Welcome back!  We've got a pretty short Round Up for today and we'll start at Free Tech for Teachers with a review of "Scrible - Bookmark, Annotate, and Create Bibliographies."  Scrible is a free browser-based app that helps students with highlighting, annotating, citing, and creating bibliographies.  I'd also recommend checking out Diigo, if you're looking for another app that helps students organize information and create annotations. Edutech for Teachers has a new review on Thinglink, entitled, "Add Some Swag to you iOS devices with the new Thinglink App!"  If you've never used Thinglink, it's a program that can be used to create interactive images by embedding links, videos, even other images, inside your pictures.  If you're looking for more integration ideas, EduTech has a full write-up on the classroom possibilities. Educational Technology opens with a post outlining "The 12 Commandments of Digital Citizens."  Essentially, the post is a summary of the graphic below.  Educational Technology also has a new post with "5 Awesome iPad Posters for Teachers."  If you have iPads in your classrooms, these are worth checking out! Source: educatorstechnology.com via mediasmarts.ca Tech & Learning has a new review up of "Boomwriter" a "free and engaging group-writing tool that lets students go online to create stories."  After students complete a story, they have the option of publishing it as a book for $9.99.  The app works by allowing teachers to select how each story starts and then letting the students continue the tale from there. [ Boomwriter link ] Finally, LearnDash covers  "5 MOOC Building Platforms."  If you're looking to create your own online classes, they recommend: Course Building by Google Open MOOC Miriada Future Learn LearnDash And there you have it, pretty short news day!  We'll end with a presentation on visual notetaking,on the iPad by Rachel Smith, courtesy of today's post on Teach Thought.   Visual Note-taking on the iPad from Rachel Smith

Over the past 5 years the importance of social media in education, and society in general, has grown exponentially.  But, those educators who are not familiar with the basics of social media may find the task of implementing its use in the classroom a near impossibility.  With that in mind, we start today's Round Up at Edudemic with a post on "5 Free Online Courses for Social Media Beginners."  If you have no idea what this whole "Facebook" thing is, this is the site for you! Edudemic also has a guide on "8 Steps to Great Digital Storytelling."  With digital storytelling, students can easily become the creators of their own content.  They can embed and mix videos, images, text, and their voice together to create a story or lesson that is uniquely their own.  And with today's tech resources, creating a digital story can be accomplished relatively easily and at any grade level.  So, check out Edudemic's guide for all the steps and resources! Summer is almost here (or, depending on your district, has already arrived!)  To pass the time this summer,Getting Smart has prepared a list of 13 websites for parents, teachers, and students to keep them engaged in the learning process over the coming months.   Learn Dash posted  The 4 Year Future of Higher Ed-Tech which is basically an article/infographic/snapshot-of-current-ed-tech all rolled into one.  If you're not familiar with the basics of the current ed tech field, this is an awesome place to start.  The infographic covers everything from flipped classrooms to 3D-printing and discusses the potential uses and benefits of every new type of educational technology.   Free Technology for Teachers opens with a post entitled, "Gooru Adds a Common Core Standards-Based Search Tool."  If you've never used Gooru, it is an online tool for creating collections of educational videos, images, and texts.  Gooru has recently improved their interface and added CCS support to make it easier for teachers to find resources that relate to the Common Core Standards.  They also have an option for including quizzes in your collections  as well as a free iPad app. Free Tech also covers "22 Frames - News Videos for ESL Students."  The free site 22 Frames "provides a central location for locating captioned videos for learning English and for internet users who have hearing impairments."  On top of that, the site lists the common slang words and idioms that are associated with the videos, for students who may not be familiar.  This site is an excellent learning resource for ESL students and the videos cover everything from recent news story to pop culture. And to wrap up our main section, Teach Thought has a post on "12 Interesting Ways to Start Class Tomorrow."  