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The NMC Horizon EdTech Weekly App delivers curated, relevant, and timely edtech projects and news to your iPad or iPhone every weekend. It also includes the entire NMC Horizon Report series on emerging technology across various learning sectors, and a rich, searchable, re-mixable database of educational technology and innovation resources. Whether you are in higher education, K-12, or the museum world, the NMC Horizon EdTech Weekly App delivers the best of the NMC Horizon Project.

"Google launched an open source course building web application for the growing list of K-12 and big-name universities developing online classes. The barebones website is a lightweight way to bring course material online, track student engagement (with web traffic and surveys), and evaluate performance. "We want to use this launch to show that Google believes it can contribute to technology in education," says Google's Director of Research, Peter Norvig."

"Apple's new Device Enrollment Program (DEP) is a significant new enterprise initiative that removes one of the biggest, if not the biggest, roadblocks to iOS device deployments within businesses or schools: The need to touch each device to ensure that it is fully managed and locked down. The Device Enrollment Program was announced yesterday along with a slew of new IT-focused documentation and tweaks to managing Apple IDs for K-12 students and Apple's app volume purchase/licensing program. It offers the ability to configure iOS devices as supervised without using Apple Configurator, allowing for over-the-air management with these evice management capabilities. As such, this can be considered one of the most groundbreaking iOS management additions since Apple introduced MDM support nearly four years ago."

"Common Sense Media's K-12 Digital Literacy and Citizenship Curriculum is now available in the iBooks Store. Download our interactive, multimedia Teacher Editions and Student Workbooks today!"

"First launched in 2006, the Infinite Thinking Machine (ITM) is a high-energy Internet TV show directly targeted at K-12 educators, parents and students. Our goal is to inspire creativity and innovation in education."

"A wiki approach to developing joint guidance to support the Computing Curriculum" ... but useful guidance for anyone delivering Computing with their K-12 students.

"The Buck Institute for Education commissioned the cutting-edge advertising agency, Common Craft, to create a short animated video that explains in clear language the essential elements of Project Based Learning (PBL). This simple video makes the essential elements of PBL come alive and brings to light the 21st Century skills and competencies (collaboration, communication, critical thinking) that will enable K-12 students to be college and work-ready as well as effective members of their communities."

Interesting article commenting on the results of the annual "PBS Digitally Inclined" report indicating '76 percent of K-12 educators said they use digital media in the classroom, up from 69 percent in 2008. Of those teachers, 80 percent are frequent or regular users'. This type of data is of value to teacher librarians when reviewing their role within schools. If you don't have a focus on multimedia, here is proof that it's time to have a closer look.

The post discusses five reasons why teachers should consider purchasing robotics for the K-12 classroom.

"Meridian is an electronic journal dedicated to research and practice of Information and Communication Technology in Kindergarten through 12th grade. Meridian features research findings, practitioner articles, commentary, and book excerpts by educational researchers, technology designers, classroom teachers, and authors who wish to share and expand teaching and learning experiences with computer technologies in K-12 classrooms and beyond."

"K12 Online Conference 2010 Schedule - All times are GMT. Direct links to presentations will be added as the presentations are published each day at 12:00 pm GMT. Presentations links will also be published to Twitter, Facebook and our conference video podcast channel and audio podcast channels."

My session is on last, phew ... that gives me time to prepare. :-)

"How do these teachers find and then evaluate the games that they use? The most common way of learning about any educational tools is from peers. While face to face networks are limited by the number of interactions with people in one's grade, school, or conferences, online professional learning networks have become invaluable."

Check out the Upside Down Blooms info

The American Federation of Teachers' new online community Share My Lesson offers teachers free access to the resources and knowledge of their peers across the country. Featured are nearly 260,000 teaching resources, a monthly resource calendar, free games and activities mapped to the Common Core and discussion forums. Teaching resources are divided by grade, subject and rating and include activities, puzzles, games, lesson plans, posters, assessments and more. 

"Today's education system is evolving to take full advantage of the potential of mobile technology devices to inspire learning and create independent, critical thinkers. However, with tight budgets, many schools are hoping to bring technology into the classroom without the costly burden of purchasing a device for each student. One potential solution that is being explored is BYOD, or Bring Your Own Device. This allows students to bring their personal laptops, tablets, and smartphones from home and use them for educational applications in the classroom. At a time when budgets are shrinking, school districts are considering BYOD programs to integrate cost-effective technology into their educational programs. It's a promising idea, especially for schools that lack sufficient technology budgets. BYOD takes advantage of the technology that students already own and are familiar with. However, BYOD programs have been met with some criticism from staff and administrators who believe the challenges outweigh the perceived benefits. Continue reading..."

The project focuses on disseminating information, resources, and tools designed to enhance the use of an instructional decision-making model in the areas of reading, mathematics, and behavior. Web site resources address steps of RtI implementation, from conducting a campus needs assessment, developing an action plan, promoting teacher collaboration, designing differentiated intervention, to answering parents' questions.