Google’s search engine will now recognise what type of thing you are searching for,  Books, People, Movies, etc and it will link them together in a semantic web Google is calling Knowledge Graph.

Thus, New Zealand, where we are, is not just two words forming a search string, it’s a country in the Pacific Ocean, it’s near Australia, it has a population of just over 4 million people, languages spoken include Maori and English and so on.

The roll out is happening in the US first.

So have you seen this appearing in your searches? Tell us what you think.

Garageband is a great app that I think any student or teacher using an iPad should consider buying. It is a multi-track audio editing app that is as robust as you will ever need (unless of course you teach audio production). Later this week I will be posting a new page full of Garageband resources for teachers, students and learning. For now, you can get your brain juices flowing by reading the list below, watching the embeded ‘how to’ videos,  and then go start playing with Garageband yourself!

Full Text: 14 Ways to Use Garageband in the Classroom « EdApps.ca.

Instructor presence in the online environment can be elusive as a shadow – it’s one dimensional, monochromatic and takes on various forms depending upon the point of view. Yet, instructor presence in online learning communities is vital to ‘complete learning’ (by complete I mean student engages with content, applies higher order thinking skills, and produces tangible evidence that learning objectives are met). In the virtual environment the instructor needs to be ‘real’, 3 dimensional, have a personality, be the subject matter expert and as if this isn’t enough, help the student achieve the learning goals in this virtual space. A tall order. In this post I’ll share why and how instructor [virtual] presence is critical, essential instructional design components to facilitate presence, and strategies used by instructors that demonstrate presence.

Full Text: Instructor Presence in the Online Class – Key to Learner Success | online learning insights.

It has become clear that teaching skills requires answering “What should students learn in the 21st century?” on a deep and broad basis. Teachers need to have the time and flexibility to develop knowledge, skills, and character, while also considering the meta-layer/fourth dimension that includes learning how to learn, interdisciplinarity, and personalisation. Adapting to 21st century needs means revisiting each dimension and how they interact:

Full Text: OECD educationtoday: What should students learn in the 21st century?.

Lake Stevens School District found that performing state-mandated equipment audits was becoming a costly and cumbersome task. In order to account for big-ticket purchases, the district was bringing in a third-party auditor on an annual basis to keep track of all of its key assets, which includes everything from faculty computers and printers to musical instruments and shop-class table saws.

The problem was not only the $8,000 annual price tag that came with the third-party audit service, but the overall inefficiency of the district’s inventory system. Throughout the year, the Lake Stevens IT staff is responsible for tagging each piece of equipment with barcode tags and manually entering any moves, adds, and changes into the inventory database. The tedious, time-consuming task made it difficult for the team to keep information up-to-date and ready for the annual audit. “When we would go do the audit, all of the information would not necessarily be correct and we would spend hours looking for items — and that’s not productive,” says Michelle Buehler, a network and computer technician at Lake Stevens.

Tired of scouring the school for missing audio-visual equipment every summer, Buehler decided to see if there was in fact “an app for that.” Using her smartphone to browse an app store, she came across the Physical Asset Tracking application from Bolingbrook, Ill.-based Intelligent Loop, www.aridhio.com. “I put the app on my phone just to see what it would do, and it really seemed like it could work for us,” she says.

Full Text: Connected World magazine | Getting Schooled on Asset Tracking.

For many organizations who want to dive into mobile learning, it’s not just about the desire to create and deliver mLearning for employees –it’s about how to do it and how to do it well. It is essential for organizations to explore their online e-Learning including motivations, needs, restraints and requirements for mobile delivery before the development process begins.

Explore these 28 mobile learning questions to equip yourself with the best strategy and e-Learning tools for successful mobile development and implementation:

Full Text: Before You Go Mobile: 28 Mobile Learning Questions to Ask.

Distance education specialist Carole Robinson teaches faculty and staff how to create and use QR codes in the LL Building on Wednesday, May 9, 2012. Robinson said she enjoys holding brief, easily comprehendible technology workshops for staff a few times a month

Almost everyone has seen one: the little square images that look like digitized ink blots appearing on ads outside store windows and in newspapers. They’re called “Quick Response” codes, QR for short, and they allow access to information in the physical world as if from a link on the internet, by pressing a button.

“The future [will be on] handheld devices and QR codes are an easier way to get across information,” said Carole Robinson, who provides instructors with monthly workshops on new and innovative ways to teach.

QR codes work like a barcode, said Robinson, but instead of a scanner you have your smart phone or iPad. Robinson showed teachers and staff at a workshop on May 9 how to download and use free QR reader apps. She demonstrated by firing up an app on her iPad and like a scanner used the tablet’s camera to snap a picture of a code on her desk. Immediately after “scanning” the code she was sent to a website on the internet via the little square image, like clicking a link on a web page.

Full Text: QR codes making the physical world clickable – News – Courier – Pasadena City College.

Helping to educate and inspire the next generation of thinkers, Skype joins forces with Penguin Group, New York Philharmonic, Science Museum London, Peace One Day, and Save the Children to provide teachers with educational content and access to expert speakers via video calling. This collaboration marks Skype’s latest initiative to reach its goal of connecting one million classrooms globally through Skype in the classroom, a free online community that helps teachers use Skype to enrich experiences for students.

