open source pedagogy mobile in schools app development learners as creators constructivism innovation google applications androidA year ago, Google released App Inventor – a fascinatingly visual, albeit rather buggy tool for developing android apps. Although not robust enough for our commercial development, we loved the fresh ideas about interface, and app building. Perfect tools for learning about coding. Today I found an email in my inbox announcing that Google are dropping support for it. Google are open-sourcing the code base. Often a sign of a project’s demise. Awesome news! MORE >>

But as champions for "out of school learning" we felt that there was a large, and gaping hole. What about "out of school / adult / working learners"? The focus was too much towards school age learners. lot of thought had gone into how to impact government policy, and improve access to IT in schools. But very little focus was put into those areas that fall outside the remit of school, yet are still very much within the remit of UNESCO. Policy mobile in schools 3rd world digital divide innovation management born mobile UNESCO south africa free resources MORE >>

I created this video for my presentation at the MACUL conference tomorrow in Grand Rapids, MI. would love some feedback on it. The goal is to give a perspective of educational history and technology, where common technology tools (such as a chalkboard or pen or even Internet) were once banned and labeled "harmful" as we are doing with cell phones. Enjoy! Update: Here is the Link to video on TeacherTube.Enjoy MORE >>

PEW Internet and American Life Project has just published the results of their study on how teachers in grades 6-12 are using technology. few highlights of the study include. Just 18% feel they know more than their students MORE >>

Last Fall I sent out a survey on my Twitter network asking K-12 teachers about cell phone use in their schools. Of 100 teachers, 97 of them said that their school had a policy that highly restricted cell phone use during school hours (either banning them completely or restricting their use to non-academic times). Yet in the same survey 40 of the teachers said they were using cell phones in learning, and 87 teachers said they would like to use cell phones for learning in their schools in the future. received 100 responses on SurveyMonkey (Wow! Survey Says. MORE >>