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123D Sculpt is another 3D iPad app from the Autodesk 123D series (last time I showed you Catch, for making 3D models from photographs ). Sculpt is specifically made for the iPad - and is free for the time being. Sculpting is a natural fit for the iPad touch interface, and the app is an incredibly powerful way to realize your most horrific nightmarish creature designs, or simply as a fun creative exercise.

I have been hearing more and more about BYOD or "bring your own device" on Twitter and in the blogs and educational news sources I read. It seems to be a growing trend in the business world too. Yet, the controversy around this idea seems almost as large as the hype. BYO is not a novel concept for restaurants or even schools when it comes to basic supplies (everyone can remember being asked to bring that box of crayons or later your composition notebook) but apparently devices are a different story.

I have managed to get the Windows powered assessment and reporting software Accelerus that our school uses running on my OSX laptop. Check out the screenshot below. Was a bit tricky but Google was my friend as I tried out a couple of different ideas. The best guide I found was perhaps this one. It does require a knowledge of partitions and terminal commands but it worked a treat fo me. Along the way, I learned heaps and enjoyed the tinkering. I might have some fun and try to get Ubuntu Linux running again on this computer.

If you loved Picnik, PicMonkey is back in town and better than ever. It's faster, more powerful, and easier to use. It's the real deal you already know, plus 78% more monkey.

Alvaro González-Alorda has created a powerful presentation that's a must see for any educator looking to push his or her school / classroom into the future. He talks about what the leaders of today's major schools and companies have to say about what academics will look like in the future. Basically, it's decision time for schools who have been clinging to best practices from the past and not paying enough attention to future trends. In fact, Alvaro lists more than a few trends to be on the lookout for in terms of education technology. The following presentation is on Slideshare and worth spending the next minute of your day on.

Numbers (itunes link) spreadsheet app directly from Apple, is a worthy Microsoft Excel-like competitor for the iPad. It is a powerful tool for teachers who own an iPad, and can be used for assessment, especially during report card season. It is a $9.99 app that is part of Apple's iWork suite which also includes Pages and Keynote.

There are plenty of Google search cheat sheets floating around. But it's not often you get to hear advice directly from someone at Google who offers you his favorite search tools, methods and perspectives to help you find the impossible. Here are some of my favorite tips shared by Russell at the 2012 Investigative Reporters and Editors conference. Some of these techniques are powerful but obscure; others are well-known but not fully understood by everyone.

Educational Technology and Mobile Leaning  has dedicated an entire section to how teachers and educators can leverage the power of this video platform in education, and from to time we would add up to this section to make it more resourceful.

"Google - which first opened registration for the class in June - will offer six different 50-minute courses called "Power Searching with Google" over the next two weeks. Classes can be taken at your own leisure within that time period."

Finding creative solutions to energy issues has become a major priority for Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page in recent years. For the obvious reasons -- a growing population, increasingly scarce resources, and climate change -- he believes that the corporate world needs to operate more sustainably, and he is determined to build the nation's first zero-carbon company. This means a business that ultimately is so energy efficient and uses so much clean power that it emits no greenhouse gas -- a very tall order indeed. Experts aren't sure whether it's even possible for a company to emit no carbon, but Google is trying to come as close to that goal as possible. "As we became a bigger user of energy, we wanted to make sure we were not just part of the problem, but part of the solution," says Urs Hölzle, Google's employee No. 8 and a senior vice president who oversees the company's green initiatives.

"Soundation - a powerful online music studio with recording, effects, virtual instruments and over 600 free loops and sounds."

Based on a simple concept, powerful technology, and a highly intuitive interface, SpicyNodes is easy to author. In a few minutes you can make an interactive site map, or repurpose your existing content into an inviting portal with unique visual appeal. With a few clicks, you can customize your nodemap's appearance and share it with others or embed it into your web site or blog. It's also a fresh way to display information for various creative and educational uses, from concept maps, to poetry and art, to new user interfaces and visualizations.

"Course Builder is our experimental first step in the world of online education. It packages the software and technology we used to build our Power Searching with Google online course. We hope you will use it to create your own online courses, whether they're for 10 students or 100,000 students. You might want to create anything from an entire high school or university offering to a short how-to course on your favorite topic."

"A venture that started in a Bondi flat is helping Microsoft unlock the power of its Kinect gaming gadget so that it could control home automation, read sign language, monitor hospital patients and even enable users to edit movies or play music using just body movements."

A cool tool that allows you to see the power of Wikipedia and how often it is upadated

"What happens when a pirate meets a fox in the woods? You have the power to decide -- meeting new characters, going on great adventures and creating your very own story along the way. My StoryMaker lets you control characters and objects - and creates sentences for you! Once you are done with your story, you can print it out."

"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."

Schools are needing increasing amounts of expensive educational technology at a time when budgets are shrinking. Many have started to explore BYOD policies - Bring Your Own Device - as a practical solution to integrate cost effective technology into their educational programs. With the convergence of widespread broadband and the growth of powerful, platform independent web based tools BYOD has finally arrived as an effective educational alternative to other plans that require expensive purchasing and maintenance. Viewed within a realistic perspective of both its benefits and limitations BYOD can provide a workable solution for the many schools seeking to upgrade their educational technology.

Educators can apply for a free Animoto Plus account for use in the classroom. Its powerful features can be used to create stunning presentations incorporating images, video clips, music and text.

I'm still excited after the first meeting with the students at Melbourne City School back in April. Since I approached the school with an idea for using Augmented Reality (AR) and Games-based Learning they have been warm and welcoming and things have progressed ever so fast.  We had some initial discussions about how Curiosity Lab (ELN) and the students could work on something and they embraced the possibilities, so we just got straight into it. Using ARIS,  the novelty of AR and opportunities to attach rich media in the AR browser, we set produce something powerful that is learner driven, which attracts media attention and captures the hearts and imagination of the public. The fact that Layar is an app designed for mobile devices make it well suited to promoting the idea of recycling mobile phones to help protect and preserve the habitat of the Western Lowlands Gorilla.