I know, I know, it's not really tech related, but they've got some good ideas for spicing up your class at the end of the year (I know mine definitely needs it!  My personal favorite is number 10.) The Lightning Round... Teach Thought covers 5 Videos that Describe New Learning (PBL, Game-Based learning, etc...) Edudemic has an epic new infographic on the 5 Degrees to Becoming a Common Core Ninja Edudemic also has a nice list of 35 Useful Apps and Web Tools for Math Teachers Thanks for tuning in to today's Round Up!  If you've been enjoying the posts lately, you can follow us on Facebook or Twitter for easy updates!  And I know you've probably been really worried about the Round Up's summer status, well... fret no more!  We will continue posting through the entire summer!  All right! In closing, here's a new infographic onincorporating gamification into instructional design.  Plus, a great graphic on which apps to use for which levels of Blooms Taxonimy (I posted it last week, but it's an excellent poster and has been making the rounds again today...) Courtesy of: Edudemic

Today we start with the Ed Tech Review and an all-encompassing post on "How Has the Internet Impacted Education."  The main focus of the article is higher ed, but most of the info holds true for K-12 as well.  The post centers around an infographic from SEO.com which gives us some interesting statistics like the fact that a whopping 90% of teachers use some form of Social Media to connect with their students. Next up,Learn Dash covers "Why Educational Games Matter."  There have been a plethora of posts on gamification in education and the benefits of game-based learning lately, and this article does a nice job of providing a simple overview of the basic ideas. The main point they make is that gaming is advantageous because it requires the participant to be involved with the learning process, at least on some level.  The post goes on to offer some simple suggestions for implementing games in the classroom. Getting Smart has a new article out today entitled, "HotChalk Education Index: A Guide to the Future of EdTech."  The HotChalk Ed Index provides "quarterly insights regarding how the internet is impacting education."  The data from the HCEI has also been compiled into an excellent infographic which you can find at the bottom of the article.  The full report from Hot Chalk can be downloaded here (you have to provide some basic info) but the infographic and article do a nice job summarizing. Getting Smart also a post over "10 Trends in K-12 Online Learning."   The article outlines the latest trends the US is experiencing in online education, the most important being the speed at which school districts are adopting strategies to improve and implement online learning.  The post also covers course choices, blended learning, and makes note of the pushback that we're seeing in some states. Free Technology for Teachers opens with a review of "Room Recess - Educational Games for Kids."  Room Recess is an excellent site for elementary students that offers math and English review games for free (and it's ad free too!)  The games are not incredibly deep, but they're great for reviewing addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and parts of speech.  Free Tech also has three mini-posts from today covering: How to create your own infographics with PiktoChart How to merge PDFs with PDF Mergy How to make better videos with YouTube's Creator Hub Series And we'll end today's crazy short Round Up with a new infographic Educational Technology and Online Colleges discussing "20+ Ways to Use Social Media in Your Teaching."  Happy Friday!  And see you on Sunday for the weekend Round Up! Courtesy of: Online Colleges

Welcome back!  I hope everyone is in the middle of a relaxing weekend or, AT THE START OF SUMMER BREAK!  Woo!  Today's Round Up starts off with tons of new content from Edudemic.  First, "How Technology Inspires Creativity in the Classroom."  This post is mainly for those teachers who remain unconvinced that technology can be anything more than a distraction in the classroom, but it also has some useful tips for those teachers who are comfortable with tech as well.And on the flip-side, we've got "The 4 Negative Side Effects of Technology."  This post considers how the rapid acceptance and integration of technology into our lives and classrooms is not always a good thing.  They discuss how technology can, when improperly used, lead to elevated exasperation, deteriorated patience, declining writing skills, and a lack of physical interactivity.  These issues are incredibly important for educators to keep in mind when encouraging classroom technology use.Next up, Edudemic has an article on "Why Urban Students Have a Learning Advantage."  