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Hackpad is a new, simple wiki service which builds on lthe etherpad interface. Hackpad allows you to include video and images by copying and pasting links into the document. If you have Dropbox files that you want to link to, you can do that on Hackpad too. The layout options on Hackpad are limited, but you can link Hackpads to each other to form a wiki like structure.

Is it possible to be both a wired and unwired educator at the same time? Sounds like someone trying to explain Schrödinger's cat (the cat is both alive and dead at the same time, Google it).  I'm talking about being "an untethered teacher."  Sometimes, we end up tethered to the technology in our classroom.  To me, this is most evident with the interactive white board at the front of my classroom (I've intentionally omitted any particular brand name devices). Fortunately, I've been using AppleTV to untether myself from the front of the room.

The educational thought experiment I wish to undertake concerns curriculum. Not the specific content of curriculum, but the idea of curriculum, what any curriculum is, regardless of subject. Like Copernicus, I propose that for the sake of better results we need to turn conventional wisdom on it is head:  let's see what results if we think of action, not knowledge, as the essence of an education; let's see what results from thinking of future ability, not knowledge of the past, as the core; let's see what follows, therefore, from thinking of content knowledge as neither the aim of curriculum nor the key building blocks of it but as the offshoot of learning to do things now and for the future.

Search faster with Heapr.com I'm serious. Just try it. It's faster. It's like 38% faster than the standard Google.com search. No, I did not just pull that statistic out of my ass. Ok maybe I did. But here's why it's faster: Searching on keypress One page load. Aggregation of results from Google, Twitter, Wikipedia, WolframAlpha, Flickr, and other sources. Other neat features: View Google Images alongside Flickr at images.heapr.com No ads. Zippo. Zero. Easily view YouTube, Hulu, and Vimeo videos without ever leaving the page at videos.heapr.com Download YouTube videos for free with just the click of a button. Just search for your video, and click Download. Real time tweets at twitter.heapr.com Just plain Google. With search on keypress. Insanely fast. At lite.heapr.com Get a super fast browser toolbar plugin so you can use that little search box in the top right of your browser

Hojoki's basic idea is very simple: they offer one newsfeed for productivity apps. It connects to apps like Google Documents, Evernote, Dropbox, Mendeley and Google Calendar, building you a newsfeed and a collaborative space for your work.

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.

The rich media presentation tool. Tell your story anyway you like. Add photos, music, video, and audio, and share it publicly or privately in an instant. Empressr is Free!

The Leap is a small iPod sized USB peripheral that creates a 3D interaction space of 8 cubic feet to precisely interact with and control software on your laptop or desktop computer. It's like being able to reach into the computer and pull out information as easily as reaching into a cookie jar. The Leap senses your individual hand and finger movements independently, as well as items like a pen. In fact, it's 200x more sensitive than existing touch-free products and technologies. It's the difference between sensing an arm swiping through the air and being able to create a precise digital signature with a fingertip or pen.

"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. This isn't a game system that roughly maps your hand movements.  The Leap technology is 200 times more accurate than anything else on the market - at any price point. Just about the size of a flash drive, the Leap can distinguish your individual fingers and track your movements down to a 1/100th of a millimeter."

Decision: To use the Notebook, The Tablet or my iPhone. I think to myself. How do other people view Twitter? Where are they? Who are they and how often to they check Twitter and for how long. I guess this line of thought is why I became a Geographer. Then I thought to myself. I have all the resources I need in my hand to answer these questions. It's nearly lunchtime so I'll post a 24 hours survey, tweet a few invites to participate and tomorrow lunch I can check the results. So I did. Below are the results and some discussion from #WhoTweets. I would like to acknowledge all those who responded and retweeted to the invite to participate. 97 Respondents is a great result. Thank you everyone.

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.

I have teachers ask me frequently about app recommendations for different subject areas. "What app could I use to teach subtraction?" "What app would you recommend for my students to practice writing?" "I want to use iPads in my Science class. What app is good for that?" I usually sigh to myself, when I receive questions like that. While I am not against in suggesting apps ( which I love doing), I am not comfortable with the level of disconnect between the teacher (who knows her/his students best) and the curriculum related skills and objectives and pedagogical relationship that needs to be in place for an app to be a match to use in a classroom or with an individual learner.

Infographics made easy All you have to know about creating an infographic with Infogr.am is the data you'd like to include. The site lets you pick from themes, allowing you to then fill it out with data using a WYSIWYG editor:

See what it's like to go Google.  A new way to talk, share, work, and do stuff together. Watch the video

See what it's like to collaborate with famous storytellers. In this interactive demo of Google Docs you are presented with the words used by a famous author from which to write your own story.

See what it's like to go Google. A new way to talk, share, work, and do stuff together. This interactive tour looks at the latest iteration of Google.

The tweets are getting longer - what do we think about this direction.

An inevitability I guess. There are a good few people who will be delighted that they can shoehorn more information into a tweet, for all the reasons described in the article. Me, not so much. I like the brevity that tweets provide, allowing me to scan the stream and quickly pull out those nuggets that lead on to further information, join in exchanges discussing issues or participate in more extensive debates like #edchat etc. The act of contributing within a constraint of 140 characters forces you to think harder about what you want to say and ensure that your message still retains clarity - surely a higher-order skill? If the character limit is expanded, will tweeters become lazy and allow their tweets to bloat? Maybe I should have answered your question in 140 Tony. ;-)

Good points - and yes should have kept it to 140 characters just for consistency. I tend to agree - I guess the interesting thing is that groups/people can apply but will this single them out and will people proactively avoid them because of it. Think not but interesting to watch.

"Discovr Apps is an interactive map of the App Store and makes it easy to discover new apps for your iPhone & iPad. Simply search for an app that you like or choose from one of our featured apps. We'll show you how the apps you choose are connected in a massive, never-ending map of the App Store, and we'll give you great recommendations for other apps to download."

"See what it's like to collaborate with famous storytellers."

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.

Prezi like from MicroSoft