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Here are ten ways to use Facebook in class:

Set up a dedicated Facebook group for your class A Facebook group can allow your students to create discussion boards, communicate with each other and their teacher, and can be linked with online projects & other classroom groups. Teachers can use these groups to send out mass messages, reminders, and potentially even post homework assignments.

Use Facebook Apps Facebook is more than a place to tag photos from last night’s not-so-clever encounter with tequila. It is now a platform that runs on mobile devices, and can be integrated with applications designed for learning. From news to learning a new language, there are many apps that allow searches and sharing across the platform.

Create fully animated comics online with Kerpoof. Choose from a library of scenes and characters, add animation, movement, as well as music and speech bubbles to bring a story idea to life. Extremely intuitive menu bar and helpful video tutorials make this tool quite useful. A key feature is a Teacher Account that allows teachers to register students and create classes where students can collaborate on creations

oondoo is another tool to create comics quickly. You can opt for a free

“I think speech recognition is really going to upend the current [computer] interface.

“We’re at a transition point where voice and natural-language understanding are suddenly at the forefront,

Jim Glass, a senior research scientist at MIT who has been working on speech interfaces since the 1980s, says today’s smart phones pack as much processing power as the laboratory machines he worked with in the ’90s. Smart phones also have high-bandwidth data connections to the cloud, where servers can do the heavy lifting involved with both voice recognition and understanding spoken queries. “The combination of more data and more computing power means you can do things today that you just couldn’t do before,” says Glass. “You can use more sophisticated statistical models.”

Tech in the Classroom is a recurring feature that examines widely available technology, software and gadgets and how they might be used in a school setting. What favorite gadget or tool are you using in the classroom? As this new content area grows, let us know what products you’d like to read about.

Tech in the Classroom: StudySync This is a Web-based supplemental curriculum. Aligned to the Common Core and aimed at middle-school and high-school students, StudySync enlists broadcast-quality video, digital media, mobile platforms and social learning to advance reading, writing and critical thinking

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a range of complex neurodevelopment disorders, characterized by social impairments, communication difficulties, and restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior.  Autistic disorder, sometimes called autism or classical ASD, is the most severe form of ASD, while other conditions along the spectrum include a milder form known as Asperger syndrome, and childhood disintegrative disorder and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (usually referred to as PDD-NOS).

The hallmark feature of ASD is impaired social interaction.  As early as infancy, a baby with ASD may be unresponsive to people or focus intently on one item to the exclusion of others for long periods of time.  A child with ASD may appear to develop normally and then withdraw and become indifferent to social engagement.

Crash Course is a small YouTube channel featuring a couple of short, fast-paced video lessons about World History.