I think it goes without saying that many urban schools are often faced with enormous disadvantages in funding, resources, and teachers; however, this article argues that "what urban children have by the boatload is grit." The post goes on to outline how the "courage and persistence" that is prevalent in many urban schools will be exactly what will "help our nation prosper int he 21st century."Edudemic continues with ideas on "5 Ways to Really Connect with Online Students."  This post emphasizes the importance of being engaging and available, assigning group work, providing timely feedback, and developing a personal connection.  When teachers forget these principles, online learning can quickly become a hollow, unrewarding experience.Plus, Edudemic also has a new write-up comparing "South Korea vs U.S. Education."  I actually spent two years teaching in South Korea, and I'll have an editorial up soon about my personal experiences with their education system (or you can check out my old blog posts), but this particular article examines the results of Person's new global report on education.  The main difference they found was that in SK parents spend around 25% of their income to supplement their children's education with private classes, tutors, and learning materials.  Finally, Edudemic closes with three new infograhpics:How (And Why) Schools Are Encouraging Social Media Use18 Things to Know About Education in the U.S.A Visual Guiide to Staying Safe on Social Media Free Technology for Teachers starts off covering how to "How to Document Collaborative Brainstorming Sessions with Realtime Board."  Realtime Board is an excellent free tool that teachers and students can use to collaborate with images, videos, and PDFs by writing notes and comments in real time.  Here's a video showing how the program worksFree Tech also has a write-up on "Remind 101 - Safely Text Parents and Students."  Teachers can use Remind 101 to send free texts to groups of students or parents from a computer, iPhone, or Android device.  Plus, the service allows you to schedule messages to be sent out in the future as well.Finally, Free Tech covers "Flask - Quickly Create and Share To-do Lists."  Flask is a free, web-based list maker that allows you to create and share to-do lists.  You don't have to create an account (unless you want to create multiple lists) and the service has an incredibly simple and friendly interface. Getting Smart opens with an interesting read on "What is the Problem with Professional Development."  They argue that "the biggest problem is the way we frame it with the language that we use, and the thoughtless interpretation and implementation that we apply."  So basically the problem is, how we talk about PD and how we enact PD (so, everything...)  The article goes on to offer suggestions for improving our current PD systems.Getting Smart also discusses their Top 10 Posts from the week, covering the topics of Blended Schools & Tools, Digital Developments, Apps, Common Core, and Higher Learning. Emerging Ed Tech has a new post discussing how "The iPad Isn't the Only Tablet Computer Being Used in Schools." The article reminds us that, despite the major publicity and recognition the iPad receives for its educational uses, there are many alternatives that offer the same benefits at lower prices. Teach Thought opens the weekend with a collection of readings entitled, "The Impact of Technology: What Gadgets Can't Do For Us." The list includes articles from the Pew Foundation, the Washington Post, and Gawker, just to name of few.   Teach Thought also has a new post outlining the "5 Characteristics of Global Learning."  The Ed Tech Review has two new posts up from the weekend.  The first, an "Educator's Checklist of Great Websites for Teaching Tips." covers 9 websites that offer free resources to teachers.  The Review also discusses the "Growth, Importance, and Power of Mobile Technologies."  It's an excellent article covering the advantages of mobile and BYOD learning. Finally, Educational Technology has three new weekend posts:6 iPad Apps for Better Classroom Management50 Useful Websites and Apps for Teachers3 Ways to Turn Your Class Blog into a Beautiful e-Book Quite a weekend!  If you're ever feeling overwhelmed by the constant stream of Ed Tech content that is released on a daily basis, you can always check out the Round Up's collection of Links and Lesson Plans.  I try to create a limited list of what I've found to be the MOST useful tools and ideas, and I'm always adding new ideas to the lists as well.                   Enjoy the rest of your Sunday and see you tomorrow!

