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"Design Your Own Mobile App in Minutes: as simple as 1-2-3!"

High school, middle school and even elementary school students in a growing number of districts are being encouraged to bring in the very electronic equipment they were once admonished to leave at home. "There was a certain inevitability, as these devices became more common and cheaper, that at some point kids would be bringing them to school," explains Tim Wilson, chief technology officer for the ISD 279-Osseo Area Schools in Minnesota. "If something's coming, we might as well invite it in and learn to manage it." To hear Wilson and other tech directors tell it, these devices are more than welcome. Wilson's BYOD program is called Copernicus, after the astronomer who proved that the sun was at the center of the solar system. "This is our attempt to put students at the center of our technology integration," he says.

"CodingBat is a free site of live coding problems to build coding skill in Java, and now in Python (example problem), created by Nick Parlante who is computer science lecturer at Stanford. The coding problems give immediate feedback, so it's an opportunity to practice and solidify understanding of the concepts. The problems could be used as homework, or for self-study practice, or in a lab, or as live lecture examples."

As this summer approaches, I've been contacted by additional instructors wanting to use "Playing with Media" as a course text. To facilitate student downloading of the iPad eBook version, I created a six minute narrated slideshow and screencast explaining these download and installation steps.

"How to integrate less distracting YouTube videos into the classroom:  This one is really a no brainer: want to use YouTube? Clean it up!  I find great content I find on YouTube (as do my students). All of the "extras" around the videos can be SO distracting as a searcher and viewer.  These options are outstanding for making videos less distracting so that your students can focus on the learning happening."

In some ways, the flipped model is an improvement. Research shows that tailored tutoring is more effective than lectures for understanding, mastery, and retention. But the flipped classroom doesn't come close to preparing students for the challenges of today's world and workforce. As progressive educational activist Alfie Kohn notes, great teaching isn't just about content but motivation and empowerment: Real learning gives you the mental habits, practice, and confidence to know that, in a crisis, you can count on yourself to learn something new. That's crucial in a world where, according to the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, adults change careers (not just jobs) four to six times or where, as an Australian study predicts, 65% of today's teens will end up in careers that haven't even been invented yet. We don't need to flip the classroom. We need to make it do cartwheels.

"Leap represents an entirely new way to interact with your computers. It's more accurate than a mouse, as reliable as a keyboard and more sensitive than a touchscreen. For the first time, you can control a computer in three dimensions with your natural hand and finger movements."

"After a spectacular launch and a long cruise through the black reaches of space, the Mars Science Laboratory-better known as the Curiosity rover-is set for the most dangerous part of its mission: the landing in Gale Crater. ... Use this page as a quick guide to the event."

"After a spectacular launch and a long cruise through the black reaches of space, the Mars Science Laboratory-better known as the Curiosity rover-is set for the most dangerous part of its mission: the landing in Gale Crater. Curiosity is the biggest rover ever sent to Mars, and carries the most advanced suite of instruments, in order to discover the story of the planet's habitability. Use this page as a quick guide to the event."

As our students grow dependant on Internet being a primary source for their  information, it becomes of urgent necessity that we, as teachers and educators, should know how to evaluate web content and decipher credible resources from spam and irrelevant ones. Regrettably enough, some of the teachers who are using technology in their instruction still don't come to grips with  the mechanisms used to sift through internet content. There is a crude analogy to this situation . A teacher who does not evaluate the web content he shares with his students is like a person driving a car without having a driver license, he can still drive his car  but he does not know the real dangers he is putting himself to in doing so.

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.

"Vannevar Bush foreshadowed the impact that such technology would have on our contemporary lives. By doing so, Bush inspired critical aspects of current online tools, including the hyperlink and the World Wide Web. Bush's vision directly influenced researchers to create digital technology we nowadays consider commonplace. Today's equivalent of Bush's breakthrough is just as radical, except it's far beyond the conceptual stage and is already in extensive development. This technology is termed "Augmented Reality" (AR). AR has the potential to act as a harbinger of future hi-tech transformations whilst irrevocably altering the basic nature of everyday life."

"It can help to start out by asking yourself some important questions, such as "What can the iPad do that is not possible without it? Put another way, what problems does the iPad solve?" But the learning environment you're starting with can make a big difference as well. It's one thing to come up with individual lesson plans high on the wiz-bang factor, but low in terms of sustainability. Below are 4 distinct areas of instruction and instructional design that can help frame the concept of iPad integration. Curriculum, Instruction, Assessment, and Integration."

"You may know what a VPN, or Virtual Private Network, is; you probably don't use one. You really should be using a VPN, and even if you don't think so now, at some point in the future you may consider it as important as your internet connection. When we took at look at your five favorite VPN service providers, we noticed a few things. First, being the "best" is big business for VPN providers, and they'll fight dirty to be one of them. Second, there are so many VPN providers that it's difficult to choose a really good one. VPNs are not all created equally, and in this post, we're going to look at what a VPN is, why you want one, and how to pick the best one for you. Let's get started."

"Designed and produced by the World Wide Web Foundation, the Web Index is the world's first multi-dimensional measure of the Web's growth, utility and impact on people and nations. It covers 61 developed and developing countries, incorporating indicators that assess the political, economic and social impact of the Web, as well as indicators of Web connectivity and infrastructure."

"Tablets have quickly emerged as a distinct third digital screen in consumers lives that fill the gap between desktops and smartphones. But there are still many open questions about exactly how consumers are using them. We explored tablet search trends earlier this year, but wanted to dig deeper and answer key questions such as: What are the contrasts between tablet use, laptop use, and smartphone use and how are consumers engaging across these devices? What are the most common activities (playing games, searching, reading, etc.) that tablets are used for? What ads are most relevant and useful based on how people are using the devices? "

"Siri is still in relative infancy as a program, but as the technology develops, it will be interesting to see how it's applied in other situations outside of finding basic information, locating a Starbucks, or updating a calendar. One area where Siri's capabilities could be extraordinarily useful is in education, and many are already theorizing about the myriad different ways that Siri could be used to change how we teach, learn, and view it. Here we've collected a few of these ideas about how Siri could make the leap from a simple search tool to a powerful learning and education assistant. While they may not all come to pass, it's certainly fun to think about a world where interaction with technology for education could be so seamless, accessible, and maybe even fun."

Feb29th.net is a global blogging project that will cross all age groups and continents. As soon as Feb 29th 2012 begins in Tonga, the Feb29th.net will open up for posts for one day only.

"On Wednesday, February 8th, Wolfram Alpha will be adding a new, "Pro" option to its already existing services. Priced at a very reasonable $4.99 a month ($2.99 for students), the new services includes the ability to use images, files, and even your own data as inputs instead of simple text entry. The "reports" that Wolfram Alpha kicks out as a result of these (or any) query are also beefed up for Pro users, some will actually become interactive charts and all of them can be more easily exported in a variety of formats. We sat down with Stephen Wolfram himself to get a tour of the new features and to discuss what they mean for his goal of "making the world's knowledge computable.""

Here at IET in the OU, a bunch of us, led by Mike Sharples, were asked to produce an annual report on how changes in teaching and learning (related to technology) were changing the current landscape. ... Think of it as like a Horizon's report with more focus on pedagogy. We adopted the same methodology as the Horizon report also.