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"Ever needed custom formatted sample / test data, like, bad? Well, that's the idea of the Data Generator. It's a free, open source script written in JavaScript, PHP and MySQL that lets you quickly generate large volumes of custom data in a variety of formats for use in testing software, populating databases, and scoring with girls."

"The educational thought experiment I wish to undertake concerns curriculum. Not the specific content of curriculum, but the idea of curriculum, what any curriculum is, regardless of subject. Like Copernicus, I propose that for the sake of better results we need to turn conventional wisdom on it is head:  let's see what results if we think of action, not knowledge, as the essence of an education; let's see what results from thinking of future ability, not knowledge of the past, as the core; let's see what follows, therefore, from thinking of content knowledge as neither the aim of curriculum nor the key building blocks of it but as the offshoot of learning to do things now and for the future."

"Unlike similar tools, such as Skype and Go-To-Webinar that require a bunch of steps to get started, Google+ Hangouts is already part of our online social ecosystem. With little more than a Google account and a web cam, you can start a Hangout from within Gmail, Google+, or on your mobile device using the Google+ app.  Additionally, its purpose is to facilitate conversation among participants, rather than serve as merely a presentation platform. Oh, and it's free. If you're trying to determine if Google+ Hangouts can meet your own professional development needs, below are a few things to know based on Pacansky-Brock's experience."

Student blogging is not a project, but a process. We are continuously striving to refine, improve and re-evaluate. As I am meeting with teachers individually, I can't stress enough the importance of READING other blogs (professional, student, blogs about your hobby, blogs about other interests you have etc.). I am trying to filter and funnel quality blogs in education, their grade level and  areas of interest to them as I come across them, so they can build a quality RSS Reader. BUT.. we need their help in having a basic understanding of blogs, its pedagogical uses, as a platform of a new writing genre (digital writing) and how our blogfolios fit into your curriculum and the BIG PICTURE of LEARNING. The blogfolios are not a platform to use only for a particular subject, but should give evidence of learning for each student.

"I've just been browsing a report recently published by Ofcom titled "Children and parents: Media use and attitudes report." [PDF]. Much of my work in schools and with teachers involves discussions about the sorts of skills and dispositions young people need to be considered 'literate' in an increasingly digital world. The research carried out by Ofcom reveals some useful data to help inform how schools think about a response, including…"

"..what about when students need some advice in figuring out proper social media usage in general? This useful infographic from Online Degrees is jam-packed with insight and tips on when to (and when not to) use social media"

"..... it's becoming clear that relying on Twitter for news is making me, well, an uninformed idiot. It's gotten extreme enough, that I've considered resubscribing to a print daily paper to make sure I'm forcibly injecting a diet of un-Sarah-Lacy-curated news into my life. That's certainly a ramification of Twitter I never considered a few years ago: An actual yearning for East Coast media elite gatekeepers telling me what I need to know."

"Would any of my students turn down a 1:1 MacBook Pro? Of course not. Still, I believe there is great value in the limitations of resources. When we engage in Device Wars on twitter and the blogosphere, we all seem to exercise significant bias in equating the best classroom tool with the one that we find most productive in our personal or professional lives (I touched upon that in disagreeing with folks who contend that the iPad is not a creation tool). Do I have a vision of what technology I'd like in my class in the perfect scenario? Sure I do. Do my students and I really need that state of shiny utopia, especially when it is (in my view) impossible to achieve in an equitable fashion? I don't think so."

"Design Thinking is a great skill for students to acquire as part of their education.  But it is one process like the problem-solving model or the scientific method.   As a step-by-step process, it becomes type of box.  Sometimes we need to go beyond that box; step outside of the box.  This post provides an overview of design thinking, the problems with design thinking, and suggestions to hacking the world to go beyond design thinking."

"Go live from your laptop Live broadcasts are only a few clicks away. Stream your hangout publicly on Google+, your YouTube channel, and your website. Save instantly to YouTube You don't need special software to record your conversation. Every Hangout On Air is automatically saved to your YouTube account. Share to the world Once your hangout is over, it's easy to keep the conversation going. Your hangout video will be available on Google+ and on your YouTube channel."

"Google Reader, one of the world's most popular RSS readers, is shutting down on July 1, 2013, Google announced Wednesday. The search giant is pulling the plug on the 7-year old project citing "declining usage." Google says it is shuttering Reader and deprecating or shutting down a number of other services as part of the company's "spring cleaning" initiative - one that seeks to help the company focus on the features that need the most use."

"...a clear categorization of the learning theories you need to know as a teacher and educator."

"The participatory research methods used in the project can provide rich contextual understanding of the everyday, everywhere presence of mobile technologies in young lives needed to devise effective strategies for dealing with mobile or smart phone use in and out of the classroom and supports efforts to give young people a greater voice in the decisions affecting their engagements mobile technologies."

Need to add a calculator into your book, or a insert a Vimeo or YouTube video? Add interactive elements to your books with Bookry's ever expanding catalogue of book widgets, that are already being used by educators and students around the world. Simply login to Bookry to create your widgets online, then download the widget files to your Mac and drag & drop it into your iBooks Author file - easy!

"Don't feel overwhelmed by passwords, or simply use the same one on every site just so you'll remember them: design your own password management strategy. MakeUseOf's Password Management Guide, from author Mohammed Al-Marhoon, outlines tips and tricks you need to know to stay both secure and sane."

Do you work in design, or any field where you need to download fonts for use on your project? If so, you know that finding top quality fonts is often easier said than done. Plenty of websites offer free fonts, but many of them are filled with ads, and a lot of the fonts are just not of the best quality. That's where the website FontPro comes into play. It offers a clean interface, and all the free fonts you could ever want to download

"As cloud computing services become ever more popular, you might begin to wonder how much you can really trust them to perform when you need them? I decided to find out - by testing the top file-transfer/file-storage/file-backup services."

"Ever needed custom formatted sample / test data, like, bad? Well, that's the idea of this script. It's a free, open source tool written in JavaScript, PHP and MySQL that lets you quickly generate large volumes of custom data in a variety of formats for use in testing software, populating databases, and... so on and so forth."

"STEMbite was created by Andrew Vanden Heuvel, mostly because he needed something to do with his Google Glass. Andrew loves trying to do interesting and cool things related to science, technology, and learning. Check out what else he's been up to by visiting http://agl-initiatives.org/"

"Schoolchildren are at risk of having their online activity tracked and monitored for targeted advertising by internet firms through free cloud based education services. A survey has found that many parents do not know about data mining - the process of tracking email and web browsing habits in order to target advertising - but once they do they have grave concerns for their kids' online privacy, and believe schools need to do more to protect it. The survey commissioned by American IT industry group SafeGov asked 1000 Australian parents about their knowledge of data mining."