Today the Round Up begins at Ed Tech Magazine, with "The 2013 Honor Roll: EdTech's Must Read K-12 IT Blogs"  proudly featuring... The Ed Tech Round Up!  A special thanks to Mr. Ricky Ribeiro for including this site on the list.  Aside from the Round Up, there is an excellent collection of sites and blogs from teachers, administrators, writers, technologists, and students.   Inside Higher Ed has new post which asks, "Are We Guilty of EdTech Hype?"  The article is in response to ed tech consultant Randy Riddle's recent comments that "The big failure of the instructional technology field...is that it's often used by institutions or individual faculty as a tool to get publicity for being 'on the cutting edge,' rather than opening meaningful dialogue about teaching and learning."   The article goes on to discuss some of the problems and shortcoming with educational technology, and the tendency for educators to use technology in an effort to "appease administrators" rather than using technology for truly educational purposes.  Riddle raises some excellent questions that get to the heart of why we integrate technology into education. Jamie Forshey at EduTech for Teachers has just posted her monthly, "Geeky Girl's Greatest Hits: Volume V."  She's used ThingLink to create an interactive image (embedded below) of her most useful tips and tools from May.  If you haven't checked out ThingLink yet, it's a great way to make interactive images (like the one below) and if you haven't checked out Ms. Forshey's site yet, it's got an enormous wealth of helpful resources, lessons, and ideas. Educational Technology opens the day with a post on how to "Easily Create Classroom Wikis Using Wikispaces Classroom." Last month, Wikispaces announced the new service which is geared towards helping students and teachers create classroom wikis where classes can easily share information and resources.  Check out the post for an overview of the service. The site also has a write-up on "What Teachers Need to Know about Using Hashtags in Google Plus."  For those who have never used the now ubiquitous hashtag (#) it's basically a tool to categorize whatever you are writing or posting about.  For example, if you searched #edtech, your search engine would bring up all discussions that had been tagged the same way.  And now, Google Plus is supporting the use of hashtags, and this new post has also the basics you need to know. Free Technology for Teachers has a new post introducing us to "ULearniversity - Online Math Lessons and Practice Activities."  Students can use this free site to watch math tutorials and answer practice questions which provide instant feedback.  The site is a great resource (along with sites like Khan Academy) for helping math teachers to "Flip" their classroom and get students engaged in learning content outside of class. The site also covers the free web app,"GeoSettr - Create a Street View Geography Game."  An excellent resource for the social studies classroom, teachers can use GeoGuessr (paired with GeoSettr) to create an enjoyable, interactive tour of historical places and landmarks.  Finally, for those familiar with RSS readers (programs used to compile and read "feeds" from blogs and sites you like), Google Reader is shutting down next month and Free Tech has posted a review of "Feedspot - A Simple Google Reader Replacement."  Another alternative reader that I'm a big fan of is Flipboard, it's a great way to get all your facebook, twitter, RSS, and news feeds in the same place.   Edudemic opens with an article on the "10 EdTech Venture Capitalists Worth Following on Twitter."  These days, it seems like there's a new edtech startup every other day, and Edudemic helps out by creating a more manageable list of the ten best.  The list includes the Gates Foundation and Learn Capital. And, as part of their month of exploring global education, Edudemic has three new posts on global education and comparisons between countries: Upcoming Conferences on Global Education 18 Things to know about education in the United Kingdom 18 Things to know about education in Canada Getting Smart starts off with a post about "Going Digital with Online Occupational Therapy."  The article discusses how many distracts are having to do "more with less" these days, which can cause especially large problems in special education departments.  To fill that need, companies like Presence Learning have developed online occupational and speech therapy programs that can virtually help students in need. Getting Smart also takes a look at the importance of bilungual education in an article entitled, "Can Sexy Accents Save Us?"  The post discusses the often neglected benefits of offering bilungual classes in school, especially given the ever-increasing rate of global connectedness our society is experiencing.   Teach Thought has a new a guide on "11 Sample Education BYOT Policies to Help You Create Your Own." For any school district considering implementing a BYOT or 1:1 tablet initiative, this is an excellent place to start.  The post has copies of policies from 11 different schools which districts are free to use and change as they see fit. Teach Thought has also reposted an article from October by Psychologist John Jensen which discusses "Critical Thinking From the Ground Up."  If you have 30 minutes today, this is a great article to read and it provides an incredibly interesting and detailed analysis of how educators can help foster critical thinking skills within their classrooms. Thanks for tuning in today and thanks again to Ed Tech Magazine for listing in the Top 50 Ed Tech blogs! Today, we'll end with an infographic from Getting Smart on How Digital Learning Contributes to Deeper Learning.  See you tomorrow! Courtesy of: Getting Smart

