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Smartphones and tablet computers are radically transforming how we access our shared knowledge sources by keeping us constantly connected to near-infinite volumes of raw data and information. We enjoy unprecedented instant access to expertise, from informal cooking lessons on YouTube to online university courses. Every day people around the globe are absorbed in exciting new forms of learning, and yet traditional schools and university systems are still struggling to leverage the many opportunities for innovation in this area.

As our students grow dependant on Internet being a primary source for their  information, it becomes of urgent necessity that we, as teachers and educators, should know how to evaluate web content and decipher credible resources from spam and irrelevant ones. Regrettably enough, some of the teachers who are using technology in their instruction still don't come to grips with  the mechanisms used to sift through internet content. There is a crude analogy to this situation . A teacher who does not evaluate the web content he shares with his students is like a person driving a car without having a driver license, he can still drive his car  but he does not know the real dangers he is putting himself to in doing so.

"Google launched an open source course building web application for the growing list of K-12 and big-name universities developing online classes. The barebones website is a lightweight way to bring course material online, track student engagement (with web traffic and surveys), and evaluate performance. "We want to use this launch to show that Google believes it can contribute to technology in education," says Google's Director of Research, Peter Norvig."

"Make quality audio and vocal recordings anywhere on your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad iRig Mic is the first handheld, quality condenser microphone for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad designed for all of your mobile sound needs. Now you can make professional audio and vocal recordings anywhere on your iOS device. iRig Mic is ideal for the singer, vocalist and songwriter on the move, but also perfect for recording speeches, instruments, performances or other sound sources in the studio, on stage or in the field. "

"This video attempts to bring awareness to some of the implications in sourcing materials online without considering the copyright on the material. If we can transform teachers practice so that they use Creative Commons materials exclusively, we can legally share much more of our teaching and learning content!"

Tracker is a free video analysis and modeling tool built on the Open Source Physics (OSP) Java framework. It is designed to be used in physics education.

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.

A SaaS hosted service for organizations. Not free because they have consulting fees, I think. May develop a free solution later. Open source badges are cool new buzz topic. Love the colorful web design of this site.

"There is one iOS "tip" that I keep hearing and it is wrong. Worse, I keep hearing it from supposedly authoritative sources. I have even heard it from the lips of Apple "Geniuses" in stores. Here is the advice - and remember it is wrong: All those apps in the multitasking bar on your iOS device are currently active and slowing it down, filling the device's memory or using up your battery. To maximise performance and battery life, you should kill them all manually. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. There are caveats to this but anyone dispensing the advice above is clearly uninformed enough that they will certainly not be aware of these subtleties."

"Google understands the importance of finding the right information at the right time. We create tools to let you find the information you need, of the kind you need, when you need it. In most cases, a simple search works really well. But for more specialized questions, a bit of instruction in how to search improves all searcher--from middle school students to trained professionals--and lets you discover and use more, higher quality sources than ever before."

The Gamification Blog styles itself as "The Leading Source for Gamification News & info"

On June 21 2012, the Government released a discussion paper which states its vision for the improvement of the teaching profession. The 'New Directions for School Leadership and the Teaching Profession,' aims to stimulate and inform discussion on the future of the teaching profession and school leadership.  As a collective of grass roots teachers, who are not currently being asked to participate in educational debates and discussion, we see this as an opportunity to enable teachers' voice.   Teachers: A great, yet untapped, source for policy makers.

"The use of Twitter to collecting tweets around an event hashtag allowing participants to share and contribute continues to grow and has even become part of mass media events, various TV shows now having and publicising their own tag. This resource is often lost in time, only tiny snippets being captured in blog posts or summaries using tools like Storify, which often loose the richness of individual conversations between participants. It doesn't have to be this way. Using a combination of Google Spreadsheets as a data source and a simple web interface to add interactivity it's possible to let users explorer your entire event hashtag and replay any of conversations."

"We aim to provide a great experience for our users and have developed over 200 signals to ensure our search algorithms deliver the best possible results. Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site. Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results. This ranking change should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily-whether it's a song previewed on NPR's music website, a TV show on Hulu or new music streamed from Spotify. "

"Have you heard the phrase "That's true because I saw it on TV" at some point? It was often the truth in the old days when people only had the TV or newspaper to relate to. What you saw or read was the truth, although it obviously wasn't always so. Today, thanks to the Internet, we consider ourselves much more enlightened. We can discuss and examine the source in a way that was not possible in the past. But are we really aware of all information flowing up over the net? What is really true and what's not? When someone presents a bit of loose facts on Twitter, I usually respond with something like "64% of the facts on the Internet is 48% incorrect according to 52% of respondents", completely made up numbers out of my head, but it makes people think a little extra. It is somewhat disturbing at times when the bandwagon takes of and speeds up, without people being critical. People stand up for situations that may never have happened, and spin on it which ultimately results in that it will be trated as facts, or a faktoid."

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.

The battle for supremacy in the app store ecosystem between Apple and Google rages on, and we've decided to give you an update on the state of affairs between the two dominant app stores. Keep reading to see where the battles are being fought. Android's proliferation as a platform is widespread news, but has Google Play been able to gain ground on iOS as the main source of commerce for app publishers?

"IconArchive is a professional tag based icon search engine with more than 330,000 icons for web developers, end users and graphic artists. Also it is an inspiration source for new design ideas and a place to enjoy beautiful icons. You can collect, organize & share your favorite icons here with ease. If you want to customize your desktop, you can download icons for all operating systems, Win, Mac & Linux. Website or Software developers with demand for custom icon design could search for professional icon artists here. This may result in freelance jobs and/or design help for projects of any size. On our icon artists page you can select artists offering custom icon design."

Unhangout is an open source platform for running large scale online un-conferences. We use Google Hangouts to create as many small sessions as needed, and help users find others with shared interests. Think of it as a classroom with an infinite number of breakout sessions. Each event has a landing page, which we call the lobby. When participants arrive, they can see who else is there and chat with each other. The hosts can do a video welcome and introduction that gets streamed into the lobby. Participants then break out into smaller sessions (up to 10 people per session) for in-depth conversations, peer-to-peer learning, and collaboration on projects. UnHangouts are community-based learning instead of top-down information transfer.