my way!

Google or You? Who Would You Rather Control Your Digital Identity? While many users of the internet have accepted a passive digital footprint over which they have not taken control, Dean Shareski recently presented at #BLC10 on ideas for managing and manipulating what Google says about us. To do this, first it makes sense to 1) Get in touch with what your digital footprint says about you, 2) Determine if that is what you would like your digital footprint to say and if not, determine what you do want. 3) Start establishing your digital footprint. Here's how.

In the third part of his critical thinking series, Howard covers how teachers can turn students into "online detectives" by teaching critical research skills to determine site ownership and bias. Also, he describes some of his own collaborative teaching techniques.

The answer to almost any question is available within seconds, courtesy of the invention that has altered how we discover knowledge - the search engine. Materializing answers from the air turns out to be the easy part - the part a machine can do. The real difficulty kicks in when you click down into your search results. At that point, it's up to you to sort the accurate bits from the misinfo, disinfo, spam, scams, urban legends, and hoaxes. "Crap detection," as Hemingway called it half a century ago, is more important than ever before, now that the automation of crapcasting has generated its own word: "spamming."

As online technology rapidly develops, the criteria for evaluating these sources develops as well. Online sources are so new that their status as accurate sources is not fully established; therefore, you should verify online sources before you invest time in browsing the web or assessing the credibility of sources you find there. Once you've determined that online sources can be used, you'll still need to assess their credibility. The following criteria for assessing online sources will help you to determine whether electronic sources are both professional and appropriate. Keep in mind as you review these criteria that many are based on standards used for traditional print sources; others are clearly relevant for electronic sources only.

Personal Knowledge Management: A way to deal with ever-increasing digital information. Requires an open attitude to learning and finding new things (I Seek). Develops processes of filing, classifying and annotating for later retrieval. Uses open systems that enable sharing. Aids in observing, thinking and using information & knowledge (I Sense). Helps to share ideas with others (We Share). "You know you're in a community of practice when your practice changes" (We Use). PKM prepares the mind to be open to new ideas (enhanced serendipity).

Many educators in successful schools are involved in their school's professional learning community and perhaps they even collaborate with other schools in the district, city, state, country or beyond, but Innovative Educators also have personal learning networks (PLNs) enabling them to connect with other learners around the globe. If you're new to this world, personal learning networks are created by an individual learner, specific to the learner's needs extending relevant learning connections to like-interested people around the globe. PLNs provide individuals with learning and access to leaders and experts around the world bringing together communities, resources and information impossible to access solely from within school walls.

"A definition for the term Personal Learning Environment (PLE), remains elusive. Conception about what should constitute a PLE depends on the perspective of the commentator. For example, the priorities for a PLE are different for a tertiary student, a university administrator, an instructor, a working professional, or an adult who persues an eclectic path of lifelong learning. Metaphorically, an individual may engage in a learning process that is either more acquisitional or participatory (Sfard, 1998). There are inconsistencies across these positions about what a PLE should do. But whether constructively and defensively, interest in PLE appears to be growing. At the time of writing this introduction (August 2006), no particular product or service exists that can definitively be categorised as a PLE, although some prototypical work is in progress. An inclusive, authoritative account about PLEs does not yet exist. Only a handful of articles have appeared in the academic and public press about PLEs since the term gained currency in 2004. This article has been compiled after tracking recent conversations in the blogosphere and following social bookmarks. "

"If we're to believe the experts rather than the man-in the-street, the 21stCentury started on 1st January 2001 rather than on 1st January 2000. Subsequently, we're now in the second half of the last year of the first decade of the millennium. That being the case, it's probably worthwhile reflecting on the changes that have impacted our training/learning departments over the past 10 years. It's also worthwhile thinking forward to the world we're likely to be facing over the next 10 and considering what an ideal learning and development team might look like if it is to effectively navigate the future."

"Google Wave has been much discussed and speculated about since it was first announced just over one year ago. Many in the business community have wondered how it can be used for marketing and sales. Others have wondered how it will be integrated into daily communication and collaboration. Still others who lack the patience to test a tool with more than a few layers have wondered just what it is. Google developed the product as an answer to the question what would email look like if it were invented today rather than 40 years ago? (Trapani)"

"Today I have come to the pre-event for #altc2010, 'Learning Literacies in a Digital Age' (note not 'Digital Literacy'), and have had a really interesting afternoon thinking about the challenges that face us in HE in giving graduates key digital skills."

"Personal Learning Networks are all the rage at the moment. As with a lot of "modern" things, they're existed for a long time but have now got a snappy new name. It used to be called "advice from friends and colleagues". But in the era of social media the word friend has taken on a new meaning. Social media has provided me with a lot of friends who I've never met and never spoken to. I've exchanged a few tweets with them, commented on or received comments on a blog article, or maybe read a few forum posts, and as a result these people are, in Web 2.0-speak, friends."

"As the world's leading source of intelligent information, we recognize that our employees actively participate in social media and online communications. These guidelines are designed to help protect the reputation and credibility of Thomson Reuters, our employees, and contractors who create or contribute to blogs, wikis, social networks, virtual worlds or other social media. Whether you use Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Yammer, Wikipedia or MySpace - or comment on blogs or online media stories - these guidelines are for you. They cover three main areas: 1. Basic principles for all types of social media 2. Special guidelines for professional use of social media on behalf of the company 3. Special guidelines for personal use of social media "

"My suggested assumptions in MOOC include: * people would learn in a self-directed manner * Knowledge is distributed * Knowledge is negotiated * Knowledge is emergent * Knowledge is rhizomatic (thanks to Dave's video posted - refer to How to be successful in MOOC?) * Learning is capacity to construct, navigate and traverse across networks * personal learning networks would be a far better way for people to learn * people like to learn via social networks * people know how to connect (people have the communication, literacy and critical literacy skills) * people know how to use the technology to connect * people are self motivated (intrinsic motivation) * people like to accept challenges, chaos and complexity is just part of the learning process * people don't need to follow a course or qualification for learning to be effective * Learning is emergent, and is based on connections, engagement and interactions * Learning is open * Identity in networked learning is based on individual's "participation, interaction" in the networks, and is reflective of ones involvement in the media, it's dynamic, adaptive * Individual and social learning is emphasised - cooperation * Sensemaking and wayfinding are important"