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The desktops of the Lifehacker team and others and how they design their desktop. Click the "rainmeter" tab to see how they use rainmeter, for example. Some cool ideas here for designing desktops.

So, you want to know how to edit Wikipedia? There's a course for you.

We are delighted to announce a new round of our free online course, "Writing Wikipedia Articles: The Basics & Beyond" (#WIKISOO). The course runs from 25 February - 8 April 2014, and is now open for enrollment.
As many of you know already, WIKISOO teaches the nuts and bolts of Wikipedia. We focus on building and improving articles related to Open Education. Enrollment is open to all. We'd especially like to invite past students to re-register: your knowledge and experience will be valuable to your fellow students, and it's also a great opportunity to deepen your learning about Wikipedia and OER.

WIKISOO students learn about the values and culture that have driven hundreds of thousands of volunteers to build Wikipedia. Through your work in the course, you will join an effort that has generated millions of free articles in hundreds of languages since 2001. The course covers the technical skills needed to edit articles, and also offers practical insights into the site's collaborative norms and social dynamics. You will graduate with a sophisticated understanding of how to use Wikipedia both as a reader and as an active participant.

Sign up is free.

You can put graph paper on an Excel sheet. Here's how. Very cool.

CO14 is happening this weekend and so many great people are presenting. It runs from February 7-9 and is free. My session is sharing how writing has been reinvented as I share the 9 tools that have changed how we teach forever (a sneak preview of my book coming out in May.) If you teach writing, work with curriculum or teach, feel free to join in. The session is at 8 am EST on Saturday morning, February 8. Anyone can join.

Lots of amazing presenters are speaking so check it out.

Leah shares how Goofram works - very cool and useful information from Leah Fullenkamp. Awesome.

I don't know that I'd market "brain breaks" as a way to get "classroom control" but I guess that is what some teachers want. I am fascinated by how Brain Breaks are trending on Twitter as many teachers are using them so I guess I"m going to sign up for Go Noodle and see what the fuss is about. Any of you using this tool/ website?

Nominate your favorite teacher in 100 words or less to send the teacher on a all expenses paid cruise. Nominations due Feb 9. From Denny's and Tom Joyner Foundation.

ePals and th Smithsonian are sponsoring their third Invent It challenge where students address real world problems with inventions. The projects are due on April 11. Sign up now and plan this authentic project into your classroom this spring.

Great resources on gaming in the classroom.

If you need help picking colors that go well together, I love color schemer for that. You can use the RGB colors even in Microsoft office or you can use the HEX for websites, etc. I teach my students about colors but even if you don't have time for that, you can at least teach them to generate a color palette.

If you haven't joined the "Spread the Word: Stop Cyberbullying" wikispace yet, you really should. Students and teachers are trying to convince social media sites to put a student created button on their site to be used for reporting cyberbullying. Your students may enter the contest to create the best button to be used. The contest deadline is January 17 (this Friday.)

Here's the page where you register your school for Bing for Schools - you'll need to enter all outbound IP addresses so ask your IT department to do it.

Peggy Sheehy is the matron of gamification and she's one upped her own groundbreaking work in Second Life. She's gamified the Common Core Learning Standards. Wow. One more reason you can't use standards as an excuse to do nothing.

"They are also learning to be mighty gamers because Sheehy is gamifying the Common Core Learning Standards (CCLS).

With the command "Go forth and be epic," students pack away drafts and log on to 3D Game Lab where A Hero's Journey awaits.

WoWinSchool: A Hero's Journey is a curriculum based in World of Warcraft (WoW), a massively multiplayer online role-playing game in which players assume characters and interact within an ever-changing, virtual world.  Sheehy helped to frame the curriculum developed by Lucas Gillespie and Craig Lawson with whom she collaborates on the award-winning WoWInSchool project.  "

Such a great story about why NORAD tracks Santa. I love this story. What a great story to share with adults. (Shhhh.)

I couldn't help but laugh out loud when I looked at this Fakebook - I love the video and you could really have students do their own videos and embed. This is awesome.

Nominate someone you know NOW. What a great way to share up and coming education technology leaders:

"Do you know educators who are passionate about using technology to transform teaching and learning; who can inspire their colleagues to embrace new tools; and who are curious by nature and always looking for how the next innovation can be applied to education? If so, please submit their names by Wednesday, December 18th for consideration as part of the National School Boards Association's "20 to Watch" recognition program.
The 2013-14 "20" will be honored in Washington, D.C. during CoSN's Annual Conference, March 19th, 2014 (www.cosn.org) and recognized during the Technology Leadership Network Luncheon at the NSBA Annual Conference in New Orleans, April 6, 2014. Questions? Please email Ann Flynn."

Really 197 channels for learning? Well, there are many, but if you're like me, you're building a subscription list for your content areas and starting to curate (and perhaps create) some channels. Building a good YouTube stream is becoming part of curation and PLN building - so here's a great place to start.