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Great article, clearly explaining the differences between SkyDrive, Google Drive & Dropbox

Many of the schools that have introduced iPads in the classroom also use the Google Apps for Education suite. Unfortunately these two do not always mix well together. Using Google Apps on the iPads has always been quite tedious, but today Google updated its Google Drive app that solves many of the problems.

Claco, ClassDojo, Diigo, DropBox, Edmondo, Evernote, Glogster, Google Apps, Google Drive, Google Hangout, KidBlog, LiveBinders, Pinterest, Socrative, ThingLink, Storify, Twitter, Wordle

This past week, my first-born became legal. Not to drive, vote or drink, though; that comes later. My son turned 13 years old, making him eligible under terms of service to have his own social media account. That isn't to say he hasn't been on those sites for years, though. His social media cred is older than our daughter, who turns four in a couple months. He has had moments where he used Facebook too much, only to self-censor like a boss when he found it was cutting into his reading time. These days, his activity is largely limited to liking Doctor Who content on my geeky Pinterest board and collaborating with peers on Google (despite his original account there being deleted due to age restrictions). He has never had much interest in tweeting, but he got a video camera yesterday that may signal the beginning of a new vlog.

Wow! Movenote lets you add video comments to anything in Google Drive. You can then embed the video together with the item in a Google site (or elsewhere) Great for making thinking visible.

"Google Maps has been out for 10 years now. Digital maps…starting with Mapquest has been out since 1996 (technically 1993 but mapquest was the first main stream map most people remember). For those of you keeping track that puts us almost 20 years into the digital mapping word. 20 years we have been using digital maps and yet for some reason digital maps have not replaced (there's that word again) mapping in our schools. In 2007…8 years ago now….Apple put a map in our pocket. Fast forward to 2015 and almost everyone has a digital map in their pocket. Pilots now fly with iPads, ship captains now navigate with GPS and digital maps. Truck drivers now drive via digital maps and GPS location. So basically every professional that needs to use maps is using digital maps. I'm not saying we need to stop teaching how to read a paper map…but really…that should be 10% of the mapping work a student does not 99%. With that in mind here are 10 ways you could use Google Maps in the classroom."

As an instructor of undergraduate and graduate students at University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University, I created a syllabus for the benefit of other college/university level instructors. I created a copy of the original syllabus for modification to use with high school students (probably juniors or seniors). I will rely on actual high school teachers to help me modify this source document. Please feel free to use, modify, and share this syllabus in your own way. Reorder the modules, add or subtract required or recommended texts and learning activities. Use your own assessment methods. If you wish to help improve this seed document, contact howard@rheingold.com and I will add you as a commenter and/or editor. 

The importance of intellectual talent to achievement in all professional domains is well established, but less is known about other individual differences that predict success. The authors tested the importance of 1noncognitive trait: grit. Drive and energy in childhood are more predictive of success, if not creativity, than is IQ or some other more domain-specific ability" (p. 293)

Site which generates Favicons (the small images in the tabs of your browser which shows which page you're on). 

In 1970 the top three skills required by the Fortune 500 were the three Rs: reading, writing, and arithmetic. In 1999 the top three skills in demand were teamwork, problem-solving, and interpersonal skills. We need schools that are developing these skills." That's why a new breed of educators, inspired by everything from the Internet to evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and AI, are inventing radical new ways for children to learn, grow, and thrive. To them, knowledge isn't a commodity that's delivered from teacher to student but something that emerges from the students' own curiosity-fueled exploration. Teachers provide prompts, not answers, and then they step aside so students can teach themselves and one another. They are creating ways for children to discover their passion-and uncovering a generation of geniuses in the process.