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"Barnardo's has launched free lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) resources to help teachers better educate children about same sex relationships and gender and sexual identities. The free LGBTQ resources aimed at primary and secondary schools have been launched by children's charity Barnardo's to sit alongside their existing Real Love Rocks resources, which teach children and young people about healthy relationships and awareness of child sexual exploitation."

Assessment | News Varsity Tutors Debuts Free Test Question Site By Dian Schaffhauser 11/07/13 Varsity Tutors, a providor of private tutoring to students online, has launched a new, free service with the intention of becoming the "Khan Academy" of practice tests. The company has introduced a Web-based assessment system intended to replace other forms of educational content such as SAT or ACT preparation books or online subscriptions to assessment materials. Varsity Learning Tools, as it's called, makes hundreds of free practice tests available in 95 subjects. Currently in open beta testing, the site lists assessment tests by subject and allows the user to choose to answer a single test, flashcards, or a question of the day. Each question can be shared through social network services. When the student answers it, a second page displays with an assessment and explanation and data on how much time was spent on the question, and how many others answered it correctly." (Read more at http://thejournal.com/articles/2013/11/07/varsity-tutors-launches-free-test-question-site.aspx?=THEEL#8hQzr0oig6X2IZmS.99)

The data we're including in this first launch represents just a small fraction of all the interesting public data available on the web. There are statistics for prices of cookies, CO2 emissions, asthma frequency, high school graduation rates, bakers' salaries, number of wildfires, and the list goes on. Reliable information about these kinds of things exists thanks to the hard work of data collectors gathering countless survey forms, and of careful statisticians estimating meaningful indicators that make hidden patterns of the world visible to the eye. All the data we've used in this first launch are produced and published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau's Population Division. They did the hard work! We just made the data a bit easier to find and use.

Purdue team recreates D-Day battlefield, launches learning environment where information searches for user

Keep in mind that this experiment was focused on "classroom use" of Kindles, not necessarily "library use." Libraries have never supplied the resources used directly in the classroom for literature study (students don't markup library books!). At Cushing Academy, we are using Kindles to support recreational and personal interest reading rather than directly supporting the curriculum. In that role, they have worked very well.

Well, maybe not just like plain old books. Ebooks have many nice advantages for libraries, such as 24/7 access, always pristine and readable copies for the user, built-in dictionary (which our students tell us they really like) and, for the library itself, very efficient use of space and staff time.

"Last fall, Princeton launched a small experiment, replacing traditional textbooks with the Kindle DX, Amazon's large e-book reader. Almost from the beginning, the 50 students participating in the pilot program expressed dissatisfaction with the devices. Yesterday, a university report offered some more definitive findings. On the upside, students using the Kindle DX ended up using far less paper. (Paper consumption was generally reduced by 54%.) On the downside, students complained that the Kindle was fundamentally "ill-suited for class readings.""

Santa Fe schools to launch tech program

Online learning provider edX this week took a big step into the online degree space by announcing plans to launch nine low-cost, large-scale, fully online master's programs from selective institutions. The nonprofit company, one of the early providers of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, will offer the degrees from seven universities: the Georgia Institute of Technology; the University of Texas at Austin; Indiana University; the University of California, San Diego; Arizona State University and two Australian universities -- the University of Queensland and Curtin University.

"In the past 4 years, Danish startup Airtame has marked itself as a frontrunner in the world of wireless HDMI. Now they're launching a new hardware product - Airtame 2."

"AUTHOR: ISSIE LAPOWSKY. ISSIE LAPOWSKY DATE OF PUBLICATION: 05.04.15. 05.04.15 TIME OF PUBLICATION: 7:00 AM. 7:00 AM INSIDE THE SCHOOL SILICON VALLEY THINKS WILL SAVE EDUCATION Click to Open Overlay Gallery Students in the youngest class at the Fort Mason AltSchool help their teacher, Jennifer Aguilar, compile a list of what they know and what they want to know about butterflies. CHRISTIE HEMM KLOK/WIRED SO YOU'RE A parent, thinking about sending your 7-year-old to this rogue startup of a school you heard about from your friend's neighbor's sister. It's prospective parent information day, and you make the trek to San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood. You walk up to the second floor of the school, file into a glass-walled conference room overlooking a classroom, and take a seat alongside dozens of other parents who, like you, feel that public schools-with their endless bubble-filled tests, 38-kid classrooms, and antiquated approach to learning-just aren't cutting it. At the same time, you're thinking: this school is kind of weird. On one side of the glass is a cheery little scene, with two teachers leading two different middle school lessons on opposite ends of the room. But on the other side is something altogether unusual: an airy and open office with vaulted ceilings, sunlight streaming onto low-slung couches, and rows of hoodie-wearing employees typing away on their computers while munching on free snacks from the kitchen. And while you can't quite be sure, you think that might be a robot on wheels roaming about. Then there's the guy who's standing at the front of the conference room, the school's founder. Dressed in the San Francisco standard issue t-shirt and jeans, he's unlike any school administrator you've ever met. But the more he talks about how this school uses technology to enhance and individualize education, the more you start to like what he has to say. And so, if you are truly fed up with the school stat

Is change hard? Is change easy? The answer to both of those questions is "yes." If you reflect upon all that is done to "change" schools, you would probably think that policymakers think change is hard - very hard. Think of all the initiatives that are launched every day to change schools: new tests, new curriculum, new evaluation systems, new laws, policies and regulations. When all of these, however, fail to change schools, the people who develop these change initiatives end up thinking that the change initiatives just have to be bigger, stronger and more tightly managed.

Is change hard? Is change easy? The answer to both of those questions is "yes." If you reflect upon all that is done to "change" schools, you would probably think that policymakers think change is hard - very hard. Think of all the initiatives that are launched every day to change schools: new tests, new curriculum, new evaluation systems, new laws, policies and regulations. When all of these, however, fail to change schools, the people who develop these change initiatives end up thinking that the change initiatives just have to be bigger, stronger and more tightly managed.

The Canadian Centre for Child Protection is launching a website targeting texting teens to teach safe use of the popular technology amid growing concerns about young people sending sexual messages and nude photos via text.

Video site Vimeo announced last week the launch of Vimeo Video School, which has both instructions on how to make better videos and a directory of video tutorials. It's available at http://vimeo.com/videoschool.

"Functioning with the quadruped MekaMon robot, Reach EDU will utlise MekaMon's sophisticated locomotion and personality to entertain, inspire and educate students from across the academic spectrum by bringing creative learning and advanced robotics together. Operating alongside the existing MekaMon gaming app, Reach EDU will launch with six guided missions to support the KS2 Computer Science curriculum with plans to formally expand into KS3 and 4 in the next academic year."

The Partnership for Innovative Instruction is a project of the MN Learning Commons. Our goal is to leverage the power of collaboration and digital resources to launch teachers and students into new learning frontiers.

a website to empower teachers to solve their own technology shortfalls by connecting classrooms with their communities using the Internet. A year later, www.digitalwish.org launched with a simple wish list feature and a few technology products. The need for classroom technology was so great that 1,000 teachers posted wishes in the first month. With such high demand, we began the process of turning Digital Wish into an official nonprofit organization.

"At next week's Learning Technologies Exhibition Saffron Interactive (Stand 33) will be demonstrating Saffron Share, a corporate social network, personal portfolio and community knowledge base for collaboration and 'just-in-time' learning. The product is based on the open source Elgg social networking engine. "