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We Give Books is a free website that enables anyone with access to the Internet to put books in the hands of children who don't have them, simply by reading online. Simply choose the charity you want to read for and then select the books you want to read. For each book you read online, we donate a book to a leading literacy group on your behalf. The more you read, the more we give.

The current programme of information and communications technology (ICT) study in England's schools will be scrapped from September, the education secretary has announced. It will be replaced by an "open source" curriculum in computer science and programming designed with the help of universities and industry.

Here you will find the fifteen apps we consider to be simply exceptional for both the quality and contextual use of animation for storytelling in an iPad book app for children. None of the apps to make our list of "Top 10 Animated Books for iPad" in 2011 have been included, so please also check out last year's post. So, without further ado, here are our very favorite recommendations for polished, story-enhancing animation in an iPad storybook app:

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.

"As I lamented in my last post, many of the fabulous Web tools out there are restricted to users 13 and over. This limits what Elementary/Primary schools students can access online to create content to collaborate. To save others at school some time, then, I have compiled a list of popular/well known Web tools that can and can't be used by children under 13 - 1), so we are legally covered in what we are allowing our students to use and 2), so they know what is available. Please note that generally the sites that allow for under 13s still ask for parental permission ( even Edmodo if you haven't read the Terms of Use) so a solid school user agreement is needed to use these tools. Some of the sites are not US based so are not bound by COPPA and CIPA regulations. It still requires schools to carefully check out what can be viewed on these sites to ensure they are appropriate to access."

"A federal government discussion paper has proposed the creation of a children's e-safety commissioner to help protect children from cyber-bullying on social media. However not everyone agrees on the proposal, which opponents say is a slippery slope to government censorship, writes Damien Carrick."

"Australia finally has its first digital technology curriculum which is mandatory for all Australian children from Foundation, the name replacing kindergarten, to Year 8. The Technologies area now has two individual but connected compulsory subjects: Design and Technologies, where students use critical thinking to create innovative solutions for authentic problems Digital Technologies, where students using computational thinking and information systems to implement digital solutions."

"Parents often fear technology. They worry that their children might be exposed to inappropriate pornographic or violent content online, or be negatively influenced or explicitly hurt by a stranger through social media. After hearing news coverage of horrific events, parents also fret that their kids might be bullied or bully someone else using digital tools."

"Welcome to the The Granny Cloud! "Grannies" Skyping with children in India and Colombia! Not only "grannies" of course, but grandpas too! And mums and dads and aunties and uncles and… While we do have many grannies it's the attitude that matters - encouraging, nurturing, praising and offering guidance rather than directing, instructing and examining. In this blog you'll find reports from grannies about how their Skype sessions went - grannies sharing and learning from each other."

"Welcome to educators, parents and carers everywhere. This is the first and best UK directory to locate quality podcasts from over 250 carefully selected podcast channels for educational use - ideal for teaching and learning activities with children, young people and educational professionals."

"Every year, my wife and I devote the month of November to convincing our children that, while they sleep, their plastic dinosaur figures come to life. It began modestly enough. The kids woke up to discover that the dinosaurs had gotten into a box of cereal and made a mess on the kitchen table." See also http://goo.gl/eOO8Q6

"The content hosted on Youtube is pretty diverse. But while diversity is good, not all videos are suitable for all ages, especially for the younger ones. According to a  report published by The Information, the video site is developing a children-friendly version designed specifically for children under ten years old. Google has already started talking to video producers who are interested in creating video content for kids, the report says."

"In this TEDx talk, Gary Stager, curator of dailypapert.com will share a lightning fast introduction to the wit, wisdom, and powerful ideas of Seymour Papert; one of the greatest educators of the past half century. Even if you are unfamiliar with Papert, you will be astonished by his lasting impact on children as programmers, the maker movement, 1:1 computing, game-based learning, education reform, epistemological politics, and a whole lot more."

""Literacy from Scratch" is a response to the United Kingdom (UK) government's initiative to develop computer programming skills in both the Primary phase of education (pupils aged 5 to 11) and the Secondary phase (aged 11 to 18). Explore the website to find out how postgraduate students from London and Prague and schools in the UK and the Czech Republic have risen to this challenge. The site also contains a variety of pupil work using IT in cross-curricular sessions in the UK and other countries, including Stories for Children, and the STAR (Science Through Arts) project."

"This paper aims to provide a framework for the digital literacy of parents based on four sets of skills: (1) privacy, content and technology management; (2) communication and socio-emotional skills: (3) creative and problemsolving skills; (4) life-long learning to keep abreast of digital literacy skills."

Science and Engineering Experiments for Kids is an organisation, based in the University of Cambridge, whose aim is to promote the excitement and fun of science and engineering to children in primary schools Simple scientific concepts and principles are introduced using hands-on experiments based on National Curriculum Key Stage 2 Science and Technology

it may turn out that removing a body that was meant to make it cheaper for schools to get computers, allows them to get a wider variety. And for children preparing for a computer-driven world, it might will be a boon if it can bring a more creative approach to how they use the machines in schools.

"A Tennessee experiment found that some teachers were able to help students learn vastly more than other teachers. The effect largely disappeared by junior high, based on test scores. Yet for the the students in adulthood, it was discovered that the legacy of kindergarten had re-emerged. Students who had learned much more in kindergarten were more likely to go to college than students with otherwise similar backgrounds."

Kindergardten teachers should be proud to read this report.