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In response to all of the attention given to the flipped classroom, I proposed The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture and The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture for Higher Education in which the viewing of videos (often discussed on the primary focus of the flipped classroom) becomes a part of a larger cycle of learning based on an experiential cycle of learning. Universal Design for Learning has also been in the news lately as a new report Universal Design for Learning (UDL): Initiatives on the Move was released by the National Center on UDL, May, 2012. This post describes the principles of Universal Design for Learning and how they naturally occur when a full cycle of learning, including ideas related to the flipped classroom, are used within the instructional process.

"Leap represents an entirely new way to interact with your computers. It's more accurate than a mouse, as reliable as a keyboard and more sensitive than a touchscreen. For the first time, you can control a computer in three dimensions with your natural hand and finger movements."

"Vannevar Bush foreshadowed the impact that such technology would have on our contemporary lives. By doing so, Bush inspired critical aspects of current online tools, including the hyperlink and the World Wide Web. Bush's vision directly influenced researchers to create digital technology we nowadays consider commonplace. Today's equivalent of Bush's breakthrough is just as radical, except it's far beyond the conceptual stage and is already in extensive development. This technology is termed "Augmented Reality" (AR). AR has the potential to act as a harbinger of future hi-tech transformations whilst irrevocably altering the basic nature of everyday life."

"I am still amazed at the amount of educators, who believe that Twitter holds NO VALUE for their professional learning. Many hold on to the belief that Twitter is a waste of time, used to follow celebrities, listen to gossip and bad hair day complaints. If YOU were able to get past that initial Twitter reputation, diving into the Twittersphere can be scary, OVERWHELMING and participating in this global conversation platform does not necessarily come naturally to everybody."

SNApps4Kids is a volunteer community of parents, therapists, doctors, and teachers who share information on how we are using the iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices with children who have special needs. We have found these mobile devices to provide accessibility for children who may have been previously disengaged from the world because of challenging language, motor, or other developmental delays. Given the rising number of apps on the market and the diverse skills of children with special needs, parents have found each other to be one of the best resources for choosing apps to enhance everyday life for our children. While our group is primarily parent-driven, our efforts are naturally collaborative with the people who help our children develop particular skills - therapists and educators.

The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism examined 15 months' worth of the most popular news videos on the site (January 2011 to March 2012)[2]-some 260 different videos in all-by identifying and tracking the five most-viewed videos each week located in the "news & politics" channel of YouTube, analyzing the nature of the video, the topics that were viewed most often, who produced them and who posted them.[3]    The data reveal that a complex, symbiotic relationship has developed between citizens and news organizations on YouTube, a relationship that comes close to the continuous journalistic "dialogue" many observers predicted would become the new journalism online. Citizens are creating their own videos about news and posting them. They are also actively sharing news videos produced by journalism professionals. And news organizations are taking advantage of citizen content and incorporating it into their journalism. Consumers, in turn, seem to be embracing the interplay in what they watch and share, creating a new kind of television news.

"The nature of evolving technology sees the emergence of new trends and behavior among young people and new efforts by government and industry to combat harmful behaviors. FOSI provides periodic information to keep you informed about these issues."

"This is the first post of a research inquiry that questions the ways in which we have understood the Youth-Technology-Change relationship in the contemporary digital world, especially through the identity of 'Digital Native'. Drawing from three years of research and current engagements in the field, the post begins a critique of how we need to look at the outliers, the people on the fringes in order to unravel the otherwise celebratory nature of discourse about how the digital is changing the world. In this first post, I chart the trajectories of our research at the Centre for Internet and Society (Bangalore, India) and Hivos (The Hague, The Netherlands) to see how alternative models of understanding these relationships can be built."

But the good news is that, despite the hobby's sprawling growth into new areas like digital, cloud and social games, once you've mastered the basics, grasping more offbeat turns of phrase quickly becomes second-nature. (Or you could do what even the best of us are often forced to do in a pinch: Google the darn term.) Consider the following gaming dictionary a crash course in all things interactive entertainment -- memorize it, and who knows? You may even become proficient enough to talk with your kids about the latest games without making them burst into tears of laughter.

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

"What excited me about the Digital Technologies curriculum in particular is the way that it has embraced the Digital Technologies as a way of thinking and a tool for creativity. The problem I've always had with the teaching of ICT in schools is that it has largely been seen as a tool that should be integrated to assist the teaching of other subjects - that's fine, but that's captured in the ICT General Capability in the Australian Curriculum and is very different to the study of ICT as a discipline, sometimes branded as Computer Science, Informatics, Computing or similar. Given the ubiquitous nature of ICT in our world today, it has always struck me as odd that we've relegated the understanding of ICT to being all about its use, rather than how it manages to achieve the "magic" that many people mistake it to be."

These are a set of cards which flip over to reveal tips on how to use Google Tools. They are being continually added to and you can make suggestions for new tips. Because of the random nature of the tips they are probably more a 'fun' activity rather than a great Google reference point.

"Unlike some learning tools, BYOT resources have to be diverse because of the inherently flexible nature of BYOT. What works for one school or district may not for another. Another challenge for educators looking for BYOT "stuff" is that what you're finding is likely scattered all over the internet. Which makes the handbook of BYOT "stuff" that convergemag.com created (and grabonlee is hosting) all the more helpful. In it you'll find 10 checklists for creating-or simply checking-your BYOT plan, covering the following topics."

The Learning Record provides an architecture and process for documenting student progress and achievement, based on interviews, observations over time, samples of students' naturally-occurring work, and well-supported interpretations of learning across five dimensions.

"Inform is a design system for interactive fiction based on natural language."

"This visualization attempts to organize a series of emerging technologies that are likely to influence education in the upcoming decades. Despite its inherently speculative nature, the driving trends behind the technologies can already be observed, meaning it's a matter of time before these scenarios start panning out in learning environments around the world."

"Tobii's eye-tracking technology can make using a PC slightly more "natural," reading your eye movements to, say, scroll without needing to move a mouse. But for the disabled, it can be revelatory, allowing people with disabilities to use virtually all the abilities of a computer without ever touching it. The Tobii EyeMobile brings complete eye control to Windows tablets. It's an oblong-shaped sensor called the PCEye Go that attaches underneath the tablet via a bracket. Once it's in place and the eye-tracking software is installed, all the user needs to do is calibrate the sensor (which takes about a minute) and it's eyeball-ready."

No one who is part of this new movement believes all kids should grow up to be programmers. We believe it would be a beautiful outcome if all kids grew up knowing how to use computers to enhance their natural abilities, whatever those are, and grew up with the confidence to be "makers" instead of just consumers. Computer programming is ultimately about problem solving and creating. "Thinking like a computer scientist" really means understanding what problem you are facing and breaking down that problem into solvable chunks. The better you get at recognizing the problem the more efficient your solutions become."

"With its open-ended nature and robust creation tools, Minecraft has been used to create some amazing things. And as one teacher learned, those very same elements that make the game so compelling also make it a great educational tool.

A fun game to try out, don't let the graphics distract or confuse you. This is easy to use, bigger and much more complicated than it first looks. Good learning potential.