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"Wordle is a toy for generating "word clouds" from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends."

"Macmillan is an internationally recognised publisher of encyclopedias, dictionaries and reference works. The award-winning Macmillan English Dictionary was first published in 2002. Crafted by teams of lexicographers in Britain and the United States, it has as its source a corpus, a database containing millions of examples of English as used around the world. Extensive analysis of this corpus of real spoken and written text, using state-of-the-art software, has allowed the dictionary writers to reveal fresh information about how and when words are used. The dictionary has been regularly updated, and the latest edition, presented free online for the first time, includes a thesaurus , fully integrated into the entries. MacmillanDictionary.com also offers unique treatment of metaphor, showing how many ordinary familiar words and phrases have metaphorical meanings, although we do not usually realise this when we use them. MacmillanDictionary.com is the perfect free online dictionary - a one-stop reference for English speakers around the world."

"Excerpt from the Covenant with Black America Without question, education is the key to progress and prosperity in the United States today. Whether fair or not, educational opportunity and academic achievement are directly tied to the social divisions associated with race, ethnicity, gender, first language, and social class. The level and quality of educational attainment either open the doors to opportunity or close them. Education starts at home, in neighborhoods, and in communities. Reading to children, creating time and space for homework, and demonstrating-through words and deeds-that education is important are the key first building blocks for high educational achievement. While schools are responsible for what children are taught, reinforcement at home is essential. As members of the black community, we must take responsibility for educating all our children-whether ours by birth or otherwise-to uplift our people as a whole. - excerpt from Edmund W. Gordon's essay in the Covenant with Black America"

"A few years ago, I realized my son, Jack, didn't exactly love books. We'd always read to him as a baby, and he was beginning to read for school. When he got home, him going to the shelf and picking up a book was about as likely as his pulling out a notebook and solving quantum physics problems. Actually, the latter was more likely. He's a smart kid. So Sue and I took it on ourselves to fix the problem if we could. Starting that summer, and every summer since, we went out and found books that I was pretty sure he'd not just read, but would love to read. That was a big part of the inspiration for READKIDDOREAD. But, more than that, the experience with Jack got me writing books that I hoped he and other kids would love to read. Before then, I'd always written books just for grown-ups. In fact, one of my proudest moments as a writer was when I passed him the manuscript of The Dangerous Days of Daniel X. Not only did he like it, he told me it was his favorite. Anyhow, the Daniel X series, the Maximum Ride series, and the Witch & Wizard series were written for just this purpose. Jack got me writing books that I thought other kids would love. To contribute a few books that hopefully, will make kids readers for life. But don't take my word for it. Read some of the feedback these books have gotten from parents, grandparents, teachers, librarians, and even critics. I hope you and your young readers enjoy them, too."

"From the start I was expected to lose. Everything I have right now is mostly because I defied what the world concluded about me before I could even speak a word in my defense. And my defense is that I am just as capable as any person to do great things. Like you, I think about all the things this world could achieve if only every child was given the right tools. Mentoring is the right tool and it is the way to the American Dream. To everyone here tonight, I hope you will promise to do everything you can to help make mentoring and the American Dream a reality for every child in this city and every other city in the country. It's their best defense, too. -- Ean Garrett, Mentee at the MENTOR National Recognition Event"

"Adobe TV is Adobe's online TV network, offering free training, inspiration, and information about the latest Adobe products & services. The best of Adobe's expertise and community is now in one place. Watch when you want and where you want, save episodes, subscribe to your favorite channel, and post videos on your blog. And it's not only the talent that's in action - Adobe TV itself is produced and delivered using Adobe products and technologies. From planning to playback, Adobe TV is brought to you by Adobe. Adobe expert content: Watch the ultimate experts, straight from Adobe. Get to know your favorite Adobe presenters by seeing them in action, delivering tips and tricks from the inside. You know you're getting high-value programming with the latest and greatest that Adobe has to offer. Wide variety of programming - See a full range of programs, from entertainment through instruction. For all kinds of viewers who wear all kinds of hats, Adobe TV offers programming from how-to tech talk to personality-driven shows. Find a variety of program lengths, episode frequency, and formats, from highly creative productions to desktop walk-throughs. Adobe TV presents a growing number of channels to appeal to different audiences, including channels for photographers, designers, video professionals, and developers. Featured shows include "The Russell Brown Show," where Russell Brown shows the latest Adobe® Photoshop® wizardry. In "The Complete Picture," Julieanne Kost reveals digital imaging secrets. Web design and developer shows include "Taming the Web" with Greg Rewis and "Flash Downunder" hosted by Paul Burnett. Jason Levine and Karl Soulè edit video and mix audio in "Short & Suite," and at on "CSInsider|Design," Rufus Deuchler explores design tips, tricks, and insights. Central location and fast find: Get Adobe's best all in one place. Adobe TV provides an ever-growing lineup that includes the library of existing high-quality Adobe video content - now in

"Blackboard To Take Learn Platform Mobile By David Nagel 03/22/10 Blackboard Mobile Learn on BlackBerry. It will also support iPhone and Android. Blackboard is preparing to release Blackboard Mobile Learn, a new version of the company's flagship learning management system tailored for smart phones and other mobile devices. It will debut as a native application for Android, iPhone, BlackBerry, and "other Web-enabled devices" in the late spring. Mobile Learn, according to Blackboard, will move beyond the company's current mobile offerings and will mimic the full functionality of the Web-based Learn platform, including two-way communication between students and teachers, access to gradebooks, blog access and commenting, discussion board participation, and student-to-student e-mail communications. According to Blackboard, Mobile Learn will be available in the United States in June for Android, iPhone, iPod, and BlackBerry. (There is no word yet from Blackboard on when or whether there will be a version with enhanced native support for Apple's iPad; however, native iPhone applications are supported on the iPad.) Blackboard said that the initial offering will be for higher education institutions and professional schools using Blackboard Learn 8.0 or later. The company said Mobile Learn will also be available for K-12 institutions down the road and that it will eventually support institutions that are using Angel and WebCT systems, as well as those that are on versions of Blackboard's software prior to 8.0. Mobile Learn will be available via an annual license and will allow schools to apply their branding to the interface. A Blackboard Building Block to enable Mobile Learn is available as of today on Blackboard's support site. In related news, Blackboard also announced today that it's partnering with Sprint to provide Mobile Learn at "no additional cost to institutions" for users of some Sprint devices.