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Communication and ­collaboration between curriculum and technology leaders are necessary to impact teaching and learning. Educators are knowledgeable about ­research on effective ­instructional ­strategies while tech leaders are familiar with educational technology trends and emerging applications and mobile devices. Together, these leaders can ­develop a common language that aligns ­evidence-based instructional practices.

This is a program developed at WPI out in Worcester. It allows teachers to load in questions and create assessments. Pretty useful.

The U.S. Departments of Education and Defense are launching "Learning Registry," an open source community that will allow educator share information and learning resources, with a price tag of $2.6m. ""Learning Registry addresses a real problem in education, by bridging the silos that prevent educators from sharing valuable information and resources," said Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. "The Registry also allows content developers, curriculum coordinators, principals, counselors, and everyone else who supports good teaching in the classroom to benefit from the combined knowledge of the field.""

Check out nb a very cool, collaborative note taking tool developed by MIT's Haystack Group. Last night I got into a discussion with Sanjoy Mahajan, an Olin College professor who got his Phd at MIT.  We were talking about Eriz Mazur's Peer Instruction technique when he began describing how in his flipped-classroom courses he uses the MIT Haystack Group's "nb" software to enable his student's to collaboratively discuss the course readings (online in pdf form) through shared, online annotations & notes.   Sanjoy's students are required to participate in the online annotation discussion, making their own annotations and responding to others, the night before his class.  He then reviews the annotations to prepare the next day's discussion and peer-instruction lesson plan.

PBS Kids has developed its first augmented reality mobile phone app that overlays graphics onto real world environments. The game aims to teach math skills.

This article discusses some tech careers and locations of these opportunities. "The results are clear. Mobile computing, cloud computing, social business, and business analytics have gone beyond niche status and are now part of any modern organization's core IT focus," said IBM's Jim Corgel, general manager of ISV and Developer Relations. "IT professionals who can develop the skills needed to work across these technologies will be ready to meet growing business demand in the coming years."

This article describes a new early detection method that uses eye-tracking technologies to gauge babies' social engagement skills and reliably measure their risk of developing autism.

Articles gets into the details of how the tech is designed. I'm more interested in the implication of touch screens that are flexible and thus potentially made more ubiquitous than we can currently imagine. Like in the Microsoft video, what if every surface we interact with is a digital portal? What implications not only for technology, but all forms of human action and interaction?

eMentoring is a more powerful means of online professional development than presentations and, if done well, can use social media as an asset

"Although Coursera's founders have presented their MOOCs as a way to democratize higher education by making it available online, free, to anyone in the world, the Penn survey found that in the United States and developing countries alike, most Coursera students were well educated, employed, young and male."

FYI, I went to Penn last year and was aware of this type of survey. Apparently, if you have a chance to look into their methodology, then they probably select a far larger number of Penn alumni than a representative portion. Considering that many Penn alumni love the idea of taking classes for free at their Alma Mater, I feel a bit skeptical about that reported unusually high percentage of bachelor's degree holders.

I think that this makes a lot of sense. You have to be very self-motivated with a desire to learn AND have the online resources and time to take a MOOC. That's a lot - and I would guess that people who are highly educated tend to be self-motivated. And then young men probably have more time than working parents. There's a lot of constraining factors despite the 'openness' of a MOOC.

ETLO is a very successful model of scaling up

The Edutainment Era: Debunking Myths and Sharing Less "Developers and others in the video game industry often attribute the failure of the "edutainment" industry in the 1990′s either to a lack of market demand or the difficulty of creating great products. In reality neither of these assertions is correct."

The author, who ran a DC charter school and then started LearnZillion, an online lesson platform, argues that technology can break down the typical teacher silos and improve practice.

Teachers TV | Free education videos and resources for professional development

Background on Augmented Reality. Reading for 9/14.

That takes care of the display challenge, now if we could only develop a more sophisticated and biologically intuitive method of data entry (no keys or multi-touch surface), the world will be a very different place. Def. an emerging technology with wild educational/training implications.

If you have not actually played with this developing technology, it is easy and impressive. The implications and applications for this simulation media in education (e-learning, adult, multiple intelligence assessments) are great.

Great site promoting online youth collaboration. Site includes tools for student game and digital asset development in addition to pre-built educational games.

A TV/Web report on the digital revolution and how it's changing our lives, with video stories, interviews, and user-generated video on relationships, information overload, education, the military, parenting, brain development, and more.