Welcome back to the Round Up! Today we'll start over at Teach Thought with a post about "Teachers and Social Media: Finding Your Comfort Zone."  For those teachers who are just beginning to break the social media ice, this is an excellent article to start with. The post covers some basic resources on social media tools and advice on how to get started.  Next up, if you haven't yet heard of the new service Vine, or considered how it could be used educationally, then check out "What Is Vine and What's It Doing In My Classroom?"  Basically, Vine is twitter but for videos, really short 6-second videos, but videos nonetheless.  The article goes further in depth and offers some suggestions for integration. Finally, Teach Thought has a repost of a Getting Smart article from a few weeks back, "10 Significant Trends in Education and Online Learning."  If you didn't catch it the first time around, it's your lucky day! Edudemic opens with a list of "5 Free Online Courses for Tech-Savvy Teachers."  If you've got some free time this summer and and iPad to learn about (or perhaps a BYOD program) then definitely check out this post.  They cover all the basics you could need on iPads in education and launching a BYOD program in your school or district. Continuing on with the iPad, edudemic has a new write-up on "8 Powerful Apps to Help you Create Books on the iPad."  If you're fortunate to have iPads in your school, having the students create their own books to show their understanding of particular topics can be an awesome activity.  If you're not sure on which apps would be best for that, this Edudemic guide is very worthwhile. And Edudemic closes with a great Prezi from Pip Cleaves on "Bloom's Digital Taxonomy and Web 2 Tools." (embedded below) and a new infographic on "The Busy Teacher's Quick Common Core Guide." The Innovative Educator has a new guest post by Eric Williams outlining "3 Ways to Decrease the Teacher Dropout Crisis."  Not especially Ed Tech related, but an important post regardless.  His advice is incredibly well-written, thoughtful, and needed with the growing number of teachers across the states who are leaving the profession. Finally, we've mentioned the educational uses of MineCraft a few times on the Round Up (a game that allows users to create virtual worlds out of textured cubes) and if you're familiar with the program and looking for new ways to integrate it with your curriculum, you'll definitely enjoy Ed Reach's new post, "Minecraft in the Classroom with peter Tromba." That's it for the Round Up today, we'll end up with an infographic for one of the most important (yet often overlooked) positions in K-12 Education, "27 Things Your Teacher Librarian Does."   Courtesy of: Educational Technology

Welcome to the Round Up!  Today we begin at T.H.E. Journal with a new article outlining the "6 Technology Challenges Facing Education."  I posted a recent editorial over this topic as well , but their article also discusses the unique challenges posed by MOOCs and the failures of personalized learning.  The article is in response to a new report from the New Media Consortium and does an excellent job summarizing the main points and ideas. Emerging Ed Tech has a new post on "4 Ways Colleges and Universities are Using Tech to Go Green."  Even though the article focuses on higher ed, all of the ideas (except perhaps number 4 - holding classes virtually) translate to K-12 education as well.  The ideas are especially useful for schools looking for ways to save on spending while going green at the same time. While Google and Google Scholar are excellent resources for teachers, I sometimes forget that their are other resources that are just as well suited (if not better) for the classroom.  Teach Thought's new post, "7 Academic Search Engines Not Named Google" offers a great reminder of the other academic search engines that are available. Getting Smart opens with an article on "The Business Role in Education: Examples, Expectations & Support."  The post focuses on how the CEOs of ExxonMobile, Xerox, and Qualcomm feel about the common core standards, online learning, STEM education, and what is needed from our schools to ensure that today's students will be ready to enter the modern workforce.  (Reposted from yesterday's Huffington Post) Getting Smart also provides "An Update on Apple in Education."  If you've been jonesing for some statistics on iPads and apple apps in education, then get on over there!  