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Stumbled upon this when trying to verify the Jobs Wozniac story of inventing their first computer in their garage. Very geeky and long. If you have a spare 45 min let me know how it finishes ;-) 

Great curated collection by Gary Hayes on cutting edge media techmologies "Augmented locative stories, experiential transmedia games, collaborative social TV"

inklewriter is a free tool designed to allow anyone to write and publish interactive stories. It's perfect for writers who want to try out interactivity, but also for teachers and students looking to mix computer skills and creative writing.

Scratch is a programming language for young people to create their own interactive stories, games, music, and art. Scratch was created by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. You can find more information and download Scratch for free at scratch.mit.edu

"Wave a Microsoft Kinect sensor around the object you want to inhabit and the new system, developed by Jiawen Chen and his team from Microsoft Research in Cambridge, UK, quickly creates a 3D virtual model of it. Then, by standing in front of the sensor and positioning your body so that it melds with the virtual character on screen, the two are rigged together by uttering the word "Possess". The system performs the transformation by binding the model to you at the points where your joints are attached. Moving your body makes the avatar come to life, allowing you to re-enact Fantasia-like cartoons or to create your own interactive stories. It's also possible to team up with friends to possess more complex bodies, like a four-legged horse."

Looking at the New Directions for school leadership and the teaching profession discussion paper, the only evidence presented to support the assertion that Victoria's education outcomes are not improving is the report "Challenges in Australian Education: results from PISA 2009: the PISA 2009 assessment of students' reading, mathematical and scientific literacy" Specifically the New Directions paper focuses on reading literacy, where in 2009, 14,251 students were given a two-hour pen and paper comprehension test. To get an idea of what types of competencies the reading test is assessing we can look at the sample test , with questions range from comprehension about a letter in a newspaper, the ability to interpret a receipt, comprehension around a short story, an informational text, and interpreting a table. While it doesn't seem unreasonable to want our students to be able to accurately perform these kind of tasks, these tests are not a true or accurate representation of the skills and competencies our students need in today's technology driven world.

Here you will find the fifteen apps we consider to be simply exceptional for both the quality and contextual use of animation for storytelling in an iPad book app for children. None of the apps to make our list of "Top 10 Animated Books for iPad" in 2011 have been included, so please also check out last year's post. So, without further ado, here are our very favorite recommendations for polished, story-enhancing animation in an iPad storybook app:

21st Century Learning Design Rubrics. Useful for assessing the collaborative nature of activities. Good for defining collaboration etc also.

"ScratchJr is an introductory programming language that enables young children (ages 5-7) to create their own interactive stories and games. Children snap together graphical programming blocks to make characters move, jump, dance, and sing. Children can modify characters in the paint editor, add their own voices and sounds, even insert photos of themselves - then use the programming blocks to make their characters come to life."

Thanks for sharing this link John. I have recorded my interest with the developers to keep me informed. I love using Scratch with my grade 4s. As you'd know - the new Digital Technologies curric emphasises programming, so Scratch Jr will be a welcome addition. Seems as though currics around the world are picking up on kids programming. Cheers - Chris Trimnell

" Looking Glass allows users to build animated stories. Starting with a challenge can help users get started quickly, because challenges provide an engaging context in which to build a stor"

Lulu gives you the opportunity to upload a document and convert to epub format. The site contains photo book tools and you can add images and text to tell a story. Tools are also available for creating poetry books and digital portfolios

"In Australia, Google is the dominant search engine used, claiming a market share in excess of 90%. Throughout this year, however, Microsoft has been taking steps to try and increase Bing's placement against Google, with the hopes of earning more Australian adopters. And while it hasn't exactly been a success story, Bing is ever-so-slightly increasing its market share. In today's blog, I'm going to look at 7 features of both search engines and how they compare to one another."

"The internet has allowed us to see what would have otherwise remained unseen. Everyone with access to a smartphone, a Twitter or Facebook account now has the ability to report on what is happening anywhere, at any given moment: a comet crashing, bridge cables snapping, a subway bombing. For this fact alone, I love it. But I've had an increasing personal discomfort on one front. Within the bounds of journalism, the fact that someone accused another of having done something wrong has never been enough to warrant an attack. At the very least, you are required to get the other side of the story - but this principle doesn't apply online."

"Live.pics.io recreates the experience of real-world slideshows, when your guests would come by to see photos and hear you tell the story behind the shots. Drag some images and start the conversation."

[via @rmbyrne]

"Teachers, share with your students one of the greatest stories of all time - how did animal life evolve on planet earth? Download or stream these short videos to help students learn about this dramatic rise of the animal kingdom and how those first animals lead to the astonishing diversity we see on earth today"

via @rmbyrne

Another interesting piece about makerspaces. This time how one teacher librarian (librarian and English teacher) in the US used robotics kits in her library to respond to their reading. Her students to created characters from the stories they read and then brought them to life. Innovative and engaging hands-on learning - what's not to like. Other examples are discussed as well.

Education has 99 problems, but the desire to solve those problems isn't one. But because we can't cover 99 problems in one story, we'll focus on seven, which the League of Innovative Schools identified as critical to educational innovation.

""Literacy from Scratch" is a response to the United Kingdom (UK) government's initiative to develop computer programming skills in both the Primary phase of education (pupils aged 5 to 11) and the Secondary phase (aged 11 to 18). Explore the website to find out how postgraduate students from London and Prague and schools in the UK and the Czech Republic have risen to this challenge. The site also contains a variety of pupil work using IT in cross-curricular sessions in the UK and other countries, including Stories for Children, and the STAR (Science Through Arts) project."

Quite a few things listed in this post. "Open Educational Resources are learning tools like textbooks, lesson plans, and other media that are in the public domain or openly licensed, meaning that use you can freely use and adapt them. Unlike online resources that are free but not openly licensed, you can adapt OERs as much as you like to your own needs, which makes them an infinitely flexible tool. For example, you could take a geography textbook and add examples and landmarks from your own region. Or you could take a storybook and translate it, as a class, into another language. Or your art class could create new illustrations for an existing story."