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"This is an online course to help you understand better how to use technology to enhance your teaching practice. The course is aimed primarily at people teaching at Higher Education level, whether in Higher Education Institutions or Further Education Colleges."

Remote labs enrich science and engineering education by vastly increasing the scope of experiments that students have access to in the course of their academic careers. As partners, the Center for Educational Computing Initiatives at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Northwestern University's Office of STEM Education Partnerships offer the following through The iLAB Network:

The fact that this information revolution has radically transfomed education is no novel news to teachers and educators. The use of technology in education has become pervasive and the more we continue to invest in this field the better our instrction become. Some interesting tools here I like to look of thee rings and lore. 

"The internet is awash with exciting and innovative tools, and your students have grown up immersed in this world - get in on the act. The digital revolution has given us instant communication and easy global connectedness, with mobile technology in particular growing at warp speed: in 2013, there are almost as many mobile phone contracts as there are people in the world. This digital transformation has produced some extraordinary online tools for flexible education, which enhance students' learning and promise innovative pedagogy for teachers. However, they can also be daunting and challenging for educators. It is clear that teachers cannot ignore these tools, which go far beyond just Facebook and Twitter. Educators are now dealing with Generation Z - students born after 1995 who have hardly known a world without social media and have always lived a life measured in bits and bytes. Most have access to iPads and smartphones as well as textbooks and, therefore, the massive resource of the internet."

"The battle for supremacy in the K-12 whiteboard market is heating up. Companies are scrambling for new sources of revenue, making strategic moves to reinvent their products in the age of tablet computing, and sizing up their competitors to see what they can do to differentiate themselves from the pack. Who ultimately ends up on top has huge implications for educational technology leaders, who must determine which company is the best fit for their needs, and at a cost their districts can afford in still-difficult budget times. Complicating those decisions are changes in the technological landscape that are raising questions about the long-term educational relevance of interactive whiteboards. Do classrooms really need them in the age of iPads?"

The world of education is often defined by the "haves" and "have nots." It is this separation that ultimately drives decisions when it comes to educational technology. Why should students in less affluent districts not be afforded the same opportunities as those with large budgets to utilize technology to create, collaborate, connect, communicate and develop essential media literacies? A BYOT initiative makes sense, as we can leverage a variety of devices that many students already possess. It is how we utilize these student-owned devices in schools that is the key to a successful BYOT initiative.

"The rules and frontiers of our classrooms are changing with the disruptive technologies now being embraced by our society and integrated into our schools. In some ways, we are still playing catch-up with these technological and social changes. I am redefining my role as an educator in his new education landscape."

A short video that I made whilst on holiday about changing borders in our classrooms. Thought that you may be interested.

"Generation YES is a non-profit 501 (c)(3) with a mission to empower students and teachers to use technology to improve education in their own school. Our school-friendly online tools and innovative project-based curriculum build a learning community where students work alongside their teachers as technology leaders, collaborators and mentors. 15 years of research experience and proven scientific results show that when schools trust and collaborate with their students to integrate technology, academic success follows."

"According to Andreas Schleicher, there is no evidence from the PISA data yet of a consistent relationship between the use of education technology and superior student performance.  That, however, certainly does not mean that no such relationship will exist in the future, just that it hasn't happened yet, at least not at the scale required to show up in the PISA surveys. "

iPads. Interactive Whiteboards. Netbooks. Video games. Although educational technologies are being implemented more and more in classrooms across the country, we don't often stop and ask students - or their parents - what they think their technology needs are. But the newly-released Speak Up 2010 survey has done just that.

"2010 was the year the cloud's impact became clear, permanent and more far-reaching than this slow-thinker had previously realized. Few things we did in my school district have not been in some way cloud-related - and those projects on the horizon look to be as well. My own personal technology use for both work and leisure has changed significantly this year due to ubiquitous cloud access and the devices meant to take advantage of it."

Interesting to consider some of the 2011 trends identified in this blog entry.

eLearning Programs is a Department of Education  curriculum service which offers schools a variety of online K-10 courses and programs which can complement, augment or extend local provision and provide students with access to educational experiences and opportunities that would otherwise be unavailable.  It includes options for students identified as highly able or gifted (CELO Online), and some online VET courses for students in years 11-12.  The courses students undertake are usually delivered by  an online delivery teacher with the support and supervision of the students' own school. eLearning programs vary in length and nature; for example some are full year subjects while others are term by term opportunities.

"In order to get impact with technology in the classroom, for me it's really quite simple and involves three easy to remember elements; technology for learning shouldn't be about bells and whistles, it's about what works"

"Google Drive is one of the fundamental tools in our digital toolkits as teachers and educators. Whether you want to compose a document, create a presentation,  design a sheet, or share a beautiful drawing you made, Google Drive provides you with the tools to do that on any device and anywhere you are with an internet connection . Given this huge importance of Google Drive for teachers, I have created an entire section here packed full of tips, tricks, ideas, and third party tools to enable you to better tap into the full educational potential of this platform."

"The global shift in education technology means that in the future the ten billion dollars once spent by schools mostly on PCs will be divided between tablets, Chromebooks and netbooks. But will the lion's share of the market go to Apple? Or Google? Or some other player? Or will it be evenly divided? Although Apple's iPad is currently the mobile device of choice, the majority of the market is still up for grabs, and there are some compelling reasons why educators recently have begun to choose Chromebooks over iPads, Netbooks and PCs."

"Education scientist Sugata Mitra tackles one of the greatest problems of education -- the best teachers and schools don't exist where they're needed most. In a series of real-life experiments from New Delhi to South Africa to Italy, he gave kids self-supervised access to the web and saw results that could revolutionize how we think about teaching."

Sugata Mitra's "Hole in the Wall" experiments examine what students can self learn with computer technology.

Fifty Two Secrets Students Should Know about Google Docs

"A list of the top 50 K-12 ed tech blogs special, putting a spotlight to some of the biggest conversation starters in educational technology today. These bloggers represent nearly all aspects of K-12 education, from teachers and administrators, to strategists and technicians. Through their influential work and their blogs, these thought-leaders have garnered . Some were nominated by our readers, and some are veterans of last year's list that have stayed on top of our charts."