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Earlier we talked about how a single botnet could harness more compute power than our largest super computers. Well, that's just the start of it. The amount of computer power available to the Ambient Cloud will be truly astounding.

By 2014 one estimate is there will be 2 billion PCs. That's a giant reservoir of power to exploit, especially considering these new boxes are stuffed with multiple powerful processors and gigabytes of memory. 7 Billion Smartphones By now it's common wisdom smartphones are the computing platform of the future. It's plausible to assume the total number of mobile phones in use will roughly equal the number of people on earth. That's 7 billion smartphones. Smartphones aren't just tiny little wannabe computers anymore either. They are real computers and are getting more capable all the time.

One Google exec estimates that in 12 years an iPod will be able to store all the video ever produced.

He talked about wide hallways where students could gather. He talked about attendance policies which allowed students to sign into classes from elsewhere in the building if that made them more comfortable. He talked about multiple projection screens in every classroom to break "single focus learning." He talked about dropping text books for authentic materials and the acceptance of multiple - and student chosen - ways of demonstrating knowledge. He even talked about having big windows in classrooms both to the outside and the school corridors - "We're not hiding from the world or hiding the world from our students" he told us.

And then we listened to teachers and students, we wandered the building, and we saw. In newly built additions classroom doors were centered on one wall, projectors, aimed from the middle of the ceiling, pointed to two corners. Window walls opened outside, big windows allowed views to/from the halls. In most rooms the two projectors were in use, showing different things. In most rooms, students gathered in clusters, often passing tablet boards around.

All in all what I saw was a 1:1 initiative that had been shaped by a commitment to rethinking school, and centering the form of school on what students need now - collaboration, access to and effective use of global information, trust in students, belief in leveraging the world of today rather than avoiding it, and universal design.

 I believe it is ideal to invite the student to participate in understanding and creating the goals of their learning.

We should allow them to be an active part of the conversation and thinking around the what, how and why of their learning.

By always dictating the outcomes, we turn our leaning into checklist to be completed, passively learning what is expected of us and never reaching beyond the boundaries of the rubrics or standards.

please read the following list of agreements with your child. Please sign and date this agreement and return to Ms. Hughes. Thanks for your cooperation!

Infractions of these rules will lead to the following consequences in order of severity and number of offense: Letter of apology to those offended by the infraction(individual students, one core class, or whole blogging community),warning by teacher, and editing or deletion of offending post/comment. Letter of apology to those offended by the infraction(individual students, one core class, or whole blogging community),temporary loss of blogging privileges (duration of quarter), editing or deletion of offending post/comment. Letter of apology to those offended by the infraction (individual students, one core class, or whole blogging community), permanent loss of blogging privileges(duration of school year), editing or deletion of offending post/comment.

The results of the Government's National Human Rights Consultation show that Australians have overwhelmingly called for a Human Rights Act. It's crucial that we seize this moment and ensure the Government act on the recommendations. Add your name to our petition, calling on the Government to enact a Human Rights Act that secures the rights of all Australians. The greater the weight of community support behind an Act the harder the Government will find it to back away from the call. Sign the petition below:

A first-grade teacher was suspended Thursday following alleged comments on her Facebook page in which she said she felt like a "warden" overseeing "future criminals," according to a district official.

"This is not first time I've heard something like this from a teacher," Best said. "Overall, I think we have really good teachers. But there's also a significant population of teachers here to collect the paycheck and don't have the best interests of the students in mind."

"There might be others (who share the sentiments of the online remarks) but all I've dealt with have shown no signs like that," said the Rev. Barry Graham, assistant pastor at Canaan Baptist Church

According to Picasa, If you’ve signed up for Google+ photos up to 2048 x 2048 pixels and videos up to 15 minutes won’t count towards your free storage. (hat tip to Greg Grothaus)

To add people who have added you to their circles, but you haven’t add them, go to the “People who’ve added you” tab and select “Not yet in circles” from the sort menu.  All the people not in your circles will be listed first (hat tip to Owen Prater)

Right click on a circle and select “View circle in tab”. This is a terrific way to see who’s in a circle and allows you to do neat things like drag all the people inside it to another circle.