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Our goal is to develop and host an open platform for crowd-curated content relevant to K12 STEM education. Our efforts will not only allow us to identify specific and advantageous areas for student work, they will also allow us to create a sense of community around this work, and its effects, among educators and students at every level.

The Boys' Reading Commission has found that boys' underachievement in reading is associated with the interplay of three factors: -  The home and family environment, where girls are more  likely to be bought books and taken to the library, and where  mothers are more likely to support and role model reading; -  The school environment, where teachers may have a limited  knowledge of contemporary and attractive texts for boys  and where boys may not be given the opportunity to develop  their identity as a reader through experiencing reading for  enjoyment; -  Male gender identities which do not value learning and  reading as a mark of success.

"Apple isn't just declaring its independence from Google Maps with its new in-house backend for Maps in iOS 6. It has developed a superior way to deliver map data that relies on resolution independent vectors rather than Google's multiple zoom levels of bit mapped images. "

"The Budd:e Cybersecurity Education package consists of two activity-based learning modules, one for primary school students, and one for secondary school students. Both modules contain engaging, media-rich activities and resources, developed in consultation with teachers and subject matter experts."

via @edgalaxy

Teachers and students can use Gooru to search for rich collections of multimedia resources, digital textbooks, videos, games and quizzes created by educators in the Gooru community. Gooru is free (of cost and ads) and developed by a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to honor the human right to education.

"Wave a Microsoft Kinect sensor around the object you want to inhabit and the new system, developed by Jiawen Chen and his team from Microsoft Research in Cambridge, UK, quickly creates a 3D virtual model of it. Then, by standing in front of the sensor and positioning your body so that it melds with the virtual character on screen, the two are rigged together by uttering the word "Possess". The system performs the transformation by binding the model to you at the points where your joints are attached. Moving your body makes the avatar come to life, allowing you to re-enact Fantasia-like cartoons or to create your own interactive stories. It's also possible to team up with friends to possess more complex bodies, like a four-legged horse."

Teachers and students can use Gooru to search for rich collections of multimedia resources, digital textbooks, videos, games and quizzes created by educators in the Gooru community. Gooru is free (of cost and ads) and developed by a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to honor the human right to education. Search for the best multimedia resources on the web. Customize your favorite resources, collections and quizzes. Study from collections of resources created by teachers. Interact with the Gooru community of teachers and students. Practice with enhanced quizzes that provide instant feedback. Share your knowledge about topics you are passionate about.

"We aim to provide a great experience for our users and have developed over 200 signals to ensure our search algorithms deliver the best possible results. Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site. Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results. This ranking change should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily-whether it's a song previewed on NPR's music website, a TV show on Hulu or new music streamed from Spotify. "

The trend line is very much suggesting that in time every school in the developed world will use some form of 'bring your own technology' (BYOT) school resourcing. It is not a question of if but when your school will make the move. The BYOT 'tsunami' is rapidly coming over the horizon.

Love the idea of a Apps development club

Google has released a completely visual programming language that lets you build software without typing a single character. Now available on Google Code - the company's site for hosting open source software - the new language is called Google Blockly, and it's reminiscent of Scratch, a platform developed at MIT that seeks to turn even young children into programmers. Like Scratch, Blockly lets you build applications by piecing together small graphical objects in much the same way you'd piece together Legos. Each visual object is also a code object - a variable or a counter or an "if-then" statement or the like - and as you piece them to together, you create simple functions. And as you piece the functions together, you create entire applications - say, a game where you guide a tiny figurine through a maze.

Is pitching just a new "sexier" way to make decisions - does it actually achieve educated decision making? What skills are developed in those being pitched too - sounds like the Educational Dragon's Den!

Interesting development and some amazing data must have been captured be good to chat about this.

"Although statistics show that the use of the Internet by adults is high and continues to rise,3 McGrath (2009) suggested that young people use technology in a different way to adults - adult use tends to be for more practical or business purposes, whereas for young people, technology is a vital part of their social life and identity development."

"This chapter will provide an overview of the key technological developments over the past thirty years and will critique their impact on formal and informal learning." by Grainne Conole

"People in the 3-D printing world have talked for years about the possibility of unauthorized copying and sharing of designs-similar to what the file-sharing program Napster allowed for music. Now the first commercial solution to this as-yet theoretical problem is preparing to launch. It was developed by Authentise, a startup based in Mountain View, California."

"Quandary is a free, online game that engages your students in ethical decision-making and develops skills that will help them recognize ethical issues and deal with challenging situations in their own lives. This page brings together all the information you need to successfully implement Quandary as part of your teaching, including a handy teacher guide, classroom implementation video, lesson plan and worksheet. We've also mapped the game to the Common Core standards. And don't forget to head over to the teachers' forum to share your own ideas and discuss tips and techniques from other educators."

"In this episode of the November Learning Podcasts Series, Alan speaks with Dr. Mitch Resnick, Professor of Learning Research and Director of the Scratch Team at MIT. The two discuss why coding is such an important element to bring into the educational process, at all ages, and they exchange their ideas on why global publication through an online community add an important aspect into this online, coding tool. In the end, Dr. Resnick also shares an exciting announcement about upcoming developments."

"The SAMR model was developed by as a framework to integrate technology into the curriculum.  I believe it can also serve as a model to establish and assess if and how technology is being used to reinforce an old, often archaic Education 1.0 or being used to promote and facilitate what many are calling 21st century skills, i.e., creativity, innovation, problem-solving, critical thinking; those skills characteristic of Education 3.0.  Many look at SAMR as the stages of technology integration.  I propose that it should be a model for educators to focus on Modification and Redefinition areas of technology integration.  Why should educators spend their time recreating Education 1.0 using technology at the substitution and augmentation levels when there are tools, techniques, and opportunities to modify and redefine technology integration for a richer, more engaging Education 2.0 or 3.0?"