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"Last night, minutes before the Spurs demolished the Heat in Game 3 of the NBA finals, San Antonio's 10-year-old mariachi singer Sebastien De La Cruz offered a wonderful rendition of the National Anthem at AT&T Center. While he may be used to adoring audiences, as seen in last year's America's Got Talent, not everybody liked his performance - he was met with applause in the stadium and scorn on the internet. Apparently, other "Americans" were none too pleased that a "Mexican" was performing the national anthem, a privilege they only consider theirs."

"The National University System, for example, is developing  a variety of initiatives aimed at bringing down the cost of a degree, including through FlexCourse?, a teaching and learning platform that offers faculty-supported, variably-paced online degree programs at an affordable price point of $8,500 annual tuition. The platform is initially being offered in conjunction with John F. Kennedy University, through JFKU Online --  both part of the National University System."

"The National Academy of Education (NAEd) released a new report on Big Data in Education: Balancing the Benefits of Educational Research and Student Privacy. The report addresses a fundamental tension of how to reap the educational benefits that access to comprehensive "big" data provides while ensuring student privacy."

"BrandYourself recently conducted a national study with Harris Interactive that looked into the Googling habits of over 2,500 online US adults. It was surprising to see how much a persons Google results influence everything from who we vote for, do business with and even date. You can view it here and below we included a summary of the key findings and key takeaways from each of the main sections of the study."

"In the 1930s most of the nations in the capitalist world experienced widespread severe unemployment, and it appeared resistant to elimination by traditional policies. A new scourge emerged and proved victorious in several nations: fascism. This was the result of an unprecedented development: a mass movement against democracy."

The National Center for Technology Planning (NCTP) is a clearinghouse for the exchange of many types of information related to technology planning. This information may be: school technology plans available for downloading online; technology planning aids (checklists, brochures, sample planning forms, PR announcement forms); and/or electronic monographs on timely, selected topics. The NCTP was created for those who: need help, seek fresh ideas, or seek solutions to problems encountered with planning.

"At this year's Educon I had the opportunity to collaborate with some wonderful librarians (Michelle Luhtala, Joyce Valenza, and Shannon Miller) and a fantastic student (Michael DeMattia) to share our experiences and have a conversation about teaching and learning in a no ban and no filter zone. The conversation is important because around the nation there are schools that are making the choice to do what is most convenient rather than what is right for kids. Rather than thinking outside the ban and empowering children to use the devices they own and access the internet they encounter outside of school, students are being banned and blocked. "

"As more and more competitors for traditional media outlets emerge - whether they are corporations like The Huffington Post or teenagers in war-torn countries trying to do journalism on the fly, like the 14-year-old profiled in a recent New York Times story - there seems to be a growing obsession with defining what journalism is, and who deserves (or doesn't deserve) to be called a journalist. Is the man who live-blogged the Osama bin Laden assassination a journalist? Is National Public Radio's Andy Carvin, who has been using Twitter as a one-man newswire during the Arab Spring, a journalist?"

"Author Steven Rosenbaum writes in Curation Nation: "When you add a human editorial layer, a curational perspective that organizes gathered content and community participation, you get real results.""

The widely acknowledged need to improve the tech skills of teachers and other school officials, and help them understand how digital tools should be used in the classroom, should be a major area of focus among state officials and other policymakers, according to a report released today by the National Association of State Boards of Education.

"To ensure that education is more relevant to the needs of students and the labour market, assessment methods need to be adapted and modernised. The use of ICT and open educational resources (OER) should be scaled-up in all learning contexts. Teachers need to update their own skills through regular training. The strategy also calls on Member States to strengthen links between education and employers, to bring enterprise into the classroom and to give young people a taste of employment through increased work-based learning. EU Education Ministers are also encouraged to step-up their cooperation on work-based learning at national and European level."

Twitter has also been a crucial tool for revolutionaries in Iran, Egypt and elsewhere. It's been used to mobilize relief efforts and raise millions for charitable causes. It's become a national water cooler for chatter about big televised events such as the Oscars and the Super Bowl. And while Twitter sometimes reveals the stupid side of celebrity culture, it's also brought fans closer to their favorite actors, musicians, writers and athletes than was ever possible before. Twitter has, in fact, changed lives.

In 2010, Roberts was a graduate student working for the federal government while teaching introductory psychology at night. He didn't set aside a summer, a month or a few weeks to prepare his book - he created it on a week-by-week basis, often putting sections together late at night or early in the morning. Roberts, who provides his book free of charge to the university's PSYC 100: Introduction to Psychology classes, is part of a national growing open educational resources movement. These resources are published under a Creative Commons license, which allows for free use and sometimes editing, much like Wikipedia. Roberts' psychology textbook draws from free online information, videos and graphics.

"In the case of Breaking Tweets, it was a personal blog that I started for fun on Jan. 31, 2009. I had just witnessed the power of Twitter for news as mainstream media highlighted it covering the Hudson Plane Crash on Jan. 15, 2009 and many (including myself) live tweeted Barack Obama's Inauguration at the National Mall on Jan. 20, 2009."

Now ability grouping has re-emerged in classrooms all over the country - a trend that has surprised education experts who believed the outcry had all but ended its use. A new analysis from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a Census-like agency for school statistics, shows that of the fourth-grade teachers surveyed, 71 percent said they had grouped students by reading ability in 2009, up from 28 percent in 1998. In math, 61 percent of fourth-grade teachers reported ability grouping in 2011, up from 40 percent in 1996. "These practices were essentially stigmatized,"

"America is shifting from a national, analog, industrial economy to a global, digital, information economy. Our social institutions, colleges and universities included, were created for the former. Today they all seem to be broken. They work less well than they once did. Through either repair or replacement - more likely a combination - they need to be refitted for a new age."

"Game-based learning is still little understood and underutilized within the Scottish Educational system. Minecraft is a sandbox game similar to Lego that allows the user to create a world using blocks. Minecraft is being used in America and around the world to enhance pupils learning[i]. This study will aim to show that Minecraft corresponds to many of the learning outcomes within the Scottish national performance framework Curriculum for Excellence"

NetSmartz Workshop is an interactive, educational program of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children® (NCMEC) that provides age-appropriate resources to help teach children how to be safer on- and offline. The program is designed for children ages 5-17, parents and guardians, educators, and law enforcement. With resources such as videos, games, activity cards, and presentations, NetSmartz entertains while it educates.

Unfortunately now, there are likely dozens of bald tweenage girls crying in their bathrooms. And it's perhaps even more insane that most members of the Bieber nation still believe that Justin has cancer, and are pouring sympathy, condolences, and heartfelt love into the #baldforbeiber hashtag, despite the fact that the other half of that Twitter conversation is lawling over the hoax.