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OK. I think this will be great news for many schools who are still clinging to Windows XP. Microsoft will keep supplying anti-malware updates to Windows XP until april 15, 2014. The March 2013 date caused an outcry among many and we've been working hard to update all the XP machines with extra RAM so they could go to Windows 7. But with the machines working so well on XP many of us wonder why we should dispose of machines that work so well especially in cash crunched times. Take your time - you've got a little longer although for us in the US if they'd go through June 2015 it means we can get 2 more school years out of XP machines. In a sign of the times, it can make all the difference between some kids using technology and some not.

Windows 9 is coming in 2015. Many think Windows 8 was a trainwreck. I think one thing all companies should realize is that as the market matures, the older people who have been using Windows (or any other program for a long period of time) not only want to know HOW to do things the new way but WHY they should. I know many who would be happy to pay for and keep a Windows XP interface for a long time. I understand why the surface style was needed for surface devices but many would be happy with an older system using a traditional windows view.

If you want to Mystery Skype, the hashtag on Twitter is #mysteryskype. There's also a new place on Skype for this as well.

A new movie is coming out on OCtober 4 that is a documentary seeking to counter popular misconceptions about Dyslexia. With Dyslexic celebrities like Billy Bob Thornton, Richard Branson and others Barbara Corcoran, and Sir Richard Branson along with Dyslexic director Harvey Hubbel. For special ed teachers and parents, you'll want to keep up with this and help debunk common myths. As a Mom of a dyslexic myself, I want to help people realize that many with this become very successful.

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

More science news! A duckbill dinosaur was found with a trex tooth in it. Yes - Trex was a predator, so no rewrite of Jurassic park is needed. "You see 'Jurassic Park,' and you see T. rex as this massive hunter and killer, as incredibly vicious. But scientists have argued for 100 years that he was too big and too slow to hunt prey and that he was probably a scavenger, an animal that feeds only on dead things," University of Kansas paleontologist David Burnham said. Burnham and researcher Robert DePalma got what Burnham described as his "lucky break" when they found the fossil of a duckbill dinosaur's tail with a tooth in it."

We have name! Nashville teacher Julie Culp used herself as a photography / privacy lesson for her students. Applause, Julie. Great job.

Rumors of an iPad Pro abound for 2014.

So, if you want to peek inside Finland, there are 3 videos on this BBC Wales site that will give you what you want. This Diary of a math teacher in Finland gives you a peek. There's also two other great videos "Let teachers teach, say Finns" and "Finland Classroom Success Secrets." You can embed these that I can find, so you'll need to share the links and watch them on the site. These short videos are just under 4 minutes and would be great to share in a staff meeting.

I was recording a session with Sue Waters tonight about the Edublog Awards and she mentioned this post from Joyce Seitzinger about why the edublog awards matter and I wanted to share it. While many pundits and critics arise and say negative things any time an awards program happens, I think that the Edublog Awards matters because it helps find new voices. Voting will open soon but realize that if anyone nominates you -- it is an honor. Take the time to go through the finalists, add them to your RSS reader and your Twitter account. Take a read at this great post to know why the edublog awards do matter... thank you Joyce for a lovely, compelling post (and some great nominations.)

Fascinating article on design thinking and an attempt to catalog all of the schools using design thinking. I do predict that STEM, design thinking, and creativity are going to become increasingly valued by parents and many who are disenfranchised with a testing environment that is rapidly driving everyone involved to the edge - particularly the students. "Mapping a global movement. A global movement is unfolding, and in response to the overwhelming interest around design thinking in schools, IDEO and the d.school have created a new directory - Design Thinking in Schools - to highlight the network of institutions that are at the forefront of this movement. The directory, launched in mid-October, already features a wide range of programs and resources. There's a mix of learning environments, from charter and district public schools to museums and summer camps. The programs are diverse, including after school "lab" environments and schools that use design thinking as the basis for subject-matter courses. "

Chromebooks are making the news. Here, Miguel Guhlin writes about how you can make video and create audio on Chromebooks.

If you're using mindmapping and brainstorming in the classroom, this list from Mashable is updated and useful. There are a lot of new tools out (many of them paid but some not.) If your students are writing collaboratively, you should have them brainstorming collaboratively before they ever type the first letter of the paper or website.

Alchemy smartbinder is a new app that lets you create lessons (perfect for flipped classrooms) and measure student engagement with the data. This is something I'll be testing. It is in BETA but you flipped classroom pioneers out there will definitely want to give this a try.

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."

Kevin Honeycutt is creating a youtube channel about Geography. Geography teachers might be interested in sharing and following this YouTube channel. Kevin does such a great job on so many things. It is a sock puppet, but you can also use this as a model and have your students do their own sock puppet geography reports in this style. This will protect their privacy and also let them learn about a new location.

Some great thoughts about how cognitive dissonance and our internal dialog in our head makes it hard for us to get started at new tasks.

Visual recognition and intelligent identification of objects is making progress. Soon, just a picture of a child could tell everyone that child's name if simple facial recognition is used. This is more than just facial recognition but is rather, trying to teach a computer to learn. This is an interesting article. "The aim is to see if computers can learn, in the same way a human would, what links images, to help them better understand the visual world. The Never Ending Image Learner (NEIL) program is being run at Carnegie Mellon University in the United States. The work is being funded by the US Department of Defense's Office of Naval Research and Google. Since July, the NEIL program has looked at three million images. As a result it has managed to identify 1,500 objects in half a million images and 1,200 scenes in hundreds of thousands of images as well as making 2,500 associations."

This has got to be the funkiest instant poll, quiz, response site around. Create questions, quizzes and polls with optional uploaded images for participants to complete in real time from a computer or mobile device. The users access the quiz by using a pin code. The 'question master' gets the data back instantly and it is stored on the site or can be downloaded. This is superb for checking the knowledge of children in your class or that your audience is still awake. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

Got this email from a teacher Hi Vicki- I love your blog, tweets and contributions to flipboard! I am a teacher at a local school district charter high school and appreciate your zeal for teaching and learning. I am not sure if you have heard about Kahoot! but wanted to ask you to check it out by following it on Twitter or watching a few youtube videos of Kahoot in action. I have no financial investment in it or any reason for recommending it other than how much we are enjoying using it at our school and how valuable a tool I believe it to be. Questions can be entered by students or teachers and pictures can be uploaded to each question to add visual appeal. The students can use computers, smart phones, tablets and don't have to have an account- they just log in to kahoot.it and then join the interactive quiz. Everyone gets so involved and passionate and it is great for reviews before tests or for supplemental instruction. The results can be viewed on a spreadsheet and provide formative assessments. It can be used for any ages and any subjects. I am so jazzed about this great new tool and hope you will be too. https://getkahoot.com Kathryn Lewallen Payson, AZ Payson Center for Success High School

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