One impressive stat that stuck out with me - 75,000 educational apps.  Wow.  But if you've checked the app store recently, Apple has begun to organize them by grade and subject which is proving immensely helpful.   Finally, Ed Reach has a review of a the app "Sound Uncovered."  Great for the sciences, this app lets students explore sounds through "an interactive book that walks you through new ways to look and listen to sounds."  It's free, well-designed, and would be excellent for younger students in a unit on the senses. And that's all we've got for today!  Thanks for stopping by and we'll end with a double whammy!  First, a new graphic from Teach Thought on Student email Etiquette and if you missed it a few days ago, check out Learn Dash's repost of Edudemic's post of Online College's Trends in Education Technology :) Courtesy of: Learn Dash

Happy Friday-eve!  Today's Round Up begins at Free Technology for Teachers with some succinct advice on "Protecting Devices in 1:1 Programs."  In the post, Byrne argues that one of the major causes of damage to laptops, netbooks, or tablets is student neglect.  Schools and teachers need to enforce policies that require students to be responsible for their new technology to ensure that damage does not occur.Next up, Free Tech has a short review of a new online game, "Play Thingdom and Learn About Genetics."  Produced by the London Science Museum, Thingdom is an online game that helps students learn about genetics.  In the game, students select a "thing" and then try to find a way to create that "thing" by selecting various traits.  The game is part of a larger exhibit called Who Am I?  that uses animations, videos, and text to teach students about genetics.Free Tech also an article covering "30 Free Teacher PD Courses."  The post talks about Coursera and their new collection of Professional Development Courses.  All the classes are free and they cover a wide range of topics from the foundations of education to integrating art and inquiry into your curriculum.Finally, Free Tech has a short review of PAT, a "Free, Open Source, Portable Atlas."  Developed by Ian Macky, PAT is a collection of free maps which include every country in the world.  The collection is an excellent resource for social studies and history teachers in need of high-quality maps. EduTech for Teachers has a new review on how to "Create Virtual Postcards with Instaplace."  For iOS and Android devices, InstaPlace allows users to create a virtual postcard by using your location data.  Students can pick from a variety of different captions which will automatically add their location to a picture or image.  Forshey has some excellent integration ideas for this new tool which goes for $1.99 in the app store. EdReach.Us has a new podcast up today, "Teacher Tech Talk #09 - Downloading This As We Speak."  In the podcast, Kafka and Epcke discuss new GMail updates, teachers resigning via YouTube, EduClipper, Google Drive, and more!  If you haven't checked out EdReach yet, it's an excellent blog with a mountain of resources, podcasts, and integration ideas. Educational Technology has a great new list of "12 Excellent New Web Tools for Teachers."  Some of these tools they've covered before (like FatURL) but some are new to me like EQuizShow.com.  Ed Tech also has a new article on the "SAMR Model Explained for Teachers."  The SAMR model is basically a series of simple steps teachers can follow to begin integrating technology in their classroom.  Here's more info: And we'll end today at Getting Smart.  They open with big news from the White House, "President Obama Announces ConnectEd."  This new program is "one of the first steps to building high-speed digital connections to schools and libraries across the nation."  ConnectEd calls on the FCC to assist in ensuring that 99% of American students can benefit from the resources and advances of new technology.  Check the article for the full press release.Getting Smart continues with a follow up to their post from two-weeks ago on comparable growth measures with, "A Proposal for Better Growth Measures."  The article argues that in order to accurately and efficiently compare academic measures across blended school settings, there is a need for some form of common assessment. If you're a big fan of Lexile levels and analyzing data, get on it!Next up, for all you math teachers out there, Getting Smart covers "3 Tools to Tackle Common Core Math Standards."  All of the resources they cover are aligned with the Common Core Standards to help teachers with easy integration.  The article covers LearnZillion, TenMarks, and Learning Farm.Finally, for the Economics and Business teachers, Getting Smart has a new post on "The Interactive Economics Classroom with MobLab."  MobLab has a giant variety of educational games for the sciences and social studies, and now they've got economics covered as well.  For any teacher looking to implement some game-based learning, this is a great resource to go with. And that's it for the Round Up today!  We'll be back on Sunday with the weekend edition.  Plus, I've got a 3-day weekend coming up (still no summer break? Come on!) so expect some new reviews as well!Also, I'd like to take this chance to welcome any new readers!  I hope you're enjoying the site so far.  If you want, you can always follow the Round Up on Facebook or Twitter, or you can receive the Round Up through email by filling out the subscribe box on the right side.  See you on Sunday and have an excellent weekend!

