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Katie Gimbar explains the reasons she flipped her classroom.

Good thoughts on setting goals for technology use in a school, rather than allowing the technology to define the school's goals. "In the end, our advice is: be sure your school defines clear goals for what it seeks to achieve by having computing devices in the hands of its students."

UConn professor demonstrates the difference between presentations with text and multimedia. A nice example of why multimedia is a better tool and creates less cognitive distraction when learning from a slideshow.

"Resources and Annotations from UW-Stout's E-Learning and Online Teaching Graduate Certificate Program. Contributors are mainly from the E-Learning for Educators Course & the E-Learning Practicum Course."

6 models of blended learning, from Michael Horn: "Face-to-Face driver, Rotation, Flex, Online lab, Self-blend, Online driver."

A passionate and eloquent plea from a university lecturer, attesting to the continued relevance of the lecture as a learning tool. I value her point that a lecture promotes active listening, but I disagree with the notion that a technology that has worked for thousands of years should see continued use simply because it has worked in the past.[1] Given the multitudes of other means of delivery of information today (remember, the lecture was developed when the only other means to spread information was handwriting), the lecture as transmission of information is a tool, not THE tool. She also equates books to lectures, and says that if we abandon one we move toward abandoning the other. A bit of tenuous logic, if you ask me. Still, perhaps worth a read.  [1] See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scriptorium#Trithemius.27_Praise_of_Scribes

"Digital learning resources, tips, research, and teaching and learning resources. Feel free to join this group to share related resources."

This one is worth reading, but not because it's necessarily worth following. It's a wrong-headed approach to tech integration, one that values the tools above the pedagogical goals -- because it assumes that the use of the tool is valuable in itself. What it omits is why any one of these scenarios can support learning... which would be a much more effective way to lobby a teacher to use it...

"Today, though, as we move into Personalised Learning in the Age of Technology, it is time for us to break the shackles of traditional thinking regarding writing and technology. We can no longer afford to dwell on the negative impacts of spellcheck and copy/paste. Instead, let's focus on the benefits."

Bruce Leslie describes his kids' experience using Skype for language learning.

Example of VoiceThread in the classroom. (Just keep closing the sign-in box if you don't want to create an account.)

"Our research shows that the argument that there is a generational break between today's generation of young people who are immersed in new technologies and older generations who are less familiar with technology is flawed," says Dr Jones. "The diverse ways that young people use technology today shows the argument is too simplistic and that a new single generation, often called the 'net generation', with high skill levels in technology does not exist." Press release: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/news-and-events/press-releases/20523/not-all-todays-students-are-tech-savvy.aspx

A physics professor at SLU uses free software to deconstruct the physics of Angry Birds. He measures velocity and acceleration over time using Tracker Video Analysis. Nice way to connect science to gaming...

If you've got an Android phone, you can easily build a program on it using this software. It uses a graphical programming interface that's quite simple to learn.

Smart post by Sam Gliksman on the reasons for classroom iPad use. A lot of what he says applies to technology in general.

It's somewhat hard to visualize a billion, let alone seven. Still, this video does a nice job of describing the population explosion of the last couple centuries.

Interesting possibility for digital maps. Free and crowdsourced. People seem to think learning how to create a layer is fairly easy, too.

We purchased the client software version of arcGIS made for K-12 use and had it on all RCS PC's for about 4 years. We were not able to get any integrations with it launched. Dropped support for it two years ago due to lack of use. Maybe interest in GIS has changed since Google Earth has come on the scene? Anyone interested in looking at GIS applications for RCS?

Free materials to help support your PBL ideas. Not all are excellent, but there are some good ideas here that might be useful.