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Welcome to your new Google smarthome - not smartphone - smarthome. They've bought a smart thermostat maker - I can imagine all kinds of cool things with Google Glasses, Droids, and other Google integrations with this. This interesting article covers many of the things Google has gone into besides their traditional search box/ advertising model and it tells you about the future of our world as a major giant positions for the Internet of Things which moves far beyond our screens into the air we breathe. This will impact our schools beyond what we understand as our surroundings become smarter and able to be controlled remotely in ways we can't really understand today. These are trends I'll be discussing in my Intro to Computer Science classes. "Google Inc announced plans to acquire smart thermostat maker Nest Labs Inc for US$3.2bil (RM10.54bil), signalling the Internet company's intention to expand into a broader array of devices and bringing valuable hardware design expertise in-house. "

Education is an issue around the world as demonstrated in this video from New South Wales Premier Barry O'Farrell. They have problems with "reneged deals with Federal and State governments." Education is in flux the world over, lest any one group of educators feel they are being singled out. This is largely caused by the information age. While the industrial age changed how people worked, the information age is fundamentally changing how people learn and those organizations that can adapt and progress will remain. Some towns suffered the loss of factories but kept their schools. What happens when the schools close? Integrate technology, blend learning, or the tightening finances world wide will make it hard for you to thrive in an education landscape increasingly mixed with education technology.

This very useful post is one you can share with educators about the SAMR model for technology integration into the classroom. This excellent blog post from Educators Technology is one that will inform you (with great videos embedded) and help you understand what it is intended to do. With teacher evaluation systems everywhere adapting this model, every teacher should read this post.

Susan Oxnevad has some more powerful infographics. In this case, she's linked together many of her posts about developing a digital toolkit and relating SAMR to Common Core. There are some great resources here for technology integrators as well as observing Susan's style for graphically sharing her information.

Great article by Elliott Bristow on the Edublogger about Minecraft in schools and how it is being used. This is a great reference for those of us working to integrate this into our classroom.

Here comes Windows 8 with a lot of new settings. These are talking about the Windows phone updates but other updates are on the way. "While Windows 8.1 adds a lot of features and improvements across the OS, the built-in apps include some of the biggest changes. Microsoft is detailing a few of the more creative ones ahead of the Windows 8.1 release tomorrow. The photos app in Windows 8 included Facebook and Flickr integration, but the Windows 8.1 version drops that in lieu of some improvements to editing. You can now select auto fix for a selection of different corrections, and there's also manual cropping, red-eye removal, retouch, and other basic contrast and brightness settings. One of the more interesting features is color enhance that lets you pick an area of a photo to brighten up or darken areas of photos."

So, teachers think it would help but are afraid to connect to their students and parents via social media. "The survey finds nearly half (47 percent) of all K-12 teachers and 58 percent of high school teachers believe that participation in social media with their teachers can enhance a student's educational experience. Despite the perceived benefits, only 17 percent of K-12 teachers encourage their students to connect with them via social media and only 18 percent have integrated it into their classrooms. Adoption is only slightly greater for high school teachers, with 21 percent encouraging their students to connect with them via social media and 19 percent incorporating it into classroom learning."

Noteflight is a powerful full-featured application to edit, display and play back music notation in a standard web browser, integrated in an online library of musical scores that anyone can publish, link to, or embed.

"Teachers are quickly catching on and even surpassing students when it comes to embracing social media. What if you still have questions about the plethora of communication channels that exist for teachers to reach their students? Thankfully we are proud to share 'Tools For The 21st Century Teacher' by Michael Zimmer, a Technology Integration Specialist in Western Kentucky."

Over 700,000 historical New York Public Library images are now integrated within VoiceThread's media browser. Useful for exploring history with a contemporary voice, or illustrating a research project.

A website full of animated movies, interactive tutorials and instructional videos, all free for you to view and to embed in your website. Simply select an animated explanation and follow the instructions to integrate it in your site.

The use of PowerPoint presentations in schools takes advantage of education technology integration strategies and techniques. However, student learning is not improved when these presentations are merely a substitute for note taking bullets from older overhead projectors. To take advantage of the power of this technology, the elimination of boring slide shows must be replaced with interactive story telling that keeps students engaged.

Strategies and techniques are provided for integrating podcasts lessons to promote the benefits of greater student engagement and alternative assessment.

What is Wolfram Alpha? It is a supercomputing brain. It provides calculates and provides comprehensive answers to most any science or math question. Unlike other search sources, you and your students can ask questions in plain language or various forms of abbreviated notation. Contrary to popular belief, Wolfram Alpha is not a search engine. Unlike popular search engines, which simply retrieve documents based on keyword searches, Wolfram computes answers based on known models of human knowledge. It provides answers which are complete with data and algorithms, representing real-world knowledge.

Stimulating critical thinking using technology has the potential to create more in depth understanding of science and math content by students when engaged in learning activities which integrate in-class and on-line technology resources. Technology tools support stimulation of both inquiry-based and critical thinking skills by engaging students in exploring, thinking, reading, writing, researching, inventing, problem-solving, and experiencing the world outside their classroom. This is accomplished through learning content through the lens of video to multimedia to the internet (Using Technology to Improve Student Achievement, NCREL, 2005).

The value of Twitter for helping you and your colleagues stay informed of the latest trends, ideas, resources, and Web 2.0 integration tools has increased tremendously in the past year. A Web 2.0 tool is available for exploiting the every growing information on Twitter to remove barriers and allow you to collaborate with other science and math teachers. This new online tool is paper.li - a source of daily Twitter newsletters in education.

"Sharendipity is a web based creativity suite where anyone can build and deploy engaging and interactive web applications. Go. Build something wonderful today. Free creation tools inside the browser Integrate third-party web services No programming required Deploy your apps anywhere on the web"