Welcome back!  I hope everyone had an enjoyable and relaxing weekend!  Last Thursday I wrote a little bit about Obama's announcement of the new ConnectEd program.  If you haven't heard yet, the program's goal is to bring high speed internet to 99% of America's students, as well as provide funds for teacher technology PD.  For all the details and logistics, Edudemic has a new article from the weekend.Edudemic also has a new article on "Teacher-Led Professional Learning: The Latest Revolution in Education."  All around the country teachers are teaching their peers through twitter, google, and edcamps.  It's absolutely awesome to see all these educators putting in so much time to help others, and I'm glad to see this has become a growing trend in education.Finally Edudemic has a post entitled, "EdX Wants YOU To Improve their Online Learning Platform."  edX is one of the newest and largest MOOCs (massive open online course).  The organization offers an enormous variety of high quality online courses for free.  And now, they've released their site's source code to the internet in an effort to get educators, programmers, and computer scientists involved in improving the quality of their user experience. EduCade has a new article up entitled, "Geoscience: STEMulating the Classroom Through Play."  The post discusses gamification via the soon to be released iPad app Geomoto, by GameDesk.   If you're an earth science instructor, I absolutely recommend keeping your eye out for this app, it will be an excellent resource.  You can see students playing the prototype here.  And if you haven't had a chance to check out GameDesk before, they have some wonderful education projects in the works. Much like gamification, it's nearly impossible to go through a post without talking about Blended Learning.  Classrooms all across the world are integrating technology and virtual lessons, and the importance of blended learning is become more and more evident.  However, to successfully implement blended learning, there are a huge number of issues educators must address.  To help with that, Tom Vander Ark at Getting Smart has prepared an awesome resource collection in, "The 10 Big Blended Learning Questions." Free Tech for Teachers has two new ed tech posts from the weekend.  The first is about "Watch2Gether - Watch and Discuss Videos Online."  Through the site Watch2Gother, students and teachers can engage in online discussions over videos from YouTube.  This could be an excellent resource in a flipped classroom to make sure students are watching and discussing the videos they have been assigned.Free Tech also has a short review of a new tool, "Clipping Magic - Remove Background Materials from your Images."  Clipping Magic is "a new tool that makes it easy to edit background objects out of your images.  For younger students who may have difficulty with advanced image editing programs, Clipping Magic is a great tool.   Teach Thought has an interesting article discussing, "What Technology Does to Learning: An Analogy."  The article compares teachers to department store employees (just for the sake of the analogy!) in order to better understand the process and benefits of integrating technology into the classroom.Teach Thought also gives us "8 Tips for Helping Students Tell Stories in a Social Media World."  The post opens with a discussion of the importance of storytelling and then goes on to give 8 ideas to help students better tell their stories.  While the guide is directed at students, it would be an excellent resource for a teacher to help his/her students with their own digital storytelling.   Ed Reach has a write-up on "Storynory - Hundreds of Audio Stories for Your Classroom, Bedtime or Vacation."  Storynory is is website with audio stories for students.  The site has a huge variety, from classic fairy tales to modern original stories and they post a new story each week.  Plus, it's free!  The site is an excellent resource, particularly in the elementary classroom. The Lightning Round Edudemic has a new infographic on The 6 Types of Connected StudentsEducational Technology gives us 5 Tips on How To Use Technology MindfullyTeach Thought also has a new infographic, it's on 50 Mobile Learning Statistics for K-12 Education And that's all for the weekend edition!  We'll end today with a video promoted by Sir Ken Robinson (via Educators Technology) which shows "A Wonderful Exercise in Critical Thinking." The main point of the video is that when students are told there is a "right way" to do something, this negatively impacts their creativity.  If you've got 2 minutes, check it out!  And we'll see you tomorrow!

