"Steven Strogatz, an award-winning professor, takes readers from the basics to the baffling in a 15-part series on mathematics. Beginning with a column on why numbers are helpful, he goes on to investigate topics including negative numbers, calculus and group theory, finishing with the mysteries of infinity."
Author: Steven Stogatz, NY Times

Practice basic math skills.

Free, online book by Stephen Downes, May 19, 2012.

"Games consoles are all the rage in Mogadishu, keeping boys away from school but also away from the militants"
Author: The Guardian, May 4, 2012

Toxic stress physically damages a child’s developing brain.
How a school principles learns from John Medina, author of "Brain Rules" and Natalie Turner. "Toxic stress comes from complex trauma ... [which] ain’t pretty. It’s when your dad’s in prison AND your mom’s a meth addict AND she’s too drugged out to move in the mornings, so you’ve got to take care of your little brother, get him fed and off to school, AND you’re despairing about being evicted for the third time because she hasn’t paid the rent and the landlord’s screaming at you to do something. ... Teens who live with complex trauma are walking post-traumatic stress time bombs ... They teeter through their days. The smallest incident can push them into a full-blown meltdown. Some kids run away. Some explode in rage. Some just mentally check out."

"There are just two simple rules, says Turner. Rule No. 1: Take nothing a raging kid says personally. Really. Act like a duck: let the words roll off your back like drops of water."

"Rule No. 2: Don’t mirror the kid’s behavior. Take a deep breath. Wait for the storm to pass, and then ask something along the lines of: 'Are you okay? Did something happen to you that’s bothering you? Do you want to talk about it?'”

"It’s not that a kid gets off the hook for bad behavior. 'There have to be consequences,' explains Turner. Replace punishment, which doesn’t work, with a system to give kids tools so that they can learn how to recognize their reaction to stress and to control it. 'We need to teach the kids how to do something differently if we want to see a different response.'"

Research article.
What's more motivating to learners?
* linear video that consisted of video taped presentations
with demonstrations of techniques and principals discussed
* lecture presentations by experts on the subjects that included use of overhead projector as well as demonstration of skills
* computer-based instruction that utilized an interactive multimedia format
Learners who used the computer-based instruction (CBI) had higher motivation in all of the ARCS areas (attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction) than learners who used other media. That's probably because the CBI had simulated scenarios that provided instant feedback. The other methods didn't have opportunities to practice.
Author: David L. Rodgers and Beverly J. Withrow-Thorton, International Journal of Instructional Media Vol, 32(4), 2005

A counter to Ruth Clark's article "Why Games Don't Teach".
Author: Christy Tucker, May 8, 2012

Author: Ruth Colvin Clark, ASTD, April 30, 2012

Math & spelling education games.
You compete against a random opponents.

"Call it the 'learning paradox': the more you struggle and even fail while you’re trying to master new information, the better you’re likely to recall and apply that information later."
"The learning paradox is at the heart of 'productive failure,' a phenomenon identified by Manu Kapur, a researcher at the Learning Sciences Lab at the National Institute of Education of Singapore."
Author: Annie Murphy Paul, Time, April 25, 2012

This is the original article
Author: David Kelly, April 13, 2012

Tons of educational iPad apps organized by grade levels and categories.

"The problem with TED Ed is the problem of what we define in traditional education as a 'lesson'. In life, we learn lessons by trial-and-error. ... we all learn by doing and by making mistakes.And I emphasize 'doing'."

"TED -- in the form it is presented online to the masses -- is not about doing. It is about watching. Listening. Consuming."
Author: Shelly Black-Plock, Teach Paperless, April 25, 2012

About TED-Ed a suite "TED-Ed is launching a suite of tools that allow teachers to design their own web-assisted curricula, complete with videos, comprehension-testing questions, and conversational tools. TED-Ed provides a template -- think Power Point slides, with populate-able fields -- that teachers can fill in with customized content: lesson titles, lesson links, student names, embedded video, test questions, and the like. Once saved, a lesson generates a unique URL, which allows teachers to track which students have watched assigned videos, how they've responded to follow-up questions, and, in general, how they've interacted with the lesson itself."

