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I love this article which talks about the most common problems when people call customer service. I believe that as I teach my students I should help them become technically fluent to minimize these problems and maximize their potential in this increasingly technical world. The most common problems are: * Users don't know the terminology to describe the problem they have or to know what to look for. * Users haven't studied the problem long enough. * Users don't recognize details or signs which might aid in understanding the problem. * Users might not have easy access to the documentation, may not be qualified to understand it (because of language barriers or technical level), or they may simply not have the time or energy to use it. * Users might be unaware of the status of their computer/account/browser and/or they might be limited in their ability to obtain this information. * Users might have received incorrect or misleading information from someone else, or they might have made incorrect assumptions about the product. * Users may be familiar with one kind of product and lack the appropriate mental model for knowing how the product is supposed to work. * Users might have previous problems in the past and found it easier just to call technical support than to risk aggravating the problem when trying to fix it.

Information on how to help users become more proficient at being helped.

Executive Office of the President Council of Economic Advisers Unleashing the Potential of Educational Technology September 16, 2011 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Educational technology holds the promise of substantially improving outcomes for K-12 students, but there are significant challenges in bringing new educational technology products for this population to market. It is difficult for producers of these technologies to demonstrate the effectiveness of their products to potential buyers and market fragmentation creates barriers to entry by all but the largest suppliers. The spread of broadband Internet and Common Core State Standards have improved the landscape for educational technologies, but these factors alone are likely insufficient for a "game changing" advance. Working together, stakeholders can form a plan of action to provide local school systems with easy access to good information about the effectiveness of various educational technology products and give prospective developers of these products access to customers on a scale sufficient to make it worthwhile for them to enter the market. The payoff - in the form of more effective and more widely utilized educational technologies, leading to better outcomes for students - could be enormous.

Disgusting. Via the Washington Post So many things going wrong. "Talk about corporate-based school reform. New high-stakes standardized tests aligned with the Common Core State Standards are featuring plugs for commercial products. And the companies didn't have to pay a penny. Yes, New York state students who this past week took Pearson-designed exams were just treated to plugs for LEGO, Mug Root Beer and more products from at least half a dozen companies, according to  the New York Post."

An amazing science site with a large number of magnificent animations and graphics to help you explain science principles. Content suitable for older students. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Science

mission is to educate students in the sciences by building content-rich immersive teaching tools designed around discovery-based learning that are accessible to educators and learners at school, at home and in the general public. Spongelab Interactive builds their own products and offers custom production services for the global education community. Their unique approach around integrating educational design with advance web & gaming technology is planting the seeds for continued innovation of advanced communication and education products.

"Generation V is not defined by age, gender, social class or geography. Instead, it is based on achievement, accomplishments and an increasing preference for the use of digital media channels to discover information, build knowledge and share insights." Additionally the percentages that create content, contribute, etc. affects classroom and project planning. Do we allow students to "lurk" Findings about these Generation V segments: * Up to 3% will be creators, providing original content. They can be advocates that promote products and services. * Between 3% and 10% will be contributors who add to the conversation, but don't initiate it. They can recommend products and services as customers move through a buying process, looking for purchasing advice. * Between 10% and 20% will be opportunists, who can further contributions regarding purchasing decisions. Opportunists can add value to a conversation that's taking place while walking through a considered purchase. * Approximately 80% will be lurkers, essentially spectators, who reap the rewards of online community input but absorb only what is being communicated. They can still implicitly contribute and indirectly validate value from the rest of the community. All users start out as lurkers."

Here is a beginner guide for Scratch. This is a great set of resources to help you get started with computer game production in Scratch. This was developed to cover the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence, Experience, and Outcome for Game Production. This is a fascinating way to start. I hope others will share their resources in the comments. I want to use Scratch in my classroom.

This lifehacker article shares some of the research that has to do with productivity. This is one I wish all schools understood "when office workers get to arrange their space, productivity is increased." Some teachers I know have no ability to determine where they put their desks or the desks of their students. At my school, we are allowed a lot of freedom with arranging our rooms and it shows. The article also points out that office plans lower stress levels. Some interesting color research as well.

