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Very solid approaches for the integration of screencasting into classroom learning by Eric Curtis of Control Alt Achieve.

The good: The Roku 2 XS is an ultrasmall Wi-Fi streaming-media box that offers dozens of Internet video and audio services, including Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, Crackle, Pandora, NHL, NBA, and MLB, among many others. It works with HD and standard TVs, and it includes a Wii-like motion controller for casual gaming (Angry Birds is included). The bottom line: Thanks to a varied range of content offerings--including Netflix, Amazon, Hulu Plus, Crackle, and Pandora--that beats the Apple TV, the Roku 2 XS is the best all-around streaming-media box you can get for less than $100.

Cloud computing and Web-based applications will never be the same June 16, 2009 - Oslo, Norway Opera today unveiled Opera Unite, a new technology that shakes up the old client-server computing model of the Web. Opera Unite turns any computer into both a client and a server, allowing it to interact with and serve content to other computers directly across the Web, without the need for third-party servers. Opera Unite makes serving data as simple and easy as browsing the Web. For consumers, Opera Unite services give greater control of private data and make it easy to share data with any device equipped with a modern Web browser.

Most public schools are traditionally run by principals and administrators, who defer to policies dictated by the state. But a group of 60 schools across the country is subverting the top-down system, putting teachers in full control of running their schools. It's called the Teacher Powered Schools initiative, led by Education Evolving, and the goal is to seed a movement that will inspire other teachers in schools across the country to realize their potential as leaders. To that end, Education Evolving released a study [PDF]  in partnership with Center for Teaching Quality, which indicates that 91 percent of Americans believe teachers should have greater influence over decisions that affect student learning. What's more, 81 percent of Americans indicate they trust teachers to make "schools run better." In this model of teacher-run schools, teams of teachers "work collaboratively as leaders and partners to make professional decisions over the areas that matter most for their students, including selection of colleagues, evaluation, budget and resources, curriculum and school-level policymaking.""

"Arduino can sense the environment by receiving input from a variety of sensors and can affect its surroundings by controlling lights, motors, and other actuators. The microcontroller on the board is programmed using the Arduino programming language (based on Wiring) and the Arduino development environment (based on Processing). Arduino projects can be stand-alone or they can communicate with software running on a computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, MaxMSP)."

"AERobot (Affordable Education Robot) is a low-cost robot designed to introduce students of all ages to the fundamentals of programming and control of robots, with the hope of inspiring them to further pursue studies in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM).  We hope that AERobot's low cost ($10.70 including assembly) will enable more students, especially those who could not normally afford to do so, to gain hands-on experience in robotics"

"A few days ago Google released a few interesting updates to its Drive applications. One important update that I want to share with you today is called "Suggested Edits". This new feature is great for collaborative work on Google Docs. Before, when you share a Google document with your collaborators and grant them the editing rights they can edit anything in it. But with "Suggested Edits" you, as the owner of the document, can control this editing process by allowing collaborators to make only suggestions which you can either accept or reject. This new feature is not available on Google Docs for mobile."