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This special report features a series of columns by Dr. Lawrence C. Ragan, Director of Instructional Design and Development for Penn State's World Campus, and will help you establish online instructor best practices and performance expectations. The following snippets are just a taste of the insider's advice found in the full report: Principles of Effective Online Teaching: #1 Show Up and Teach - The necessity of this statement is borne of the misimpression that the online class "teaches itself." Since most of the course is already authored and designed for online delivery, instructors may believe they simply need to serve as the proverbial "guide on the side" as the students navigate the learning system. Not true! Principles of Effective Online Teaching: #2 Practice Proactive Course Management Strategies - The online instructor can help create a successful learning experience by practicing proactive course management strategies such as monitoring assignment submissions, and communicating and reminding students of missed and/or upcoming deadlines. Principles of Effective Online Teaching: #3 Establish Patterns of Course Activities - Although the online classroom environment provides tremendous flexibility of time and place of study, establishing and communicating a course pace and pattern of work can aid both instructor and student, and alleviate confusion around how the course operates. Principles of Effective Online Teaching: #4 Plan for the Unplanned - For those small or not-so-small occasions when "life happens," having a strategy for informing students of these changes can go a long way to maintaining course continuity. Principles of Effective Online Teaching: #5 Response Requested and Expected - Timely instructor feedback is essential for the online learner to manage their learning experience. Instructors are expected to respond to student inquiries within one business day.

Twitter Account Management. Clean up and manage who you follow. Find out who isn't following you back.Find out which inactive accounts you follow. Easily search inside your Twitter stream. Link Google+ to your Twitter account.

Are you getting measurable, timely, benefits from your IT investment? Are your IT resources fully and effectively deployed? Are your information resources well managed? Are you driving your IT strategy, or is it driving you? This web, known as the "Information Management Body of Knowledge", is a collection of ideas and tools intended to assist anyone who is concerned to get the best out of their investment in information technology and the information systems that make it work. It emerged from research work undertaken in a partnership between the University of the Western Cape, and Cape Peninsula University of Techology (previously the Cape Technikon), both located in Cape Town, South Africa. It has been used in the context of business, public administration and community informatics, and the IMBOK has been adopted as a standard course text in South Africa, Europe and North America.

"When adopting technology in the classroom, one of the key concerns for teachers and administrators is classroom management. I am often asked if there is a way to "lock down an iPad screen" or "ensure students cannot go to inappropriate websites" (e.g. Social Media). In other words, how do we keep students on task and are not distracted by the novelty of gadgets or communicating with friends via texting or social media. Often, teachers will take up devices (such as mobile phones) to avoid the issue of students texting or checking Facebook on their phones (eliminating access to a powerful, pocket computer in the process)."

A great tool to manage your social media overload

"Mobile Device Management and Application Platform for Education"

"As instructors, we are all information curators. How do you collect and share currently relevant content with your students? How do your students research and share information that they find with the rest of class? What tools do you use to manage or facilitate presentation of resources? Is it public? Can students access it at other times? In groups?"

Education leaders are re-examining acceptable use policies in light of the increasing use of highly mobile information technologies. While acceptable use policies were developed to manage and control behaviour, a digital citizenship policy takes a more comprehensive approach by recognizing the important role of education in preparing digital citizens. The  intent of this guide is not to ascribe policy, but rather to offer guidance to leaders as they strive to better meet student and organizational needs. The guide provides an overview of digital citizenship policies and practices. It draws from research and the practical experience of Alberta schools. 

This guide examines the use of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) models in schools. It looks at the potential opportunities and benefits, as well as the considerations, risks and implications that arise when schools allow students and staff to use personally owned devicesin the classroom and school environments. Strategies,tips and techniques are included to address the considerations and manage the risks. The guide is NOT a step-by-step manual for implementing  models that enable students to use personally owned devices in school. While teachers, parents, community members and other stakeholders may find the guide informative, it is written with school and school authority administrators and leadership teams in mind. It is meant to inform their decision making and strategic planning should they decide to support a BYOD model in their schools.

"Improve Behavior Improve specific student behaviors and engagement by awarding and recording real-time feedback.  Share Data Print or email beautiful behavior reports to easily engage parents and staff. Save Time Save time by recording behaviors and accomplishments right in class, with just one click: NO extra data entry required."

Through simSchool, pre and in-service teachers, instructors, administrators, and others experience and improve knowledge and confidence in:  classroom management techniques understanding diverse learning styles & behaviors analyzing student information and data task design and implementation much more.....

"Digital bookmarking is a pivotal learning skill. It does not only allow you to organize your information into one single platform accessible from anywhere with an internet connection but can also help you in your professional growth. Web2.0 technologies have made it way easier for us to control and curate the content we come across online. I definitely believe that without the power of bookmarking we would never be able to manage the huge influx of information Internet provides."

"Welcome to the world of Diigo, one of the leading Top 10 research tools. Diigo is a cloud based information management system that helps you organize relevant facts you find online. With Diigo you can keep track of those favorite websites and revisit them from any computer at any time. Diigo is a great way to improve your online productivity and is widely used by educators."

"While the iPad's potential in formal learning environments is clear, there is a practical side to its implementation that is not often recognized until after they're purchased. Logistics here are usually left to an over-worked school or district IT person-or worse, to the classroom teacher. "

The study found that more than 90% of recruiters and hiring managers have visited a potential candidate's profile on a social network as part of the screening process. And a whopping 69% of recruiters have rejected a candidate based on content found on his or her social networking profiles - an almost equal proportion of recruiters (68%), though, have hired a candidate based on his or her presence on those networks.

What does Google Moderator do? Google Moderator allows you to create a series about anything that you are interested in discussing and open it up for people to submit questions, ideas, or suggestions. These are called submissions.  Anyone can come to the site and submit a question, idea, or vote, and anyone can vote. Google Moderator shows you a question in the box with the blue background. This is called the Featured Question. A topic is a way to break up your series into smaller, more manageable topics of discussion. You can have one topic, or multiple topics. For example, if you create a series of 'Book clubs' for your organization, topics could be 'Fiction,' 'Non-fiction,' or 'Auto-biographies.'