“Skype in the classroom is excited to collaborate with stellar, like-minded organizations to bring relevant content directly to innovative teachers who are looking to create unforgettable shared learning experiences for their students,” said Tony Bates, president of the Skype Division at Microsoft. “We are dedicated to making education accessible via technology, and will continue to look for ways to remove barriers to communications and connect to classrooms across the globe.”

Skype in the classroom strives to enrich students’ learning experiences to discover new cultures, languages and ideas without leaving the classroom. Skype in the classroom now features each individual organization’s dynamic content, projects and available guest speakers, including:

Penguin Young Readers Group will connect authors, such as Adam Gidwitz, Caroline Lawrence and Nancy Krulik, with students for discussions about books, reading and writing;

The New York Philharmonic offers live interaction with musicians and educators, beginning with an exploration of Billy the Kid -the man and the legend- through the lens of Aaron Copland’s 1939 ballet;

Registered teachers have the opportunity to link directly to the free Skype supported Peace One Day Global Education Resources and to inspire and educate their students about the importance of peace in the modern world. Students can also connect with Peace One Day Founder, Jeremy Gilley and listen to his inspirational story, questioning him on all aspects of his incredible journey to institutionalize Peace Day, 21 September;

Save the Children and the Science Museum, London will have individual projects on Skype in the classroom by the end of the year.

“As a global leader in children’s publishing, we are thoroughly committed to seeding a student’s growing mind and help them fulfill their dreams,” said Pearson Foundation President and CEO Mark Nieker, “We are honored to collaborate with Skype in the classroom as we understand the monumental impact we can offer teacher’s educational curriculum.”

With more than 28,000 registered teachers and counting, in over 190 countries, Skype in the classroom has enabled hundreds of thousands of students around the world to take part in valuable shared learning experiences. Skype offers an immediate way to help students discover new cultures, languages and ideas, all without leaving the classroom. Through programs such as this and its work with Donors Choose, The Education Foundation and Peace One Day, Skype in the classroom supports Microsoft’s commitment to create opportunities for youth through technology, training, and experiences that empower them to imagine and realize their full potential and make a real impact for a better tomorrow.

To join Skype in the classroom and view these exclusive resources, teachers should:

Sign up at education.skype.com using their Skype account details

Create a profile which includes their interests, location and the age groups they teach

Once complete, teachers will have full range to explore the Skype in the classroom organization microsites, utilize vast content from these organizations and engage in conversations with select guest experts.

For more information or to register for Skype in the classroom, please visit http://education.skype.com .

Education Scotland is to look at how tablet computers and mobile devices are being used in classrooms and consider how they could be introduced in schools on a wider scale.

The Scottish Government body will take stock of how existing schemes are working before providing recommendations to Education Secretary Michael Russell.

Almost 20 schools across 10 local authorities are already using devices such as iPads and Android technology to aid learning.

Full Text: Classroom technology use analysed | Orange UK.

Educators have been tapping into the wildly popular online game Minecraft for its potential as a learning tool for a while now — to teach physics, math, and computer science. But until recently, the game was mostly the territory of computer science teachers, and even they were forced to use the commercial version of the online game.

So a few months ago, two teachers, Santeri Koivisto and Joel Levin, decided to make the software more accessible and relevant to teachers. They joined forces to found MinecraftEdu and started offering discounted educator licenses to Minecraft. MinecraftEdu now offers a plug-in, which enables teachers to tailor the software to individual curriculum. And a fresh new wiki is dedicated to sharing ideas with topic suggestions such as “How To Use Redstone, (a fictional mineral) To Teach Electricity.” Teachers can also work with others to co-develop lesson plans within the game software.

Full Text: Teachers Transform Commercial Video Game for Class Use | MindShift.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 30 years ago that public schools cannot engage in viewpoint-based censorship of library books. Schools can keep books off the shelves if they are poorly written or inappropriate for a particular age group, but they cannot limit access to Harry Potter books out of a concern they glorify witchcraft, or remove Kurt Vonnegut novels because they perceive the books to be anti-American, the court held in Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico.

That also means that if a library includes novels about star-crossed teenagers in love, it can’t selectively remove similar novels about gay and lesbian teenage romance. If an elementary school library includes children’s books designed to teach kids about family relationships, it can’t remove similar books discussing families with same-sex parents.

Technology may have changed since that ruling, but the law has not. Schools cannot block access to information on the Internet any more than they can engage in viewpoint-based discrimination toward the books on the shelves.

Full Text: Education Week: The Legal Cost of Improper Internet Censorship.

Just about everyone and their mother (especially mothers) is on Pinterest these days, and we can’t blame them: it is a really cool resource for finding the very best ideas, inspiration, and all around neat stuff. So we are not at all surprised to find out that colleges and college students are joining in on the fun, too.

Many colleges and universities have jumped on Pinterest to create their own boards for prospective and current students, alumni, and other interested parties, and lots of them are doing a really great job. From game day fashion to alumni baby photos, college pinboards are full of some really fun and useful stuff. Read on, and we’ll share 20 of the college Pinterest boards that we’re most impressed with.

Full Text: 20 Interesting Ways Colleges are Using Pinterest – Best Colleges Online.