"Most intriguing: Teachers can customize the lessons they create on a student-by-student basis, using the TED-Ed platform both to track individual student progress and to tailor questions to student interests and skill levels. The site offers real-time feedback to students, letting them know when they get answers right and providing hints when they get answers wrong. That's big. And it could be, just a little bit, revolutionary."
Author: Megan Garber, The Atlantic, April 25, 2012

Author: John Paul Titlow, ReadWriteWeb, April 23, 2012

Mashable

"Many capable, hard-working students perform poorly on exams because they’ve overtaxed their 'working memory' — the mental scratchpad on which we combine information from our long-term memory with the specifics of the problem in front of us, in the service of finding a solution.

IgniteCast a presentation tools that allows easy integration of PowerPoints and media. You have to download the application.

For Becky Splitt and Christopher Klundt, founders of StudyBlue, mobile technology comes first. Their main objective is to create a seamless experience across every device  to view their concise, one topic centric, user generated note cards. Students have been jumping at the opportunity to create content on this free service, with over 50 million note cards and counting. 1.4 million people are studying and learning collaboratively, and the trend is not slowing down."
Others:
* BookRenter.com - renting textbooks
* InternMatch - match students with internships
* Bright Frontier Financial - works with banks and lenders so that graduates receive affordable loans from lenders in their communities
* Entrepreneurial education
Author: Brad Hart, Forbes, April 18, 2012

Review of Karl Kapp's book "The Gamification of Learning and Instruction".
Author: Judy Unrein, Onehundredfortywords, April 21, 2012

Describes each level and provides a series of links.
1. Mad Libs
2. Photo stories
3. Comic Strips
4. Storyboards
5. Animated Films
Author: James Taylor, Digital Play, March 30, 2012

Storytelling apps for kids for the iPad/iPhone/iPod:
Toonastic, I Tell a Story, Voice Thread app, Story Patch, Sock Puppets, Art Maker, Puppet Pals, Storyrobe, Strip Designers, Comic Book
Author: David Kapuler, Tech & Learning, undated (appears to be posted on Feb 24, 2012 based on the comments)

Searchable links to free lesson plans.
Includes links to financial education topics.

"Plutarch: The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be ignited."
Author: EdGalaxy

A study "shows children who take music lessons have better verbal memory skills than others and may find it easier to learn in school.
Researchers say the findings suggest that experiences that activate and alter a region of the brain may improve performance in other tasks supported by that area, much in the same way cross training boosts athletic performance."
Author: Jennifer Warner, WebMD, July 28, 2003

Music eases anxiety in cancer patients, reduces stress, helps during brain surgery to lower the patient's stress, protects your ears' sound processing ability, boosts heart health,soothes pain, helps memory, protects the aging brain, prevents heart transplant rejection (in mice),improves stroke recovery, works as well as massage at lower anxiety.

"Odd as it may seem, University of Maryland Medical Center researchers have found a link between listening to music and heart health.
... listening to joyful music is linked with dilation of blood vessels' inner lining, meaning more flow of blood through the blood vessels."
"WebMD reported that taking music lessons is linked with doing better on tests where you have to recall words you read on a list.
And 'the more music training during childhood, the better the verbal memory,' study researcher Agnes S. Chan, PhD, a psychologist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, told WebMD."
Author: Amanda L. Chan, Huffington Post, April 11, 2011

"Which of the following procedures do you think would produce the most accurate representation of an object: tracing the object; looking at the object while drawing it; or, with your eyes closed, touching and feeling the object and then drawing it, without having ever seen it?"
Author: Kenneth Wesson, BrainWorld, March 29, 2012

"For children with dyslexia, the trouble begins even before they start reading and for reasons that don't necessarily reflect other language skills. That's according to a report published online on April 5 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, that for the first time reveals a causal connection between early problems with visual attention and a later diagnosis of dyslexia. 'Visual attention deficits are surprisingly way more predictive of future reading disorders than are language abilities at the prereading stage,' said Andrea Facoetti of the University of Padua in Italy.

