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If you're moving to Feedly from Google Reader, go ahead. Nice tool. The only drawback is lack of Diigo integration. I hope you'll go over to Feedly and ask for that if you use it like I do so we can have voices asking for it! Here are the steps.

This is horrible news to most bloggers I know as many of us use Google reader and the apps that go with it like Mr. Reader and Feedly to pull information out of the web. RSS is one of the most useful features of Web 2 and I'm really unhappy w/ Google. iGoogle was a mistake, this a travesty. Google needs to read outliers and the mavens who use tools. I'll be researching new rss tools. This is ridiculous. ""While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader," Urs Hölzle, SVP Technical Infrastructure wrote. "Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.""

Miguel Guhlin is doing what many of us are doing after the last straw - Google pulling GoogleReader. He's documenting how he's going to pull his dependence upon Google. For me, my biggest decision caused by Google is that I'll be moving to Wordpress over the summer. I do think Google Sites is next although I've received several heated emails that this isn't accurate - if you look at the market share of google sites, it is far less than that of Google reader. Yes, it is something educators depend upon but you get what you pay for. I think Google would be better served to have a freemium model -- if advertising doesn't pay for it, we'll let you keep the service if you pay. I don't know how I"d move from gmail. I just don't but if I had to, I guess I could. I don't think gmail is going anywhere, but I do have my personal email boxes going into that inbox. I agree wikispaces is far superior to Google sites. It started quite a few years a go with Google Lively and it has just continued every year. Thank you Miguel for your transparency. I hope Google is listening, many of us are still HOT about Google reader going away.As great as Feedly is, it doesn't have Diigo or ifttt.com integration yet which is a problem.

I'm beta testing Feedspot. The thing that most interests me about this option is that they are building in a true replacement for Google Alerts, something that Feedly doesn't have. RSS makes life much easier and helps you keep up with current news.

I'm also beta testing it. So far, I really like it, its simplicity, and Google Reader-ishness

Glue all of the topics you need in one place. Looks like an interesting take on feedly or a notebook type service. Cool

"Investigators determined that intervention to counteract friends' influence may have more of an effect in junior high than in high school, and that parents remain influential on smoking behavior through high school - indicating another possible intervention target. "Based on social developmental model research, we thought friends would have more influence on cigarette use during high school than junior high school," said first author Yue Liao, M.P.H., Ph.D. "But what we found was friends have greater influence during junior high school than high school. We think the reason may be that friends' cigarette use behavior may have a stronger influence on youth who start smoking at a younger age. During high school, cigarette use might represent the maintenance of behavior rather than a result of peer influence."

Testing students over material that is NOT in the curriculum is not fair. I think that states should have a way to mark things not covered and just take the hits across the board for not having it in their curriculum instead of causing children to suffer through feeling ignorant. Common Core may be great, however, if it isn't in the curriculum it is unfair and shouldn't be done. What can we do? Do we cause children to stress out unfairly because adults can't get their act together or it takes time to change the curriculum? I don't know the answers, but the thought of a child looking at a test and knowing that some things didn't happen in the classroom and the impact of "feeling dumb" that will happen just turns my stomach, literally.  From the NEw York Times. " And they are likely to cover at least some material that has yet to make its way into the curriculum. The new tests, given to third through eighth graders, are intended to align with Common Core standards, a set of unified academic guidelines adopted by almost every state and goaded by grant money offered by the Obama administration. They set more rigorous classroom goals for American students, with a focus on critical thinking skills, abstract reasoning in math and reading comprehension."

This infographic is an impactful one helping school boards and IT departments understand the important of BYOD environments. In 2011 70% of the workforce between 22-34 used tablets and globally 46% of the mobile workforce has a smartphone. Using, managing, and maximizing these tools is an important part of modern life. Perhaps today's issues are helping students learn to focus, but keeping them out of school is shortsighted decision that will be looked back upon as a lack of vision... that is if you can help kids focus and help teachers encourage the use of them effectively. "Smartphones and Tablet sales will soon take over laptop and desktop computer sales: Don't stick just to books - why not let students use the technology they'll need in the future?"

Socrative has even more cool features. Richard Byrne gives an overview on on of my favorite blogs, Free Tech for Teachers. "Socrative's new image option could be great for asking mathematics questions that are diagram based. The image option could also be great for world languages teachers to post a picture of an object that students have to identify in the language that they're learning. And the new automatic grading option could save you a ton of time that you can then invest in something else. "

"In its first television foray, TED has joined forces with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the New York public broadcaster WNET for a one-hour special, "TED Talks Education," to be broadcast on PBS on Tuesday. If it is successful, the program could become a template for future joint projects, said Juliet Blake, one of the show's executive producers and the TED official charged with bringing the conferences to television."

There's a new "cable tv" in town... YouTube. That's right. YouTube may be launching paid premium channels this week. It will be quite interesting to see what happens if a video goes viral behind a paywall and if the free-for-all online video network will disenfranchise its netizens or if youth will take their game elsewhere. Of course, YouTube must continue to monetize and make development of content worth it for their content creators, but it will be interesting to see what happens, particularly with new networks like Vine cropping up around sharing video.

Great information shared by Bob  Sprankle on why you should use Scratch with kids. If you work with elementary curriculum or teach in an elementary STEM or computer lab read this. "THIS is the true intent of Scratch. Mitch Resnick made Scratch with his team at MIT. The team is (purposefully) called "The Lifelong Kindergarten Group" because in kindergarten we are allowed (or used to be allowed) to try things out, build things and knock them down, make a mess, experiment, fool around with tools, CREATE! Resnick says that we should be allowed to be working like that ALL the time -for our entire lives-because that is HOW WE LEARN BEST. It is the natural way the brain operates."