Today we start over at User Generated Education with Dr. Gerstein's fabulous post on "Education 3.0"  In the article, Gerstein describes the importance of developing an Ed 3.0 environment where students are creators of content and where learning is more self directed.  She also provides a great timeline on how education, ed tech, and the role of the teacher have changed over the past few decades.  Plus much, much more, definitely check out the when you have a minute. And while we're on the topic, Edudemic has a new post, "What is Web 3.0 And How Will it Change Education."  The article argues that we're currently living in the transition between web 2.0 and web 3.0.  And if you have no idea what all this 2.0 business is, this article is a great place to start, they have a good graphic explaining what it all means and how it relates to the classroom and to education in general. And continuing the trend, the Ed Tech Review has an article on "Technology: An Essential in the 21st Century Classroom."  The post describes what the ideal classroom for an Ed 3.0 environment might look like.  They argue that the classroom "would be designed with two key concepts in mind: technology access and student-centered architecture." Free Tech for Teachers outlines "Four Reasons Your Students Should Join the Quest2Matter."  Quest2Matter is sponsored by the organization Choose2Matter and is designed to help students across the world collaborate and "share ideas and actions for solving problems that have meaning to them."  It's a great organization and idea and worth thinking about over the summer break. Lisa Nielsen at The Innovative Educator has a new post on the first "#StuVoice Google Hangout" in which a group of student leaders discussed social media.  The group covers education on the proper use of social media, classroom use, the importance of choice, and the most commonly used social media platforms.  You can check out the chat below:  Ed Reach has a new review of "Night Zookeeper Drawing Torch" an iPad app that is designed to be used in conjunction with the Night Zookeeper website.  The app gives students a mission which combines drawing, story telling, and creating.  It's free to use and would be perfect for early elementary students.  Ed Reach has a video review of the app as well. Finally, Tom Vander Ark has a new post in Education Weekly about my home town!  "Smart Cities: Kansas City."  The article discusses how the Kansas City Kansas School District has completely turned around a failing district over the past 15 years by using math bench-marking, workforce experiences, accelerated career academies, and a whole lot of technology.  It's great to read about a district doing so well and I'm especially happy to see Kansas representing! The Lightning Round... Teach Thought covers 21 Smart Games for Game-Based Learning Educational Technology provides 11 Must Have iPad apps for Teachers & Students Ed Tech also has a new list of 10 Great Tools for Research You Should Know About Tech & Learning has an awesome collection of STEM, PBL, and Common Core Resources Free Tech for Teachers reminds us of 8 Overlooked Useful YouTube Tools And that's all for the Round Up today!  Thanks for tuning in!  We'll end with a new infographic on how we can help "Extend The Reach of Excellent Teachers" Courtesy of: Public Impact