"President Obama will launch the "Educate to Innovate" campaign, a nationwide effort to help reach the administration's goal of moving American students from the middle of the pack to the front in science and math achievement over the next decade. The President will announce a series of partnerships involving leading companies, universities, foundations, non-profits, and organizations representing millions of scientists, engineers and teachers that will motivate and inspire young people across the country to excel in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)."

A whole new meaning to the term "disruptive technology"? A group of students uses Facebook to plot a classroom disturbance by saying the (non)word "meep." Administration responds with old-fashioned methods--suspension threats for saying "meep." Is this an instance where the grownups's most effective course of action would be using the same technology as the kids to curb incidents like this? I'm picturing the principal posting a "nice try" message on the troublemaker's wall.

Why read a book OR watch a video when you can do BOTH at the SAME TIME?!

Alright, this is slightly beyond my comprehension, but apparently a vook is a book and video combined. So far they only have 6 books, and one of them is a cookbook so this could possibly be used for learning in informal settings. I'm not quite sure what to make of this, and I wonder if other companies are making similar products. Oh, and for those concerned, yes you can watch/read a vook on your iPhone.

WSJ looks at teenagers' text messaging habits and whether texting will be accepted in the workplace, and whether technological multitasking will be beneficial to the next generation of workers.

I'm seeing a lot of this "today's kids are just different" rhetoric. Do you buy it?

A 3D multi-user environment that immerses children in real-world, socially and academically meaningful activities. Ran across this doing some research for the VPA. It's the richest example on an online learning environment that I've seen, and similar to something I'd envisioned but dismissed as not currently realistic--apparently I was wrong! I would love to give this a test drive.

Found this in doing research for my HT500 presentation. Some foreign language teachers are installing the Sims in foreign languages and having kids play the game to develop their vocabulary. Teachers can use community-created game modding tools to edit text in the game, adding extra words and vocab lists. Because this is a game about everyday life, kids learn everyday vocabularies. Cool idea! I wonder if this would work with any other video games.

Interesting article about libraries going digital, talking about how this actually functions in libraries (Boston Public Library being one) and addressing concerns about publishers' rights. I'm sad that at this point nobody really seems to care about the experience of reading a real book with actual pages. What a loss if we ditch physical books altogether.

My neighbors, who spent the last 2-3 years teaching in Japan, introduced me to this site. They have online tutorials and games based on some 15 years of research into the most efficient ways to acquire knowledge. http://smart.fm/about/learning_science talks about their research; noteworthy is the "Ebbinghaus forgetting curve," which basically shows that the best way to remember something is to remember it just before you're about to forget it. Check out their "BrainSpeed" game. Much more fun than flash cards.

I actually love this idea; it makes the president as an authority figure somewhat more accessible to kids and as long as his message sticks to the importance of school, I think it will be beneficial, especially to minorities. I can't remember the president ever addressing me directly as a student! Guess I was a little young to remember the first Bush's address..

Obama will address students in their classrooms via TV broadcast on the first day of school; controversy is naturally sparked.