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Coursekit is a new tool that lets teachers and educators create mini social networks around individual courses and lectures.

The goal of the service, said Joseph Cohen, its co-founder and chief executive, is to take some of the most successful elements of social networking — especially the fluid exchange of ideas that comes natural to online interactions — to revitalize the education experience. Students are already accustomed to interacting online and supplementing their daily lives with the Web and social media. Why should that stop when it comes to learning? “Our education experience is truly offline,” he said. “We want to build what Facebook has done for your personal life, but for your school.”

Using Coursekit’s software, teachers can upload homework assignments, answer questions, grade work and facilitate discussions with their students. In addition, students can use the software to chat with one another, collaborate on projects and share relevant materials with their classmates

One of the key problems with educational media is that there are no objective, neutral arbiters who are evaluating apps, games, and Web sites to determine whether or not these media offer meaningful learning experiences. As a result, developers have an incentive to focus on making their products "appear" educational rather than focusing on actually making them meaningful learning experiences.

Common Sense Media announced the beta version of their Learning with Technology ratings. The first phase this effort is an attempt to rate a wide variety of apps, Web sites, and software programs with a Learning Rating, which will go alongside Common Sense Media's other ratings for age-appropriateness, quality, and safety. So far, they have rated 150 products, with a goal to complete 800 ratings by the end of 2012.

For now, the ratings, on a scale from 0-3, are publicly viewable on a Website and the products are searchable by type, title, age and learning rating. So if a parent is thinking about making some app purchases for a child's birthday, he or she could go to the Common Sense Media site for some suggestions before going to a vendor site to purchase the product.