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"Michael Fraser calls it the ''rubbish web''. That is the internet we will be left with in five to 10 years unless governments and cyber corporations fix the holes that allow criminals to infiltrate the world wide web and strip global citizens of their identity, money and dignity, he believes. In his bleak view, those who can afford it will retreat behind private corporatised security walls."

"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."

Bookboon is a free service offering free full-length textbooks, travel guides, and business books in digital form. The textbook section of Bookboon offers more than 500 digital textbooks. On Bookboon there are etextbooks available for twenty-five subjects, but the bulk of the etextbooks are focused on Economics, Engineering, and IT.

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism examined 15 months' worth of the most popular news videos on the site (January 2011 to March 2012)[2]-some 260 different videos in all-by identifying and tracking the five most-viewed videos each week located in the "news & politics" channel of YouTube, analyzing the nature of the video, the topics that were viewed most often, who produced them and who posted them.[3]    The data reveal that a complex, symbiotic relationship has developed between citizens and news organizations on YouTube, a relationship that comes close to the continuous journalistic "dialogue" many observers predicted would become the new journalism online. Citizens are creating their own videos about news and posting them. They are also actively sharing news videos produced by journalism professionals. And news organizations are taking advantage of citizen content and incorporating it into their journalism. Consumers, in turn, seem to be embracing the interplay in what they watch and share, creating a new kind of television news.

Skylines, a photo search engine based in Amsterdam, launched a new product today, a widget that users can customize to show a real-time feed of photos on their website. Through Skylines's widget, users have access to more than five million photos being added daily from various platforms including Twitter, TwitPic, Instagram, Yfrog and Lockerz. The widget, which can be added to any website or online publication for free, displays real-time photos on any topic of choice

Last week, Ben Grey asked me, "In 5 tweets or less, can you share your vision for computing in education?" via Twitter. I'm not sure if anyone else was asked or the motivation behind the question, but I quickly rattled off the following five tweets. I could have accomplished the goal in fewer tweets, but a good tweet is a terrible thing to waste.

"Five years ago every computer in an Australian school ran Microsoft software. But search giant Google is now looking to corner the $2.5 billion market for technology in Australian schools and universities with cheap software and laptops. Thousands of Chromebooks, laptops manufactured by vendors Samsung and HP that come with Google's Chrome web browser and software, have been deployed into primary and secondary schools as technology administrators look for cheap alternatives to replace aging computers handed out under the Rudd Government's $2.4 billion Digital Education Revolution."

The Learning Record provides an architecture and process for documenting student progress and achievement, based on interviews, observations over time, samples of students' naturally-occurring work, and well-supported interpretations of learning across five dimensions.

"This summer was a relatively slow time for Google Apps updates, especially compared to all the changes centered around I/O '13. But for those of you who were away for the summer (or maybe you just needed a break from technology), you missed a few important updates to Gmail and Google Drive. Here's a recap of our five favorite updates you may have missed over the summer in animated gifs."

"The striking new design of iOS7 features a flatter, more colorful appearance and has garnered a lot of attention for its looks, but the improvements are more than pixel deep. Here are the five changes in iOS7 that will make the most difference to educators:"

"Our information environment is constantly changing. How will we access, use and benefit from information in an increasingly hyper-connected world? The IFLA Trend Report identifies five top level trends which will play a key role in shaping our future information ecosystem:"

"Nearly two in five children have used a tablet or smartphone before they could speak in full sentences, according to a new report. Conducted by family advocacy organization Common Sense Media, the study found that 38% of children under the age of 2 have used a mobile device for playing games, watching videos or other media-related purposes. In 2011, only 10% had."

"Five decades of Met publications on art history, available to read, download and/or search for free"

via @rmbyrne

"According to a recent survey of people in 65 countries, 73.4% of people own a smartphone. Those with smartphones check them an average of 110 times per day, which amounts to every five or six minutes spread out over a twelve hour period. Another study found a slightly higher frequency - 150 times per day. That's a lot of people with instant, constant access to email, social networking, and text messaging. Not all of them will suffer all or most of these negative effects, but the draw of checking  your phone "just one more time real quick" is obviously difficult to resist. Heck, most people don't even try to resist it, because staying connected and apprised of everything everywhere can only be a good thing, right? Let's take a look at some of the possible consequences:"

PISA, the OECD's triennial international assessment of 15 year olds in math, reading, and science, has become one of the most destructive forces in education today. It creates illusory models of excellence, romanticizes misery, glorifies educational authoritarianism, and most serious, directs the world's attention to the past instead of pointing to the future. In the coming weeks, I will publish five blog posts detailing each of my "charges," adapted from parts of my book Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon: Why China has the Best (and Worst) Education.

Mutt Susan from Digital Divide and Conquer has created a great rubric to assist students in understanding and analyzing the apps they find. The Student App Review Rubric has five criteria that students can use when assessing an app. Each of the criteria can be given a numerical number from 0 to 4 with 4 as the top grade. The 5 criteria are: 1. Looks and sound, 2. Engagement and motivation. 3. User friendly directions and instructions. 4. Performance and ease of use. 5. Differentiation in learning.

Another useful post from Richard Byrne with some good ideas about using PicCollage with students. With the app you can arrange pictures, video, text, and stickers into collages very easily. "From the app you can share your collage to Google Drive, Instagram, Facebook, Dropbox, and many other file sharing services" He has also included a video where he demonstrates how to use the tool without creating a PicCollage account. It is a free tool and available as an Android or iPad app.

"Five free services that you can use to add an audio message to your blog or website."

Recently I began to buy eBooks for the Kindle application on my iPad. While I still love paper books, the digital wiles of eBooks are looking increasingly attractive to me. Below are five eBook features that may tempt you to buy electronic books too.

Digital storytelling resources