Tom Barrett explains how he set up Google Docs in his classroom. It includes a checklist as well as an embed of 21 interesting ways to use Google Docs

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has announced its "Top Ten in '10" education technology priorities for the New Year. These priorities offer policy makers and educators a prospective framework for consideration as legislative and funding decisions are made.

From Microsoft comes this latest guide to digital storytelling using microsoft products. It includes links to a pdf download that has heaps of links to examples and other material associated with Microsoft products including PowerPoint, Photostory, and Windows Moviemaker amongst others. The page also inlcudes templates and other resources for teachers wanting to start out with Digital Stories.

The Victorian DEECD portal to high quality teaching and learning resources for schools. It enables teachers to Find, Use and Share Education resources. It is open to all teachers anywhere in the world and is located at www.education.vic.gov.au/teacher. It is free to use and managed by the Victorian Education Department. FUSE connects teachers to resources from across the world, Connect, Digilearn, Knowledgebank, the Learning Federation content and thousands of web resources recommended by Victorian teachers. In addition, it contains new resources provided by trusted education partners such as National Gallery of Victoria, the State Library, Museum Victoria, and Zoos Victoria. There are also access pages for students and early childhood children.

Another way to access and share YouTube videos without the ads and having cropped them also if required.

Online Colleges does it again with this collection of ideas and links to institutions and classrooms that are using Facebook in an educational context.

From the Google For Students blog comes this set of notes on how to set up a group project using gmail and Google Docs. There are some other good tips in the Comments.

The FlipInFocus site is all about the Flip video camera and associated peripherals. With a blog, videos forums and other aspects the site has lots of information for anyone who has a Flip camera. For $14.95 you can purchase a lifetime membership of the site which entitles you to access all of the workshops and other information.

This page has 7 great graphics related to Twitter use and Twitter users. Great for anyone interested in the Twitter phenomenon.

A directory of Twitter apps of all sorts.

A list of 10 tools to "track, perform better and hopefully leverage from Twitter". The list covers counters, mentions, gradings and monitor.

Though an American based guide, this pdf download from MakeUseOf nontheless has some useful and interesting basic information about the most interesting search engines. Because it is largely for the US market some of the references to more specific engines such as price comparison searches will not be relevant. The guide is useful however in pointing out that search and Google are not interchangeable terms.

Another set of links from OnlineDegreePrograms.org, this one deals with Google Wave. It deals with the basics through Communication and Collaboration, Shortcuts, Management and Customization, to Applications and Extensions. Definitely a set of links to check through even though the surge of the wave seems to have subsided a little.

A dozen activities are presented for using an online education technology tool to engage students in classroom activities to develop a better understanding of concepts.

The content and technology are continually changing. This article reminds us that learners are also changing. For the past decade, faculty who won awards for teaching expressed concern that they could no longer hold the attention of their students. John Seely Brown, Chief Scientist at Xerox and director of its Palo Alto Research Center, hired 15 year olds to design future work environments and learning environments. He observed that the students did not conform to the traditional image of learners as permissive sponges. It requires us to rethink and redesign education for the Digital Age.

Facebook has recently updated their privacy settings. If like me you have been prompted to adjust your settings you may also have experienced a deal of confusion as to what these changes mean in practice. All Facebook, http://www.allfacebook.com/the Unofficial Facebook Resource has realised this and have developed a 10 point guide on resetting your privacy including comparisons with previous settings. In addition to the online version they also offer the opportunity to download a copy of the guide.

This is a great interactive from the ABC that tracks back through history to look at a range of factors that may or may not play a part in climate change including human population, industrial landmarks and geological changes. As well as looking backward through time it also offers 4 scenarios for the future none of which are terribly optimistic.

Want to search across 60 of the main social networking spaces via the one portal then WhosTalkin.com is the place to go. You can search via a group type eg blogs, videos or images, or sub spaces within these groups. This is a really interesting tool for searching on trending topics. It's also fun to do a search on your own online identity to see what others are saying about you.

If you are looking to use iTouches or iPhones in the classroom then you may need to restrict access to certain apps or sites. This page from Demo Geek uses a series of screen grabs to show you how to do this.

This article from Doug Johnson in the ISTE Learning and Leading Journal is a great summary of why schools should be seriously considering cloud computing. The article is also downloadable.