The top 5 educational technology trends that the author Rob Reynolds is watching: curriculum, OER learning platforms, learning analytics, smart mobile devices, e-books and digital reading.
Author: Rob Reynolds, the Learning Lot, March 29, 2012

The happiest job of all isn’t kindergarten teacher or dentist. It’s software quality assurance engineer. ... Tied for the second most blissful job is executive chef and property manager"
Author: Jacqueline Smith, Forbest, March 23, 2012

"Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have shown for the first time how brain function differs in people who have math anxiety from those who don't. ... The [7- to 9-year-old] kids performed addition and subtraction problems while their brains were scanned using fMRI. In the children with high math anxiety, the scans showed heightened activity in the amygdala, the brain's main fear center, and also in a section of the hippocampus, a brain structure that helps form new memories. They also had decreased activity in several brain regions associated with working memory and numerical reasoning. Interestingly, analysis of brain connections showed that, in children with high math anxiety, the increased activity in the fear center was driving the reduced function in numerical information-processing regions of the brain. Further, children with high math anxiety also showed greater connections between the amygdala and emotion-regulating regions of the brain."
Author: Science Daily, March 21, 2012

From "“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” to "“Inconceivable!”
Author: Jennifer Simonson, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

Good article about the many types of writing that are often needed for elearning.
Author: Connie Malamed, the eLearning Coach, undated (probably Nov 3, 2011 based on the comments)

Recommends using mixbook to create digital books -- as a way to introduce teachers to technology.

Slideshare from SXSW.

Kids, Let's Play the Money Game!
New websites and apps help parents teach their children about saving and spending.
* Countmybeanz.com - "Launched in March 2011, this free Denver-based website helps parents teach children three to eight years old how to manage their finances."
* ThreeJars.com - "On this site, children ages five to 13 earn IOUs, which are deposited into save, spend and charity jars. Parents can link their credit cards to the virtual jars, and when a child wants to shop or donate money, he or she sends an online request to the parent."
* Tykoon.com - "On this New York-based website, geared toward eight- to 12-year-olds, children can deposit "virtual currency" and create charts to track their progress toward saving for big-ticket items. Parents can link a credit card to the site, which has partnerships with Network for Good and Amazon.com Inc. that make it easy for kids to give to charities or buy products online, respectively." Mobile app out in March.
* Planet Orange - from ING Direct
* Financial Football - from Visa and practicalmoneyskills.com
Author: Emily Glazer, WSJ, March 12, 2012

Animation tools for kids and elementary & middle-school classrooms. Kerpoof, ABCYa.com, FluxTIme, DigitalFilms.com, GoAnimate, Doink, Xtranormal for 3D animations.

A disaster simulation game from the UN/ISDR

"According to the National Sleep Foundation, American teenagers require about 9-1/4 hours of sleep a night, yet only 8 percent of them are getting it. A recent study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that as much as two-thirds of high school students get less than seven hours of sleep nightly.

"...sleep deprivation in teens has been linked to lower levels of Human Growth Hormone, which is integral to a teenager’s physical growth, brain development, and maturation of their immune system, as well as higher rates of anxiety disorders and depression. A 2010 study in the journal Sleep found that teenagers who go to bed after midnight are 24 percent more likely to suffer from depression and 20 percent more likely to consider harming themselves than those who go to bed before 10:00 p.m."
"The Journal of Pediatrics recently concluded that energy drinks are 'never appropriate for children or adolescents,' citing the harmful 'neurologic and cardiovascular' impact of caffeine on teenagers."

"@TitanicRealTime will chart the Titanic’s epic journey through ‘live’ tweets, broadcasting as though they’re coming directly from those involved. [This] project is the work of The History Press, one of the UK’s largest local and specialist history publishers."

Links to articles on games and gamification
Author: The Upside Learning blog, Feb 1, 2012

While is not the ultimate guide, it provides summaries and YouTube videos on using Twitter in Education.
Author: Jeff Dunn, Eduemic, Sept 12, 2012

"Open Educational Resources (OER) ... are teaching and learning resources that anyone can share, reuse and remix. As part of our ongoing commitment to increasing access to a cost-effective, high-quality education, we’re supporting the OpenCourseWare Consortium — a collaboration of higher education institutions and associated organizations from around the world creating OER — in organizing Open Education Week 2012, which begins today.

An example of OER in action is OpenStax, a recent non-profit initiative of Rice University and Connexions to offer students free, professional quality textbooks that meet scope and sequence requirements for several courses. They believe that these books could save students over $90 million in the next five years. Non-profit isn’t the only model for open education. Flat World Knowledge has built a business around OER by providing free online access to open textbooks, then selling print-on-demand copies and supplemental materials."

