Ed Tech
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In the three years that I've been building up Edutopia's presence on social networks like Twitter , Facebook , and YouTube , I've noticed a significant shift in how our audience of education changemakers interact and collaborate. In particular, I've seen Twitter reinvent the way educators collaborate to create change in education. Twitter Transforms Educators
MediaShift . How Twitter is Reinventing Collaboration Among Educators
Consider this the second time that we have heard rumbles concerning the pricing of Microsoft’s Surface line of tablets . Also, consider this the second time that pricing news concerning the Surface has been bad. Today the world of Microsoft reporting is buzzing with the news from a Swedish website that listed prices for all four coming Surface models, covering both the RT and Pro editions. Here is a screengrab, via WPCentral : Now, to put those prices into dollars, the cheapest tablet is $1,001.
$1,000 for the Cheapest Surface?
The map of the Internet Like any other map, The Internet map is a scheme displaying objects’ relative position; but unlike real maps (e.g. the map of the Earth) or virtual maps (e.g. the map of Mordor), the objects shown on it are not aligned on a surface. Mathematically speaking, The Internet map is a bi-dimensional presentation of links between websites on the Internet. Every site is a circle on the map, and its size is determined by website traffic, the larger the amount of traffic, the bigger the circle. Users’ switching between websites forms links, and the stronger the link, the closer the websites tend to arrange themselves to each other. Charges and springs
The Internet map
Microsoft Announces Move Into Cloud Services for Schools - Marketplace K-12
In perhaps a shot across the bow at Google, Microsoft will offer its Office 365 software, typically purchased by businesses for communication and collaboration, to schools for free through cloud computing, the company announced today. Those who work in schools may be familiar with Microsoft's enterprise products—email, instant messaging, calendars, and its suite of applications that include Word, Power Point, and Excel. Office 365 has been available to enterprise clients for about a year and a beta version for schools has been kicking around for a little while too.This has been bouncing all over the web for weeks now, but I first saw it Tweeted by Joyce Valenza so I'm going to credit her. If you've ever wondered how to cite a Tweet in your written work, the MLA now has guidelines for how to do it. You can read the guidelines here .
How to Cite a Tweet (MLA Style)
Information Literacy
IPR & Safety
Quick Look: Why Children Should Play More Video Games
Lots of interesting quotes in this piece, including the following: “Video games can be a wonderful pastime for children — one that families should embrace. As with more traditional aspects of parenting, though, finding success with the high-tech hobby requires leading by example. Teach kids safe, healthy, and positive computing habits, and the virtual world will be the whole family’s joy to discover.” Parents, politicians, and educators often criticize video games as a waste of time that distract kids from healthier activities such as school, outdoor play, sports, and community service. Just one problem: Research is quickly proving the theory wrong and illustrating that gaming can be a beneficial and well-rounded part of a healthy, balanced media diet. Read more at: venturebeat.com
One of the questions I am often asked in interviews for technology positions is how I would approach dealing with faculty members who are reluctant to embrace or integrate technology in their lessons. First, I think it’s an excellent question, and my answer to it says a lot about how well I would be able to work with faculty. It is a question to which any good technology integration specialist should have a good answer at the ready. Before I tell you what I think, however, it bears saying that I think a healthy skepticism of technology is not a bad thing. I have seen tools adopted simply because they will add technology to a lesson.
Reluctance and Technology Integration
Having children causes one to (re)think seriously about education and the role of school. Education obviously is the most powerful thing in the world. And yet the old Mark Twain chestnut — "I never let school get in the way of my education" — speaks to the core of my own thinking regarding education. I am not an expert in education by any means, but like almost everyone, I have strong ideas based on my personal experiences going through formal, mass schooling.
Videos to help you rethink education, learning, & school
Facebook Meets College Apps with Mission Admission
By Nathan Maton Games and Facebook: We know those are two sure-fire ways of getting kids’ attention. Combine them, and you might have a tool to motivate low-income high-schoolers to apply to college. That’s the premise, anyway, for launching Mission Admission — to help students who don’t know what steps to take to get in the college application game. “These kids didn’t know what kinds of classes they should be spending their time on or basic vocabulary like what is a letter of recommendation,” said Tracy Fullerton, a USC professor and the lead game designer on the Mission Admission project about students she worked with, during a seminar at the recent SXSW conference. “They didn’t know how to break down the steps into things they could accomplish.JAMF Software: Products - Casper Suite
The Casper Suite simplifies the life of system administrators with a comprehensive platform to manage Mac OS X computers and iOS mobile devices. The Casper Suite increases the efficiency of your IT staff, reduces the cost of ownership, and minimizes liability by providing a framework that enforces software licensing compliance, security standards, energy usage, and other organizational rules and requirements. Working with Mac administrators in business, education, and government throughout the world, JAMF Software developers have identified eight major tenets of Mac OS X client management and four major tenets of iOS mobile device management.
We here at pedagoo love the Scottish Learning Festival . We think it’s great. It’s just such a fantastic opportunity to find out about what’s going on, have your thinking stretched and network with colleagues from across the country, and beyond. But (you could sense one was coming, couldn’t you). There’s two issues with SLF. Firstly, it’s midweek.
TeachMeet SLF Fringe
Yesterday afternoon, Twitter announced that they had acquired blogging platform Posterous , and by all indications, it was mostly for the talent. If you're a Posterous user, this means that your Posterous blog, called Posterous Spaces, is in limbo. Neither company has said there are any plans to shutter Posterous, and Posterous says nothing's changing right now , but there's no reason to wait for someone else when you can take control of your own data. Here's how. Can't I Just Export My Posterous Data? Unfortunately not.
How to Back Up and Migrate Your Posterous Spaces to Tumblr, Blogger, or Wordpress
Apple just released iBooks Author , a free Mac app for creating digital books for the new version of iBooks . I haven’t played with it much, but so far it looks like a very good tool. However, a curious thing happens when you go to export your work in iBooks format: This restriction — that iBooks can be sold only in the iBookstore — isn’t enforced on a technical level. You can save the document, move it to your iPad in any of the usual ways (including just emailing it to yourself), and it happily opens in the iBooks app. But if you look at the end-user license agreement (EULA) for iBooks Author, accessible via the app’s About box, the following bold note appears at the top:
venomous porridge - The Unprecedented Audacity of the iBooks Author EULA
Amongst Apple’s many education-focused announcements today was another called “iBooks Author.” The new app, (available from the Mac App Store for FREE ) , aims to revolutionise the way digital textbooks are authored for mobile platforms, allowing both authors and publishers access to an easy-to-use, “drag and drop”-controlled interface for laying out their textbook offerings. Supporting multi-touch gestures, 3D models, and more, Apple may have just taken textbooks to the next level: Now anyone can create stunning iBooks textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books, and more for iPad.