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James May and his crack team of scientists, mathematicians, comedians react to whatever is in the news, trending online or being discussed at the water cooler. Providing leftfield insights, sideways interpretations, bizarre facts and hilarious animation, this channel is a mix of science, technology, history and current affairs.

".... we still lack a common pedagogical language to chew on. This is where we hope Pedagogy Badges will provide some meat."

Interesting idea?

Teaching for Effective Learning (TfEL) describes the DECD position on pedagogy-the teaching and learning practice that leads to improved student engagement and achievement. Together with the new Australian Curriculum, the TfEL Framework provides the basis for the ongoing development of teaching and learning practices in South Australia.

Our Little Earth is a nice site that provides bi-weekly summaries of the world's biggest news stories. The summaries are written for students. Each edition includes video clips along with the stories. In each edition you'll find stories appropriate for use in social studies, math, and science lessons. You may also find stories about the arts, entertainment, and popular culture. A few "did you know" questions appear in each issue as well. An archive containing every edition going back to 2007 is available too.

"We believe that it might actually be possible to build a ring of balloons, flying around the globe on the stratospheric winds, that provides Internet access to the earth below. It's very early days, but we've built a system that uses balloons, carried by the wind at altitudes twice as high as commercial planes, to beam Internet access to the ground at speeds similar to today's 3G networks or faster. As a result, we hope balloons could become an option for connecting rural, remote, and underserved areas, and for helping with communications after natural disasters. The idea may sound a bit crazy-and that's part of the reason we're calling it Project Loon-but there's solid science behind it. "

"We believe that it might actually be possible to build a ring of balloons, flying around the globe on the stratospheric winds, that provides Internet access to the earth below. It's very early days, but we've built a system that uses balloons, carried by the wind at altitudes twice as high as commercial planes, to beam Internet access to the ground at speeds similar to today's 3G networks or faster. As a result, we hope balloons could become an option for connecting rural, remote, and underserved areas, and for helping with communications after natural disasters. The idea may sound a bit crazy-and that's part of the reason we're calling it Project Loon-but there's solid science behind it. "

"Register below to join us for the first annual  Google in Education Melbourne Summit to be held at the Yarra Valley Grammar School on October 3 and 4, 201. This high intensity two day event focuses on deploying, integrating and using Google Apps for Education to promote student learning in K-12 and higher education. Th e program features Google Certified Teachers, Google Apps for Education Certified Trainers, practicing administrators, solution providers, Google engineers, and representatives from the Google Apps for Education team. "

"Dual-screen apps are a new phenomena, enabled by the advent of wireless technologies that allow for effortless pairing of a PC, tablet or smartphone with a TV. They are changing how people are interacting and "consuming" content within apps. For developers this creates many new opportunities to provide better experiences for their users, but it requires thinking about dual-screen setups from the start as well as new tools. The opportunity for dual-screen apps is huge. And it's more than just watching a video or playing a game: Dual-screen apps have the potential to transform the office meeting room, the classroom, the retail store, the hospital, and really any other context where people are interacting around content and information and where that information would benefit from rendering and display on a large screen such as a TV monitor."

ownCloud gives you universal access to your files through a web interface or WebDAV. It also provides a platform to easily view & sync your contacts, calendars and bookmarks across all your devices and enables basic editing right on the web. Installation has minimal server requirements, doesn't need special permissions and is quick. ownCloud is extendable via a simple but powerful API for applications and plugins.

Cel.ly is primarily a free group texting service. Group texting saves time, improves communication, provides documentation of texts, and sets the stage for easily using many other cell phone tools. The Cells referred to in Cel.ly are instant mobile networks. With Cel.ly, you can have open group chat, one-way alerting, or a hybrid where curators can approve messages

This brand-spanking-new site aims to provide an uncommonly inviting place to teach and be taught. Instructors can upload video on any subject - be it salsa dancing or making glogg - then divvy it into lessons. Unlike YouTube, Curious lets teachers choose to charge for lessons, features an oversized playback window and generally feels friendly and constructive. There are no creepy comments from anonymous YouTubers here, and the site's proprietors currently approve teachers and eyeball content to ensure that these online classes are, well, classy.

Teacher Dashboard gives you a bird's-eye view of class activity across Docs, Sites, Blogger, Picasa & Gmail, and greatly simplifies setup and maintenance of your class Google Apps environment. Get birds-eye view of student activity across Apps Automate setup & maintenance of your domain Provide full visibility to student materials

"The iPad Project at York St John University aims to provide opportunities for staff to be innovative and to increase student engagement in the classroom. It will focus on exploring the benefits of using iPads in group work and collaborative learning activities."

Wow what a great chrome extension. This looks like a great tool for all writers. I especially like the 'collect highlights' tool. Make sure you watch the accompanying video to see how it works.  Read&Write for Google Docs is a cool extension I found on Web App Reviews that can benefit ELLs and struggling readers. The extension provides you with a special toolbar on the top of your Google documents.

Many campuses have decided to outsource email and other services to "cloud" providers. Berkeley has joined in by migrating student and faculty to bMail, operated by Google. In doing so, it has raised some anxiety about privacy and autonomy in communications. In this post, I outline some advantages of our outsourcing to Google, some disadvantages, and how we might improve upon our IT outsourcing strategy, especially for sensitive or especially valuable materials.

"One of the best services Google+  provides to its users is called " communities ". Any Google Plus user can easily create and host his/her community on the cloud and in a matter of few clicks.For us in education  we can use this service to create a community for our class. In this virtual space, you will get to share with your students resources, links, and also get them to participate and contribute in it. You can also create class events with dates, location, and more details and share them with your students and their parents as well. Needless to say that you can use Google Hangout right from your community to hold video conferences with your students."

"The Royal Children's Hospital provides a unique environment for student learning. The Education Institute has started the new year with a fantastic program of project-based learning to engage students in meaningful learning experiences with real world relevance."

"THE federal government's scheme providing high school students with laptop computers is on the brink of collapse, leaving parents with hefty bills and educators with a chaotic start to the school year. Schools are already telling parents they must lease approved laptops for pupils this year, at a cost of hundreds of dollars. Some are telling students to bring their own computers, raising a raft of problems around internet capacity, security and provision of software, as well as placing pressure on low-income families."

Abstract This article defi nes Twitter TM ; outlines the features, affordances, and common uses; and conceptualizes "tweeting" as a literacy practice, comprising  both traditional and new literacies, and impacting both informal and formal  learning settings. Also provided is an overview of traditional and new literacies, and insights from a scan of the research literature to date on tweeting as  a literacy practice. The authors outline areas for inquiry and the challenges  to conducting such research. 

CrowdSpot is a practical and inclusive web-based tool designed to complement the planning process for public space improvements. CrowdSpot is also great for research and knowledge sharing projects. Let's say a Council is interested in finding out which of 10 possible bicycle infrastructure projects the public values most. CrowdSpot is able to highlight a map of the municipality, with the projects identified. Members of the public simply vote on the project/s they value most. The CrowdSpot team provide a detailed analysis of the data, including visualisations, to assist Council make the best decision possible.