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Contains I can… talk about how I use the internet, that internet takes me to far away paces and people, that staying safe on internet is like staying safe in real life, I understand what info is private and how to keep it that way.

An interesting site with lots of activities and information about animals, including a fun animal switcher which lets you use various parts of real animals to make a new (and usually bizarre) creature. So if you have ever thought that a bear would look better with a crocodile's head, now is your chance to prove it! http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Science

Smagorinsky nails the real origins of NCLB testing as a $20 billion cost to states that profit the testing/textbook companies.

Play-on: the boundaries between the real and virtual world have gone for kids, it's all just one big world of play.  Now kids arrange play dates in the playground, swapping their penguin names to 'Play-on' after school in Club Penguin.  The new friends functionality will allow kids to find their friends faster, teleporting them to their friends within Club Penguin, regardless of where they are playing from or what server they're on Supportmobbing: Kidanthropy:  Kidsourcing:  Digilinguists:

new, free website from Pearson Foundation to support the free entrepreneurship education program from the US. "Connect is your online resource for entrepreneurship education, a fast-growing approach that helps young people place their educational goals in the context of real-world success. Entrepreneurship education helps students learn by exploring the principles of business development and creating functioning, profitable enterprises.

A well designed science 3D simulation showing the position of the sun and moon from any position on the Earth in real time or at a certain time in the past or future. Also see the moon phase and sun rise and set times. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Science

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

Get your class to help with real micro biology science by playing this fun folding game. Download the programme and follow the on-screen instructions to get playing in no time. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Science

This blog is more reflection than information but hopefully others can relate. 

A great site where you can collaborate with an online whiteboard. Invite other by giving them the page link and see then their drawings in real time. Upload images, chat and embed the whiteboard on your site. Your whiteboards are automatically saved for you to return to later. I'm excited by the possibilities of this site! http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

ePals and th Smithsonian are sponsoring their third Invent It challenge where students address real world problems with inventions. The projects are due on April 11. Sign up now and plan this authentic project into your classroom this spring.

This is a fun Android and Apple app from University College London were players complete a range of games to exercise the brain cells and provide researchers with real, but anonymous data to use in their study. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Science

I read Joel Comm's book Twitter Power and it has been one of my longtime favorites on the topic. Here he talks brutally about the negatives of social media. I admit the topic caught my attention. I"ve just found that if I'm brutal about who I follow and make sure they're real educators, I'm usually pretty happy with my stream. I unfollow junk as soon as it is evident it is junk. Ultimately we all must guard who we follow or we might just find ourselves following the garbage truck.

Must read letter over at Edweek from a mom of one child who died at Sandy Hook and one who survived... if you want to be affirmed and remember why you teach, this is the post you should share with everyone. "Your courage will support students who are left out and overlooked, like the isolated young man who killed my daughter. At some point he was a young, impressionable student, often sitting all alone at school. You will have kids facing long odds for whom your smile, your encouraging word, and your willingness to go the extra mile will provide the comfort and security they need to try again tomorrow. When you Google "hero," there should be a picture of a principal, a school lunch worker, a custodian, a reading specialist, a teacher, or a bus monitor. Real heroes don't wear capes. They work in America's schools. "When I asked my son's teacher why she returned, she responded, 'Because they are my kids.' " Being courageous requires faith. It took faith to go back to work at Sandy Hook after the shooting. Nobody had the answers or knew what would come tomorrow, but they just kept going. Every opportunity you have to create welcoming environments in our schools where parents and students feel connected counts."

A wonderful collaborative real-time drawing space which connects to your Google Plus account, allowing you to illustrate, explain and teach remotely across the world. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

Another exciting tool to use for the Hour of Code - there is a free module anyone can use, but if you purchase the class option you can track and you can use real names and other options for programming. You might want to try it and see what your students think.

"Spies with surveillance agencies in the United States and United Kingdom may have spent time undercover as orcs and blood elves, infiltrating video games like "World of Warcraft" in a hunt for terrorists "hiding in plain sight" online." I find this very believable for this reason. I had a student in Teen Second life several years a go and he came across a "meeting" of sorts that was obviously something very strange. When he tried to interact with the players they had a way to throw him out and port him other places. It was obviously some sort of strange thing happening. I have no doubt that games are just another way to have "secret" meetings for those who want to hide. That said, it would be hard to tell the difference between those gaming and those doing other things as the games themselves have people plotting and planning so I'm thinking the language used would be hard to separate the real world from the game itself, which, in some ways makes it the perfect way to hide in plain sight.

If you'd really like to get into the Luminosity program, here is the application form to get into it. Here's info from the press release. This is a cool app that is supposed to improve many parts of cognition. I have it on my list to try and it is very interesting to me. Here's the link and some info: "Preliminary results from the Spring 2012 semester found that students who trained with Lumosity improved more on a battery of online cognitive assessments than students who did not train. Additionally, effects were dose-dependent; engaging in more Lumosity training led to greater improvements on the assessments. Insights from the 2012-13 LEAP academic year on the effects of cognitive training on students' real-world academic outcomes are forthcoming. Educators are increasingly interested in enhancing their students' cognitive and behavioral factors. More than 75 percent of all teachers who applied for the Fall 2013 LEAP semester believe training with Lumosity will promote: cognitive enhancement, increased ability to pay attention, improved self-confidence, and improved general attitude toward learning."