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Webonauts Internet Academy is a web original game from PBS Kids that gives kids 8-10 years-old an opportunity to have some fun while exploring what it means to be a citizen in a web-infused‚ information-rich world. It is an engaging experience on its own but becomes all the more powerful when parents and teachers use game play as a springboard for conversations about media literacy and citizenship in the 21st Century. Very nicely done and a great starting point. From Adam Bellow on EduTech

Webonauts Internet Academy is a web original game from PBS Kids that gives kids 8-10 years-old an opportunity to have some fun while exploring what it means to be a citizen in a web-infused‚ information-rich world. It is an engaging experience on its own but becomes all the more powerful when parents and teachers use game play as a springboard for conversations about media literacy and citizenship in the 21st Century. Very nicely done and a great starting point. From Adam Bellow of EduTech

don't get me wrong. i love my twitter pln. but sometimes there are threads i could do without - like the recent soccer world cup conversations that went on for...a long time. or the constant "i checked in at ...on foursquare!" posts that i couldn't care less about. declutter will hide whatever keywords you choose, using a bookmarklet, so your stream can focus on what's important to you. sorry if that sounds like an advert, but i've been waiting for a tool like this!

You're invited to join our cultural scavenger hunt!

Join in our virtual scavenger hunt - this is a quick simple way in 3 days that you can meet students from other cultures and "flatten" your classroom by participating in the flat classroom conference. Start the conversations that need to happen. We're kicking this off now, although once it starts, it can really continue for some time. Maybe some of you will bring your students in to participate virtually. If you do this, please give a shout out by replying to the discussion. Join in if you wish! Just another way to flatten your classroom and there are a growing many!

Good conversation starter for those new to these ideas In recent years, IDEO has spent a lot of time and effort thinking about education. The firm's work with Ormondale Elementary School, in Portola Valley, California, helped pioneer a special "investigative-learning" curriculum that inspires students to be seekers of knowledge. We spoke to Sandy Speicher, who heads the Design for Learning efforts at IDEO. Her insights provide powerful lessons for architects and designers creating the schools of tomorrow:

Using our PDF-to-Word conversion technology, you can quickly and easily create editable DOC/RTF files, making it a cinch to re-use PDF content in applications like Microsoft Word, Excel, OpenOffice, and WordPerfect.

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funny, i was just needing this today!

This was posted on twitter tonight. You've GOT to try this. Print the page they point to on the right side, then click one of the buttons at the bottom. VERY cool!

A very cool little demo that amy be great to start the conversation about energy.

Interesting comments here on this photo about Google Orkut and people stealing Flickr Pictures of children - this is from 2007 but the conversation is interesting -- we want to SHARE photos but not SHARE them in inappropriate ways -- how can we license for NON ADULT use -- and doesn't "adult" have two meanings here?

A discussion of, and model for how interactive your classes are - with a bias towards technology but the feet firmly in teaching in general.

Every educator needs to be apart of the conversation!

Monitor Twitter conversations with key words!

John Pederson pointed me to Danah Boyd's post about the new book "Born Digital" by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser. Danah describes the book as: "Intended for broad audiences, "Born Digital" creates a conversation between adult concerns, policy approaches, technological capabilities, and youth practice. This is not an ethnography, but JP and Urs build on and connect to ongoing ethnographic research concerning digital youth culture. This is not a parent's guide, but JP and Urs's framework will benefit any parent who wishes to actually understand what's taking place and what the implications are. This is not a policy white paper, but policy makers would be foolish to ignore the book because JP and Urs provide a valuable map for understanding how the policy debates connect to practice and technology. The contribution "Born Digital" makes is in the connections that it makes between youth practices, adult fears, technology, and policy. If you care at all about these issues, this book is a MUST-READ." Danah also goes on to give a great disclaimer to the "academics in the room", those who are very wary and weary of the term "Digital Native". I just ordered this from Amazon - can't wait to share my thoughts on it!

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computers can support learners, open doors to a world of possibilities and learning opportunities and global thinking. They can provide a chance for every child to learn their own way and construct their own knowledge. They can facilitate conversations with other people and other children around the world. They can knock down the isolation of a classroom's four walls and invite in the voices, experience and passion of the entire planet.

Great post!

Great article highlights the conversations at NECC

Backchannel chat

BackNoise lets you create conversations on the fly, in meetings, watching TV, during class, on the train, anywhere and anytime. Talk about what you want, when you want, where you want, and how you want.

Jonathan Trenn writes an article on the "fallacy of community" that many of the vendors at NECC should read. Edubloggers / educators/ educational groups of people emerge because we want to. We create a community when we need to and have the passionate desire for a common purpose. However, the word community and social network was so overused at NECC this year as to become a curse word. Used by people told it was important but who may not understand it themselves. This is a great article and strikes a cord with me.

An articlea bout the fallacy of community.

Visual Literacy Lessons