"'Education is the world’s largest data industry, by far,' says Jose Ferreira, who knows this because he runs a firm called Knewton that’s building what could become the world’s most valuable repository of the ways people learn." Knewton uses data mining to create adaptive learning.
"Students go at their own pace, and the software continuously adapts to challenge and cajole them to learn based on their individual learning style. As individual students are correlated to the behaviors of thousands of other students, Knewton can make between 5 million and 10 million refinements to its data model every day. Psychometricians use similar principles to build standardized exams, but Knewton harvests way more data than testmakers ever will. Someday it will know what kids will get on the SAT, so they won’t have to take it.

"'Online education,” says [Jose] Ferreira [who runs Knewton, 'is on the cusp of massive change, and only 100 cognoscenti know about it.' A passel of other tech companies, such as Aleks, Grockit, Blackboard, Coursekit and 2tor, are also working to speed up education’s shift online."
Author: Bruce Upbin, Forbes, Feb 22, 2012

"... there are two different ways people respond to challenges. Some people see them as opportunities to perform - to demonstrate their talent or intellect. Others see them as opportunities to master - to improve their skill or knowledge."

"Say you take a person with a performance orientation ("Paul") and a person with a mastery orientation ("Matt"). Give them each an easy puzzle, and they will both do well. ...Now give them each a difficult puzzle. Paul will jump in gamely, but it will soon become clear he cannot overcome it as impressively as he did the last one. The opportunity to show off has disappeared, and Paul will lose interest and give up. Matt, on the other hand, when stymied, will push harder. His early failure means there's still something to be learned here, and he will persevere until he does so and solves the puzzle."

"While a performance orientation improves motivation for easy challenges, it drastically reduces it for difficult ones. And since most work worth doing is difficult, it is the mastery orientation that is correlated with academic and professional success, as well as self-esteem and long-term happiness."
Author: Pixel Poppers, Nov 23, 2009

Author: Michael Michalko, The Creativity Post, Dec 6, 2011

"Both expertise and intelligence matter for creativity, but expertise does a much better job."
Author: Dr. John Baer, The Creativity Post, Mar 2, 2012

“Feelings of self-esteem in particular, and happiness in general, develop as side effects—of mastering challenges, working successfully, overcoming frustration and boredom, and winning." ~ Martin E.P. Seligman, The Optimistic Child (1995)

—Martin E.P. Seligman, The Optimistic Child (1995)

A course for K-12 teachers "Neuroscience & the Classroom: Making Connections". There are a series of videos.

Author: Shelley Terrell, Teacher Reboot Camp, March 3, 2012

"Launched in 2009, YouTube EDU is a collection of more than 500,000 free videos from organizations and institutions such as PBS, Khan Academy and Harvard University. Viewers can take the latest “Are You a Brainiac?” Pop Quiz to test their knowledge of general education topics. After a brief video question, viewers click on one of three answers, which will transfer them to a new screen and video."
Author: Kate Freeman, Mashable, March 3, 2012

"Rhymes are very compelling for young children, and their brains seem to process them even better than they process the meanings of other words. In one 2004 study, researchers read lists of words to young children and then asked them to recall and recite the words they'd heard. The words on the list were all related: A child might hear "nap," "bed," "rest," "peace," "wake," ... for example. When adults take this test, they often inject the word "sleep" into their recitation, despite the fact that it appears nowhere on the original list. ... Young kids responded differently, however. ... 5-year-olds added new words that rhymed with the words on the original list. A kid who heard "nap," for example, might throw in "gap" or "sap." In their brains, the rhyme overrode the meaning." Rhyme is crucial for kids learning to read.
Author: Stephanie Pappas, Mother Nature Network, Mar 02, 2012

"The Faculties provides free, short films of university lecturers speaking on topics directly from the A-level curriculum. The subject sites also help students choose a university department that's right for them and shows them what careers may follow their studies and what employers particularly value in graduates."

