In February 2007 I began to introduced Google Apps Education Edition. Until July 2009 it became the Primary method of communication in school. This blog is designed to give a fair reflection on the assets and pitfalls to the use of this system in a Primary School setting.

Well, I’ve finally moved all of my classes completely over to Google this semester.  I now have a teacher website that was created using Google Sites.  Within this site, I have set up each of my classes with a Google Group for current events discussions and a Google Calendar to record homework, etc. So far, the students have embraced this change to a “paperless” classroom with great enthusiasm.  For me, however, it is still not enough.  I envision a classroom whereby the students engage in meaningful learning using technology on a daily basis.

Email has had a good run as king of communications. But its reign is over.

In its place, a new generation of services is starting to take hold—services like Twitter and Facebook and countless others vying for a piece of the new world. And just as email did more than a decade ago, this shift promises to profoundly rewrite the way we communicate—in ways we can only begin to imagine.

We all still use email, of course. But email was better suited to the way we used to use the Internet—logging off and on, checking our messages in bursts. Now, we are always connected, whether we are sitting at a desk or on a mobile phone. The always-on connection, in turn, has created a host of new ways to communicate that are much faster than email, and more fun.

More than ever, the internet has enabled us to work in global and distributed teams. Whether as part of our jobs, voluntary ventures, or joint blogs, working with people around the world has become part of life for many of us. Sometimes, it is so easy that we don’t even know where the people we’re working with are located. Shared, collaborative Google Maps can help solve that issue and improve the perception of proximity by creating a visualization of all the team members’ location.

For a great example of Google Maps in action, visit the MakeUseOf Team Members map. In this particular shared, collaborative Google map, you’ll find details about the whole team, along with the location of each of us. It is the first time the map is publicly revealed – so feel free to visit it and get to know the MakeUseOf team better.

These are special premium accounts provided specifically to K-12 & higher-ed educators. Once your Diigo Educator application is approved, your account will be upgraded to have these additional features:

• You can create student accounts for an entire class with just a few clicks (and student email addresses are optional for account creation)
• Students of the same class are automatically set up as a Diigo group so they can start using all the benefits that a Diigo group provides, such as group bookmarks and annotations, and group forums.
• Privacy settings of student accounts are pre-set so that only teachers and classmates can communicate with them.
• Ads presented to student account users are limited to education-related sponsors.

A study from mobile analytics start-up Flurry shows that despite the 2 billion downloads racked up by the App Store since its launch, iPhone apps have a relatively short shelf life.

The research shows that 67 per cent of apps are used more than 30 days after they are downloaded, 32 per cent are activated more than 60 days after they are downloaded and just 25 per cent of apps are used more than 90 days after they are first downloaded.

Unsurprisingly, news-based apps have the highest retention rate (43 per cent) over a 90-day period due to the fact that they are constantly updated with information, providing almost infinite value to the user.

At the other end of the scale, entertainment-based apps, such as the iFart, IQ Test and iPhone Lighter, have the lowest retention rate (12 per cent) with few consumers using them more than a handful of times over a 90-day period.

It is unclear which apps Flurry is tracking and whether or not they provide an accurate picture of the wider mobile app industry. However, the research could force brands to think twice about investing in apps for brand-building purposes.

Click here for the full research

In the two years since it appeared the iPhone has transformed the mobile phone industry and now its effect is being felt in the media world. But it is not the device's successful introduction of the touchscreen into daily life, nor its stylish looks that have the media world in a spin. It is the fact that iPhone users are personalising their phones with applications – 2bn so far – and amid all the downloadable games, maps, pint-glass emulators and fart generators, some of the "apps" that are proving particularly popular are news.

Crucially, in a world where commercial media organisations are desperate to wring a return from the millions of pounds they have poured into digital content, a sizeable chunk of iPhone users are proving willing to pay for news apps.

When Tom Barrett, a 4th grade teacher in Nottinghamshire, England, wanted to spice up a math lesson on probability, he didn’t turn to his department colleagues or a professional organization. Instead, he looked to the micro-blogging tool Twitter. Before class, he sent out a message to his followers on Twitter, asking them to report the chance of snow that day in their area. Barrett received answers from more than 20 people by the time the lesson started, with more rolling in during class.

The responses came from Australia, Scotland, Korea, the U.S., and elsewhere, providing a variety of probability data to work with. As a bonus, many of the responses used regional phrases (such as “buckley’s mate” from an Australian, meaning “no chance”) that Barrett employed as an opening to talk to his students about vocabulary and geography.

An Apple iPhone or iPod touch will become a central part of Abilene Christian University's innovative learning experience this fall when all freshmen are provided one of these converged media devices, said Phil Schubert, ACU executive vice president.

At ACU - the first university in the nation to provide these cutting-edge media devices to its incoming class - freshmen will use an iPhone or iPod touch to receive homework alerts, answer in-class surveys and quizzes, get directions to their professors' offices, and check their meal and account balances - among more than 15 other useful web applications already developed, said ACU Chief Information Officer Kevin Roberts. ACU's vision for technology has been captured in a forward-looking film called 'Connected,' found online - along with information about ACU's other ground-breaking mobile learning
efforts - at www.acu.edu/connected.