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"Epic-ed (US)  aims to empower digital transitions at all stages of development, including school leaders who are thinking about moving to ubiquitous computing environments, those who wish to implement ed-tech pilot projects, and those who are ready for full-scale implementation."

Dropbox is making the transition back to school easy by giving everyone with an .edu email address double the credit for referrals. That's 500 MB per friend you invite! That goes for everyone you've already referred too.

While it's no secret that there seems to be more use and reliance on digital and blended learning with each passing semester, a transition may be happening faster than you think writes Tom Vander Ark. At a conference he talked about a dozen of the factors accelerating the shift to digital learning:

Atomic Learning training: a fee is involved.

Robolab for NXT The ROBOLAB™ software uses an icon-based, diagram-building environment to write programs that control your students' LEGO® robotics projects. This 2.9 upgrade to ROBOLAB™ is designed to support RCX users and ease the transition to the NXT system.

"What Makes a Great Teacher? Image credit: Veronika Lukasova Also in our Special Report: National: "How America Can Rise Again" Is the nation in terminal decline? Not necessarily. But securing the future will require fixing a system that has become a joke. Video: "One Nation, On Edge" James Fallows talks to Atlantic editor James Bennet about a uniquely American tradition-cycles of despair followed by triumphant rebirths. Interactive Graphic: "The State of the Union Is ..." ... thrifty, overextended, admired, twitchy, filthy, and clean: the nation in numbers. By Rachael Brown Chart: "The Happiness Index" Times were tough in 2009. But according to a cool Facebook app, people were happier. By Justin Miller On August 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math. One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor's math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked. The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so. Video: Four teachers in Four different classrooms demonstrate methods that work (Courtesy of Teach for America's video archive, available in February at teachingasleadership.org) At the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test given at all D.C. public schools-not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it's worth noting, not a very hard one). After a year in Mr. Taylo

Stupeflix is another one of those online apps/spaces that enable you to create slideshows using images from online or your camera to which you can add a soundtrack. The big difference with this one is that you can actually download the "movie" to your own computer either as an mp4 or flash file. You can also select to group images so that they have the same transition. This also enables you to add soundtracks specific to each group. The only downside is that there is no direct embed code, instead you have to upload the movie to a thrid party site such as TeacherTube and then use this code to embed it as below.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with a group of parents whose children are transitioning into a new phase of their learning. I used this as an opportunity to share some key messages for successful learning and thought I would briefly unpack these here.

Get a sneak peek at the new myfuture My Guide career planner -- be a tester!

Get a sneak peek at the new myfuture My Guide career planner -- be a tester!