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How the tide turns. Just take away wikipedia and blackout google and this is what happens. This was the topic of conversation at school yesterday. Major websites may have just realized the power of those eyeballs on their site. "Three co-sponsors of the SOPA and PIPA antipiracy bills have publicly withdrawn their support as Wikipedia and thousands of other websites blacked out their pages Wednesday to protest the legislation. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) withdrew as a co-sponsor of the Protect IP Act in the Senate, while Reps. Lee Terry (R-Neb.) and Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.) said they were pulling their names from the companion House bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act. Opponents of the legislation, led by large Internet companies, say its broad definitions could lead to censorship of online content and force some websites to shut down.

This infographic from Kliut depicts the most popular conversations and people on Twitter. No doubt,MIT is a hub for pop culture. But there are great microconversations happening in education using this site so don't let the trivial steer you away.

Interestingly, if a stranger joins a hangout, google will kick a teen user off their own hangout. Anyone who is 13 and up can now use Google plus. "Google said Thursday that it is opening up its Google+ social network to teens 13 and over, while rolling out new protections for those teens who join."

Not exactly kicking them off, their camera will be turned off and mic muted if someone that is not in their circles joins a hangout. The teens have the choice to continue back in the hangout if they want to. Pretty powerful tool for them to have. From the Google Safety Center: Hangouts are a great way to connect with other people face to face to face. Just like in real life, you can decide which people you want to chat with. However, sometimes someone joins a conversation that you don't want to chat with (also like real life). So when someone outside your circles joins a Hangout, we'll pull you out and ask if you want to continue. This gives you a safe and easy way to leave the conversation without having to interact with the new attendee first. At the same time, this still gives you the ability to stay if the new person is someone you want to chat with, but you haven't added to circles yet. http://support.google.com/plus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2409072

A new channel on YouTube called the "intelligent channel." I always hesitate when someone defines for me what intelligent conversation is, but I've subscribed anyway just to take a look.

Some interesting conversation starters with students can be found on Ted Talks. Not every talk is great but many of them are wonderful.

Great article on US news about initiatives in the US that have started but of special interest is the request that students and educators tweet. The biggest issues I've had with the town hall meetings is that most of them are in the middle of the day when everyone is teaching. On Thursday at 3 pm there is a chat about rural education. It is nice that they're having these meetings but if they REALLY want teachers to participate it will be when teachers are able to focus on the conversation. You can't have teachers teaching and Tweeting. It doesn't work. If you see me tweet during the day, most of the tweets are scheduled or I'm on break or lunch break. "February has been a busy month for K-12 education. On February 1, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan kicked it off by announcing that all U.S. schools should transition to digital textbooks within the next five years. On the 9th, President Obama waived 10 states from No Child Left Behind. And last week, the president proposed a 2013 budget that includes a $1.7 funding increase for education." Although these federal policy decisions may not seem directly connected to day-to-day classroom activities, the Department of Education is using Twitter to encourage teachers, administrators, parents, and students to play a more active role.

The hashtags homeschoolers use. I find it interesting how educational conversations of all types are melding together on Twitter- a great leveler. Many of these hashtags will be recognized by mainstream educators.

Erin Klein shares her principles for setting up an effective classroom design with tips especially relevant to elementary teachers. Filling the wall full of charts and clutter from floor to ceiling isn't only a problem with the fire marshall but may actually be making it harder for students to learn. Listen to this awesome conversation to learn more.

How to use Google Hangouts in the Classroom. Now that you can segment participation and let certain groups of students and educators participate in Google Plus, this is becoming a popular method of connecting classrooms. I'm setting up Google Hangouts on Air to record and send to the class YouTube channel to share conversations with guests and let those students who missed the day join in. I am also going to use these recordings as part of flipped classroom modules as I learn about using Sophia for flipping my classroom.

Most weeknights of Connected Educator month #cem13 there are Connected Cafes with many online leaders in education. They are free and will be great conversations. I'm on October 3 at 7:30 pm and we're talking about connected leadership with Dean Shareski and moderated by Steve Hargadon. Take a look at the calendar to see more. October 4 is Larry Ferlazzo and Angela Maiers, October 8, Ira Socol and Kathleen Cushman and many more.

Great conversations happening over at Edutopia about the Hour of Code and what people are doing. I love it when educators talk and share.

An important conversation with interviews and some research about how to deal with multitasking. AS for me, if I could really really turn off notifications on my ios devices, that would suffice and it would for most students.

This book continues to be discussed heavily in education. I love Elena Aguilar's poignant discussion of the book on her blog at Edutopia. Wow. Elena writes: "About a year ago, I read Susan Cain's Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking. I wanted to tell everyone about this book right away, but I also wanted to let what I'd learned sink in. I wanted to sit alone with my new self-awareness, process my experience, and absorb the revelations I'd had -- all in true introverted fashion. See, as I'd read Cain's book, my predominant thoughts were, "She's describing me! I'm an introvert! And there's nothing wrong with that!" The margins of my copy are littered with stars, exclamation points, and scribbles that, as I look back, reflect my profound relief and gained understandings." This would be a great book for education book clubs to consider. Just make sure you take time to let everyone share and reflect and include even the introverts in the conversation - though they may say less, they may actually have more to say than we truly understand.

I spent time with Richard Collins from iStation talking about how to connect and globalize your classroom and why you should do it. It was a fun conversation.

I want to point out one of the first blogs I ever read and one I've continued to read since I started building my PLN in 2005 -- Stephen Downes is one of the best resource sharers on the web. He's widely read and interjects his opinions and big picture issues into the conversation. I highly recommend that though leaders and researchers subscribe to his daily updates via RSS or email.

Here's a roundup of the APIs to mine Twitter data: Trstrank: The PageRank-esque algorithm we covered previouslyWordbag: A list of "most common words" for a user with a twist. Universally-common words are essentially filtered out because InfoChimps compares a user's word choice to all of Twitter.Influence: Gets the number of replies in and out for the user, along wiht the number of tweets and the age of the account. Analysis of influence is up to you.Conversation: Provides a summary of public interactions between two users. Results are a list of tweets in which the first user replied to the second.

Musical composer Jason Robert Brown debates copyright of sheet-music with a teenager. Follow their email conversation for excellent insight into the copyright dilemma. Great real-life scenario to use if discussing copyright with teachers and/or students.

Nice post about how to evangelize advanced tech to fellow teachers

REDU stands for rethinking, reforming and rebuilding US education. Powered by people and technology, REDU is a movement designed to expand and encourage the national conversation around education reform by providing information and resources to learn, a community platform to connect, and tools and initiatives to act.