We acknowledge that students need independent learning skills that enable them to enter society confident in their abilities to adjust to changing circumstances and equipped with skills to learn and relearn as new needs arise ... yet many of our technology applications keep drawing education back into the model of content delivery."
What if instead we had students learning by curating content?
Lists 4 curation tools: LiveBinder, MuseumBox, Evernote, and Instapaper.
Author: Sam Gliksman, Feb 28, 2012

"So are we saying career planning is waste of time? Yes, much of the time it is, at least as it is typically taught.
"If you want to work in an industry where the industry is fairly predictable — say nursing — then plan away. ... simply figure out where you actually want to be in five years, and work backwards, just like all the career planning manuals tell you."
"But increasingly, the world is not this predictable. And it is in settings of high uncertainty where traditional career planning is both a waste of time and potentially dangerous. A career plan can lead you into a false sense of confidence, where you fail to see opportunities as they arise and miss taking smart steps you otherwise hadn't planned for. You need an alternative. ... Instead of formulating the logically perfect ending job and the optimal path to get there, begin with a direction ,based on a real desire, and complement that with a strategy to discover and create opportunities consistent with that desire."
Author: Leonard A. Schlesinger, Charles F. Kiefer, adn Paul B. Brown, HBR, March 3, 2012

"By pairing personalized learning and technology, a teacher can help students learn what they need to learn through the topics that interest them most. ...Helping students connect course goals to their own passions is a key ingredient of success."
Author: Will Richardson, ASCD, Feb 2012

Author: David "Dock" Dockterman, NBC News, March 2, 2012

Webinar on Games and Gamification for learning
Title : Games, Gamification and the Need for Engaging Learners
Date : 21st March, 2012
Time : 10.00 AM, Kuala Lumpur (Check Time Differences)
Venue : Online (WizIQ)

Recommends diigo.
Author: Learning Technology Learning

Author: Brenda Sugrue, PerformanceXpress October 2002

"Elon University and the Pew Internet and American Life Project released a report about the cognitive future of the millennial generation. Based on surveys with more than 1,000 thought leaders ... The survey found, overall, what many others already have: that neuroplasticity is, indeed, a thing; that multitasking is, indeed, the new norm; that hyperconnectivity may be leading to a lack of patience and concentration; and that an "always on" ethos may be encouraging a culture of expectation and instant gratification."
Author: Megan Garber, The Atlantic, Feb 29, 2012

"Farmers & Merchants Bank (F&M) has partnered with Mater Dei High School as part of an ongoing initiative to educate and inform young people about fiscal responsibility. The partnership will endeavor to equip students with money management skills to prepare them for a lifetime of sound financial decisions. This educational partnership is the first of its kind in Southern California and will be expanded to additional schools throughout 2012." The first-of-its-kind program will include the following components:
* "Money Smarts," an educational student handbook created by F&M to teach students wise money management habits during all stages of life
* In-class educational presentations by F&M professionals
* An ongoing presence at official Mater Dei events
* Outreach to parents to encourage financial education in the home
* An educational website featuring a blog on financial management and resources for Mater Dei students, parents and alumni
* An official Mater Dei alumni debit card, anticipated for late 2012
Author: BusinessWire, Feb 29, 2012

iTunesU, Universer Unit Converter Pro HD (metric to US), Flashcards+, Vocabology (vocabulary lessons), TED, iHomework, No Fear Shakespeare, Dictionary.com Flashcards, Khan Academy: a Classroom in Your Pocket, myHomework

"The biggest [hurdle] is that the textbooks themselves don’t turn out to be cheaper. ... Because of the way iBooks will be linked to specific user accounts, reuse from year-to-year isn’t possible; a freshman algebra textbook purchased in 2012 will need to be repurchased for new incoming freshman in 2013. If you use the standard cost and lifespan estimates for paper textbooks of $75 and five years, the digital versions end up costing the same as the paper editions."
Also, the ipads only last 3-4 years. "Of course, it is important to note that iPad versions come with numerous tangible benefits that can’t be matched by paper books — they’re interactive, they can access the web, they’re better for a student’s health (carrying one iPad instead of multiple heavy books) and they can be kept up-to-date in real time."
Author: Josh Catone, Mashable, Feb 10, 2012

Describes some of the administrative hurdles in using ipads in education. "In order to download new apps, she needed to get the Apple volume purchase program approved as a vendor by the budget group. But who would explain to the budget committee the process of paying with an Apple ID? Who would be responsible for downloading the volume-purchased apps? Could the students use them outside of their hour-long ESL class? The list of logistical issues went on."
Author: Sarah Kessler, Mashable, Jan 19, 2012

Has stats on types of social media usage. Shows how colleges are using social media. Includes 5 top social media colleges Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Notre Dame, Ohio State, and Columbia.
Source: Mashable, Feb 3, 2012

Includes timeline list of key serious games at the bottom.
Author: Knewton Website, undated (probably Feb 22,2012 based on the comments)