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Scholastic Book Fairs now have a mobile app that lets you scan the covers and get reading levels and other interesting information about the book. What a useful, cool way to introduce the concept of "augmented reality" to kids. You can put the app on their ipads if you're 1:1 and let them use it to pick out books.

This section highlights animations, images, interactive graphics and videos used to teach the concept of geologic time in an introductory geology course. Visualizations cover the specific topics of earth history, relative age dating and life through geologic time.

Digital Media follows the old adage "A picture is worth a thousand words!" when it comes to science and math. The use of visuals is ideal for helping students construct background knowledge for developing a better understanding of science and math concepts.

The Flip camera is great for all types of projects in science and math - at any grade level. Flip cameras are small handheld video cameras that can record 30 or 60 minutes worth of video. They connect to a computer with a USB plug that "flips" out from the side of the camera. The benefits of these cameras include another means for assessing students understanding of concepts beyond worksheets and tests. Besides a teacher's record, the videos provide a digital record for parents and administrators to show a student's successes or areas which need improvement.

As a mobile learning device, the iPod Touch encourages learning anytime, anywhere! Applications available for this digital device support and encourage students to develop a greater understanding of math concepts through the lens of personalized learning.

I still haven't come to terms with what exactly the power of our networks mean for concepts like "cheating" - I am sure there are some who might view what I did as dishonest. I like to think it offers insight into what personalized learning could look like and how doing the same old assignments, the same old way, is not good enough.

Students make connections with many science concepts and communicate their recommendations to officials and organizations regarding the future of artificial reefs.

Great collection of physics symbols and illustrative videos connected to each one. Includes an open ended question to get students thinking about the concept or history of the symbol. Videos are from YouTube.

Includes an extensive list of websites which can be used for teaching the concept of critical thinking and evaluating the information we find on the Internet. Based on a presentation by Howard Rheingold.

We've been stalking people in english class. Wanting to teach the kids in my class about concepts of digital footprint and online safety, I used three people well known from the edusphere as examples: Will Richardson, Jabiz Raisdana and Jeff Utecht.

Welcome to the Virtual Cell Animation Collection! This collection has been developed to introduce students to new concepts. By walking through the still images and movie included for each topic, viewers are in control of choosing the learning style that best fits their needs.

...one phrase I saw in those documents some 20 years ago stuck with me. Reflective Practitioner. I sort of understood the concept but other than simply thinking about what you did in the classroom, I wasn't at all sure what to do with this term. PS. The only people allowed to criticize or challenge this idea are people who have blogged for at least one year and written at least 50 posts. The rest of you can ask questions but you can't dismiss it.

Julie's guest post over at the Wikinomics blog. Excellent excellent post about how to flatten your classroom.

Rubrics can be used in many ways. Once created, an established rubric can be used or slightly modified and applied to many activities. Reviewing, reconceptualizing, and revisiting the same concepts from different angles improves understanding of the lesson for students. Think of a writing rubric - good writing does not change with the project. Because the essentials remain constant, it is not necessary to create a completely new rubric for every activity. This five-part series explores how one teacher designs, refines, and implements rubrics in a variety of subject areas.

via http://freetech4teachers.blogspot.com/2008/12/secret-builders-virtual-world-for-ages.html\n\nSecretBuilders is a virtual world for children 5 to 14 years old powered by a web 2.0 community of children, parents, educators, writers, artists and game developers. On SecretBuilders, children will explore virtual lands, undertake quests, play games, maintain a home, nurture a pet, and interact with their friends. Three features which form the backdrop for SecretBuilders distinguish it from other online worlds:\n\n * Children learn through immersing themselves in the stories, themes, and concepts from the best in literature, arts and humanities. They will interact with famous historical and fictional figures and be introduced to content and characters from world civilization and the great thoughts and ideas of human creativity. \n\n * Children will create this site, not just consume it. They are directly involved in creating this world with their ideas, critiques and contributions on virtually every aspect of the site and many of their ideas will be implemented!\n\n * Children publish their works - writings, art, videos - making SecretBuilders their own personal store of creativity. They can invite friends and family to view their works, and comment upon them. Seeing their works published and enjoyed by others instills tremendous for self-confidence as well as motivation to do more.\n

A nice forecast of what the next generation web browsing experience might be like. Of interest to those mindful of web security in schools is the prominent role of handheld devices that will neatly flow around the school's security apparatus.

This will be a worthy course to enroll in!

Connectivism and Connective Knowledge is a twelve week course that will explore the concepts of connectivism and connective knowledge and explore their application as a framework for theories of teaching and learning. It will outline a connectivist understanding of educational systems of the future. George Siemens and Stephen Downes - the two leading figures on connectivism and connective knowledge - will co-facilitate this innovative and timely course.

Offers interactive demonstrations of anything that can be modeled mathematically - bacteria growth, light refraction, supply and demand, etc. Running a demo requires Mathematica Player, which can be downloaded free, along with the demos

About the Wolfram Demonstrations Project Conceived by Mathematica creator and scientist Stephen Wolfram as a way to bring computational exploration to the widest possible audience, the Wolfram Demonstrations Project is an open-code resource that uses dynamic computation to illuminate concepts in science, technology, mathematics, art, finance, and a remarkable range of other fields. Its daily-growing collection of interactive illustrations is created by Mathematica users from around the world, who participate by contributing innovative Demonstrations. Interactive computational resources have typically been scattered across the web--requiring specialized programming knowledge that's made them difficult and expensive to develop. As a result, their coverage has long been limited, and progress has been slow. In many ways, the Wolfram Demonstrations Project introduces a new paradigm for exploring ideas. The power to easily create interactive visualizations, once in the domain of computing experts alone, is now in the hands of every Mathematica user. Demonstrations can be created with just a few short lines of readable code, powered by the revolutionary advances in Mathematica. This opens the door for researchers, educators, students, and professionals at any level to create their own sophisticated mini-applications and publish them online.

A graphical web dictionary/thesaurus. Pretty slick stuff.

Visual Dictionary, Free

Look up words in the Visuwords online graphical dictionary and thesaurus to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts. Produce diagrams reminiscent of a neural net. Learn how words associate.

Awesome Web 2.0 tool that allows you to create content in a video form to share with others

communicate something online by recording a sketch, optionally with your voice speaking. Any sketch can then be embedded on your blog/ homepage for people to play-back, and you can also point people to your sketchcast channel here (or let them subscribe to your sketchcast RSS feed). Create a tutorial explaining how boomerangs work (and why they don't always return). Draw a doodle of your ex. Explain a math formula. Create a cartoon (you can use the eraser tool to make place for several panels of the cartoon). Get a partner and explain a concept together... voice recording doesn't have to be used by only one person! Write a love letter with lots of sketching inbetween. Create an online Chinese course and explain Pinyin writing. Create a masterpiece and show others how to draw. Explain baseball to Europeans... or explain soccer to Americans! Create a riddle for kids: draw something and the kid has to guess while you're drawing. Draw a manga action scene. Or many other drawing ideas.