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Nice article. Technology in every facet of life - cars, homes, and public places, statiums, etc. It underscores focus on user interface, integration, and simplicity. We are getting more data than we can comsume. We know so much about daily lives of our friends, it has become, as the other puts it, "A New Reality Show."

Here is another $35 tablet from Singapore called the I-slate. Every great solution has got to address a real pain - this learning tablet tackles the lack of electric power in several locations around the globe. There is some mention of what it can and cannot do on the technology front. The learning programs embedded are not elaborated.

Augmented reality mashup with Google Earth Maps animates cars, pedestrians and football games on Google Earth.

HuffPo is now doing automated A/B testing for its headlines. How does that apply to ed? Online learners all have that liminal moment where they choose to click through or not click through. Proper A/B testing uncovers the motivation of why (or at least the effectiveness) of why some marketing copy and headlines work, and others dont. The best cloud-based ed. tech in the world means nothing if the click-through rate of a passive user is not substantial.

Here's a little media literacy for our emerging technologies.

Google has US Education in its crosshairs.... Google is name-dropping all sorts of work in the education space in its forum to help redefine American education : Harlem Children's Zone, NCLB, A Nation at Risk, Sesame Street................. Here's a snippet: "And according to McKinsey's Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools report, if the U.S. had in recent years closed the gap between its educational achievement levels and those of higher-performing nations, our GDP in 2008 could have been $1.3 trillion to $2.3 trillion higher. That's 9 to 16 percent of GDP!"

"From the point-of-view of teacher education, I think it's absolutely critical that we teach our teachers how to think and communicate from a global perspective, so they can teach students how to look at the problems the world faces through a different prism."

This is a website that allows users to find videos from which children (3-18) can learn. All videos are hosted by other sites like YouTube, but content is approved and moderated separately. Comments and discussions are separate from the comments on the original post (i.e. WatchKnow comments do not get added to YouTube and YouTube comments do not appear on WatchKnow). There is heavy emphasis on transparent, widespread monitoring of content. This is accomplished in ways very reminiscent of Wikipedia's moderation methods. Right now, the site has a good number of videos, but lacks a rich community of active users. This means that it is harder to locate quality videos since few users have rated and discussed content.

This website is very similar to an idea I've been brewing for a while (though I believe this site is missing some of the more promising features). I was pleasantly surprised to see professor Dede's name on the Advisory Committee.

This video has gotten more than 3 million hits. It portrays the perceived realities of higher education through the eyes of students, and questions the claim that technology will save education.

This video reports on one professor's use of Twitter in the classroom as a means for students to ask questions. Some students abuse the system, while the TAs are charged with answering the questions during class.

This article highlights how virtual education can transform the learning experience for students with special needs, as well and low and high performing students by allowing them to slow down or speed up according to their needs. As more and more students enroll in online courses, public schools are trying to figure out how incorporate virtual learning into their districts.

I think this is what Uche is talking about with respect to enabling teachers with a school specific voice mail system that is also mobile. In my department office there is 1 phone for 10 teachers. The department chair is the only one who checks messages (once a day each morning) and it's difficult to use the phone because, even though we often deal in confidential information, we don't have any privacy for conversation. I'm signing up!

lack of security - a weakness of online learning - sesame street youtube channel hacked and filled with porn

Interesting look at mapping 21st Century Skills to Montessori .

I am a fan of the Motessori approach and am encouraged to see that they are mapping the new technology skills to the tenets of what has been working so well for them already.

Tom Daccord and Justin Reich have a great blog on their EdTechTeacher website.  Coming up on March 3-4, they are hosting the EdTechTeacher2012 Winter Conference "Leading Change in Changing Times"  featuring familiar faces:  Chris Dede and Stone Wiske.

MassCUE is hosting it's annual Education Technology conference on October 26-27. Check out the topics on their schedule.  I've arranged a discounted student admission fee ($50/day) and I'm organizing a field trip (for up to 15) students on that Thursday with Yong Zhao as the keynote speaker.  Contact me if interested.

Much debate continues on the effectiveness of software applications on learning and assessment of outcomes. The story focuses on claims made by "Carnegie Learning" on claims made about its math software products. This highlights challenges faced by teachers and parents in identifying educational software for children.

It will be interesting to see the specific initiatives that come out of this new "Harvard wide" initiative.  I wonder if anyone at HGSE is involved with the planning and application of best practices

This article profiles a school in Arizona that has adopted a blended learning model.