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"The iPad Institute is organized in five clusters that correspond to the five days of direct instruction and hands-on practice aimed at accomplishing the objectives outlined below. To help accomplish all of this within the span of five days, participants will use iBooks to to work through the iPad Primer that includes video tutorials and links to the apps taught in the Institute. To download the Primer your iPad needs to have your Apple ID."

Praise for ability is commonly considered to have beneficial effects on motivation. Contrary to this popular belief, six studies demonstrated that praise for intelligence had more negative consequences for students' achievement motivation than praise for effort. Fifth graders praised for intelligence were found to care more about performance goals relative to learning goals than children praised for effort. After failure, they also displayed less task persistence, less task enjoyment, more lowability attributions, and worse task performance than children praised for effort. Finally, children praised for intelligence described it as a fixed trait more than children praised for hard work, who believed it to be subject to improvement. These findings have important implications for how achievement is best encouraged, as well as for more theoretical issues, such as the potential cost of performance goals and the socialization of contingent self-worth.

"That puts most college-level students right at the beginning of what Metros calls the literacy continuum. "Literacy sits on a continuum. As we move up the continuum, we become more learned, practiced, original, sophisticated, and critical," she explains. So where would we like our students to be on the literacy continuum? "While we do need to move our students toward digital literacy, I think there is some confusion about this continuum. I don't think we need to make everyone an expert. For example, you could be a student in economics and be literate in technology; but if you are a student in film studies, you are going to need to be truly fluent in certain technologies.""

"Want to get started in blended learning but don't know where to begin? UCF has created the Blended Learning Toolkit (BLT), an open educational web-based resource. In addition to BLT's broad overviews of blended learning models, processes, research findings, and evaluation models useful for institutional administrators, of particular interest to blended learning faculty and instructional designers are numerous detailed do-it-yourself (DIY) resources in the BlendKit Course designed to support them in developing their first blended learning course."

"Light's research indicates that students take their writing more seriously when they write for their peers than when they write for their professors. His argument, as I recall it, was that a student can turn in a paper to a professor in which something isn't explained very clearly, assuming that the professor will fill in the gaps. Students know their peers can't fill in those gaps, so they have to work a little harder to explain themselves if they want their peers to understand them. And since they generally want to share their ideas with their peers, they put forth that effort."

"Google+ is finally open to teenagers, according to post today by VP of Product Bradley Horowitz. When G+ launched last year, it was only open to those 18 and older, and even when the social network expanded to Google Apps for Education users, it maintained the age restriction. With today's announcement, that restriction is no longer in place "

Announcing, the Flat Classroom K-2 'Building Bridges to Tomorrow' Project! Co-founders of Flat Classroom, Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis, are excited to be able to offer this global collaborative project to classrooms around the world. This project will run as a pilot for the coming semester, February-April 2012 and be open to Prep/Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2 classrooms (4-7 year old students).

Seven out of 10 undergraduate students attending the University of California, Riverside don't buy textbooks, preferring to rent them, rely on instructor-provided materials, or go without. According to a recent "Undergraduate Experience Survey," run annually, 73 percent of respondents reported postponing the purchase, and 74 percent chose to skip buying them altogether. Those counts are similar to results from a 2010 survey.

"If you're trying to get inexpensive computing devices to those in need, you (theoretically) couldn't go wrong with making that device a tablet. So thinks non-profit "One Laptop Per Child," an organization that strives to deliver rugged, cost-effective computers to children in developing nations. The group has jumped into the tablet space with a prototype tablet, on display at CES Unveiled Sunday."

""Social media can increase employee participation in learning, especially if the programs have a significant element of self-directed learning. Learners are more likely to stay engaged and complete their program of study if they are able to reach out to peers involved in the same program or get help on a particular topic. Face-to-face or virtual group interaction at key points in the program, such as a kick-off or achievement of a milestone, helps enhance user engagement.""

"What role, if any, should colleges and universities play in the shift from print to digital textbooks (eTexts)? One perspective is that eTexts are a consumer transaction between a publisher and student, and institutions need not be involved. Another perspective is that volume licensing by institutions can dramatically reduce the costs to students and improve the terms through a business-to-business negotiation. Likewise, what software is needed? Do institutions want a common software platform for eText reading and annotation, or are four different software systems to read five eTexts just fine for a freshman?"

"Now, with HTML5, media elements in the browser get a nice kick in the pants. You've probably heard of the new Audio and Video tags, both of which allow these types of content to function as first-class citizens in the browser, no plug-ins required. Next month's article will cover both of these elements and their APIs in depth. You've probably also heard of the canvas element, a drawing surface with a rich set of JavaScript APIs that give you the power to create and manipulate images and animations on the fly. What IMG did for static graphical content, canvas has the potential to do for dynamic and scriptable content."

"In considering open source versus vendor source, we're looking at the total cost, the project budget, the speed of deployment, and the ability to be agile," said Bailey. "If we need three to five years to implement a low-cost solution, that's not a good choice."

This QR Code Addin for PowerPoint helps you to embed QR Code in your PowerPoint slides. You can use this QR Code Addin to generate a QR Code for your contact slide or to be used in many other creative ways.

"In addition to specific exceptions for libraries and educators, academic and research librarians use the important general exemption of fair use to accomplish their mission. Fair use is the right to use copyrighted material without permission or payment under some circumstances, especially when the cultural or social benefits of the use are predominant."

"According the Pew Research Center, the combination of widespread access to broadband Internet connectivity, the popularity of social networking, and the near ubiquity of mobile computing is producing a fundamentally new kind of learner, one that is self-directed, better equipped to capture information, more reliant on feedback from peers, more inclined to collaborate, and more oriented toward being their own "nodes of production." "

"The Digital Textbook Playbook is a guide to help K-12 educators and administrators begin building rich digital learning experiences for students in districts across the country. The playbook offers information about determining broadband infrastructure for schools and classrooms, leveraging home and community broadband to extend the digital learning environment, and understanding necessary device considerations. It also provides lessons learned from school districts that have engaged in successful transitions to digital learning."

"Facebook disabled the profiles of McDonald and his girlfriend Leola Lewis Wednesday morning, according to Donnelyn Curtis, the University of Nevada librarian who set the profiles up as a way to engage students in learning about history. "

The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete. They just have to go fix it - often in the face of people who say it's impossible or are content with the status quo.

Last month, Apple announced iBooks2 with the main focus being on electronic textbooks for education. I wrote my initial thoughts, concerns, and observations then and am still a skeptic due to costs and access to devices. iPads are expensive ($500) and then add in the costs of the iBooks ($14.99) for each student. Most schools are in the red and have no money for devices. Instead, I like device and OS agnostic, free apps and e-textbooks, along with free web resources. There are a bunch of links below for more on that.