Resources for strapped schools to increase productivity.

Moog India is a focal point for servo motors production, solutions and services for industrial products, in addition to defense applications in India, SAARC and Middle-East. Moog Manufacturing plant, design center and sales and support facilities are located in Bangalore.

I saw this on Fran Drescher's Twitter account from the Cincinnati Business courier and am quite floored by it. Am I the only one who doesn't know this? How about all of the little kids I see where parents are handing them their ipad and smart phones for play purposes. I jusst need to know more but it is based on a study presented at the Pediatric Academic societies meeting in DC. Of course, they recommend hand washing. But pregnant women should be careful - a 10x increase in maternal PBDE's is associated with a 4 point IQ deficit. Of course, we also have the age old question here of causation or correlation.  I do think we need to know more and also if the equipment we're purchasing to use with young children has PBDEs in them.  If you know more, please leave comments. It does say that some manufacturers are voluntarily phasing these out. "Small children should not touch electronic items such as TVs, mobile phones, computers and other products, according to University of Cincinnati researchers. Chemicals found in such items and in many other products, including older carpets and furniture, can cause behavioral and cognition problems, they have found."

VirtualBox is a powerful x86 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). See "About VirtualBox" for an introduction. Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Windows 7), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), Solaris and OpenSolaris, and OpenBSD.

We look into how much paper currency and coin production is in circulation, and some interesting facts surrounding the U.S. Mint's production.

While microblogging has helped free students from jails, as well as raised money for charity, it has also given a lot of us a good reason to procrastinate. This isn't Twitter's fault. We'll always find nice and shiny things to do instead of work, but there's a point where we have to say - enough is enough. Let's get productive while staying an active microblogger in five simple steps:

TheVisualMD site offers a rich, visual experience to learn, understand, and interact with health content on the Internet.TheVisualMD is brought to you by Anatomical Travelogue, LLC. Anatomical Travelogue, LLC is a medical imaging research and media production company based in New York City. Our unique 3D visuals are the foundation and signature of all Anatomical Travelogue products, including books, websites, TV shows, and museum exhibits. We use the visuals to tell stories and educate the public on topics and issues related to health and wellness. Our visuals are produced using real human data from a variety of medical scans - magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computer tomography (CT) ultrasound, and confocal laser scans. The data is collected, digitized, and recompiled using volume-visualization software. These volumes and virtual models are dissected, repositioned, colorized, and texturized as necessary to bring them to life. This website contains advice and information relating to health care. It is not intended to replace medical advice and should be used to supplement rather than replace regular care by your doctor. It is recommended that you seek your physician's advice before embarking on any medical program or treatment.

"At its inception in the Victorian era, mass education in the UK focused very much on conformity, based on the prevailing 'factory production' mindset on the age. But how much has changed? With top down curricula and a rigid exam system testing the merest fraction of what is actually important, has education really left the production line behind?"

"Drawing from almost 200 scientific studies on workplace meetings, a team of psychological scientists provides recommendations for making the most out of meetings before they start, as they're happening, and after they've concluded. Their report is published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Meetings are a near-ubiquitous aspect of today's professional workplace and there is abundant trade wisdom and written guidance about how meetings should be run. But, as researchers Joseph Mroz and Joseph Allen (University of Nebraska Omaha) and Dana Verhoeven and Marissa Shuffler (Clemson University) point out, very little of this guidance is informed by the available science."

You can send and receive faxes into an Evernote notebook using HelloFax. Very interesting productivity tool.

This article describes the use of markdown in notetaking. I'm looking for information on using markdown in Evernote, but am not sure it is doable. It is funny how things come around. The reason people like markdown is it means that it saves you from lifting your hand up to touch the screen. The reason we touch the screen is because we got rid of the mouse. We got rid of the mouse because touching the screen was easier. We started using a mouse because it was too hard to remember all of the keyboard commands. But we are using markdown keyboard commands because it is easier and faster than touching the screen. ;-) Although this may be odd to some of you, it does point out that as you become more proficient, you can become more productive and markdown is one of those ways.