Some teachers recommended the book "When Marion Copied" for teaching kids about plaigarism in elementary.

Withings is a company that has wi-fi enabled devices. These devices include apps and all kinds of smart-enabled tools (including ifttt.com integration.) Scales can automatically log your weight to evernote or a google doc to track, a blood pressure monitor and perhaps my favorite, a baby monitor that lets you dial in on junior using your iphone or ipad. (I needed that when my children were younger.) I am thinking about getting the baby monitor to use to monitor my classroom. So many different applications.

A fantastic example of how a teacher takes his students through the video creation process for Flat Classroom along with some wonderful handouts. If you teach video, you will get some ideas here. Students will also benefit from it.

My students and I have been playing with Aurasma today on our ipads and iphones. You have to have a unique image (digital or distinct images are best) and you can attach animations or videos to them. So, a book's page can have a video attached or a painting could have a description attached. It is very cool. This TED video explains the concept.

A flashmob at graduation? Oh yes. If you want to smile at kids and what happens in today's interconnected society watch this graduation flashmob. Without social media, I doubt this sort of thing would be possible. 

Flat Classroom® Conference heads to Europe (Germany December 6-8, 2012) and Asia (Japan March 8-12, 2013) - here's the information you need to get started to plan your trip!! Bring your students and join us! I'm taking a group of students to Germany so if you want to come early and tour with us, let me know! http://bit.ly/KchopE

Cell phones will be able to see through walls according to new research. Perhaps the pundits would do well to watch a few old episodes of Star Trek since the tricorder seems to be getting closer to reality than ever. Such things have all kinds of privacy issues at the helm deserving discussion now before we see our way to a future of things that cause big brother to be everywhere. 

Massively Open Online Courses are the discussion in Open Education -- I think the important thing is that students want to CONNECT around content - it is the relationships and connections that are so amazing more than just the content. People with a common passion are connecting through the content. The content becomes a conduit.  "Consider Stanford's experience: Last fall, 160,000 students in 190 countries enrolled in an Artificial Intelligence course taught by Mr. Thrun and Peter Norvig, a Google colleague. An additional 200 registered for the course on campus, but a few weeks into the semester, attendance at Stanford dwindled to about 30, as those who had the option of seeing their professors in person decided they preferred the online videos, with their simple views of a hand holding a pen, working through the problems. Mr. Thrun was enraptured by the scale of the course, and how it spawned its own culture, including a Facebook group, online discussions and an army of volunteer translators who made it available in 44 languages. "Having done this, I can't teach at Stanford again," he said at a digital conference in Germany in January. "I feel like there's a red pill and a blue pill, and you can take the blue pill and go back to your classroom and lecture your 20 students. But I've taken the red pill, and I've seen Wonderland."

Information on International children's day which began in Turkey. Here's some information on this event. "Every year, the children in Turkey celebrate this "Sovereignty and Children's Day" as a national holiday. Schools participate in week-long ceremonies marked by performances in all fields in large stadiums watched by the entire nation. Among the activities on this day, the children send their representatives to replace state officials and high ranking bureaucrats in their offices. The President, the Prime Minister, the Cabinet Ministers, provincial governors all turn over their positions to children's representatives. These children, in turn, sign executive orders relating to educational and environmental policies. On this day, the children also replace the parliamentarians in the Grand National Assembly and hold a special session to discuss matters concerning children's issues. Over the last two decades, the Turkish officials have been working hard to internationalize this important day. Their efforts resulted in large number of world states' sending groups of children to Turkey to participate in the above stated festivities. During their stay in Turkey, the foreign children are housed in Turkish homes and find an important opportunity to interact with the Turkish kids and learn about each other's countries and cultures. The foreign children groups also participate in the special session of the Grand National Assembly. This results in a truly international Assembly where children pledge their commitment to international peace and brotherhood.

A ;new proposed law in the UK wants Skype and social networking sites to be required to keep communications for 12 months. I am thinking this would also apply to Twitter. Understandably, privacy concerns swirl around this proposal. "Ministers say change is needed to help fight crime and terrorism, but critics warn it is an attack on privacy. Internet service providers (ISPs) are obliged to keep details of users' web access, email and internet phone calls for 12 months, under an EU directive from 2009. Although the content of the calls is not kept, the sender, recipient, time of communication and geographical location does have to be recorded. The proposed new law - which the Home Office says will be brought in "as soon as parliamentary time allows" - would extend those requirements to social networking sites and internet phone services such as Skype."

Instagram is on Android with support for Facebook Twitter, Tumblr, and Foursquare but not Flickr. Increasingly, pictures are being shared due to the proliferation of websites like pinterest. It is a free app and a great way to share photographs from your phone.

A wiki where fans edit information about things they like. Another example of a wiki that is somewhat of an offsping of wikipedia. As Wikipedia has gotten more formal in editing requirements, those who like the free-er atmosphere from the early days of wikipedia are moving elsewhere to places like this. This wiki has no notability requirements. Anything can be added that one likes. It looks like, however, that this site has locked down editing (for now) because they didn't have enough editors. However, this is a pretty large wiki.

A new PEW report about the most desired skills of 2020. Things like focus, critical thinking and collaborative skills are on the list. This is an important paper to read as we shape education. Not much on this report indicates doing well on a standardized test will prepare you. "software designer Fred Stutzman said the future is bright for people who take advantage of their ability to work cooperatively through networked communication

Excellent article about collaboration between US and overseas classroom includes Flat Classroom superstar, Suzie Nestico.

" Evi is a new iPhone (iTunes link) and Android app in Beta (link) which might just give Apple's Siri a run for her money" Ftom True Knowledge, this app is said to be much better for those outside the US where Siri really doesn't have the answers, literally. Have the virtual assistant app wars begun?

NYU Medical students wear 3-D glasses and dissect a virtual cadaver projected on a screen. The professor says "it's like a living digital textbook." I do, however, really hope my doctors have experience with the human body and don't do like a kid who has practiced basketball and never played in the game - bumble the ball as they start. No one wants to be a practice dummy - in this case a practice cadaver. Yet, do you realize that we could now add human dissection to anatomy class? In 3D you could dissect the human body? There are very exciting things coming in this area.

How high performing nations teach global skills.

If you wanted to examine the dead sea scrolls in the past, it would have been a challenge. These scrolls are being shared online now and allow scholars around the world to have access only afforded to exclusive scholars on a limited basis in the past.

Here is the TGI cyber Monday app. This is for shopping on Monday.

Black Friday? There is an app for that. TGI Black Friday. It gives you the ads. You can download them on your iphone and Android. (OK, yes, I'm researching for shopping and sharing the good things with you.)