For a look at some of the announcements that came out of ISTE 2011, read my weekly roundup of news over at MindShift. Here's the rest of what happened in the ed-tech world this week:
One of the best resources out there for educators, Edutecher launched an iPad and an Android app this week. (And even though I said this was the ISTE-free edition, a big congrats to Adam Bellow for winning the ISTE Young Educator Award this year.)
The annual hacking conference DEFCon is holding DEFCon for Kids this year. DEFCon will take place in August in Las Vegas, but you need to sign up by July 7 to get your kids (age 8 through 16) registered.
And speaking of kid hackers, THATCamp for Juniors will take place July 8 and 9 in Atlanta. Start 'em early hacking the digital humanities.
Cengage Learning has signed a deal with National Geographic to acquire its school publishing unit. The deal includes the NatGeo Science series, elementary science curriculum, Explorer! Magazines, and Hampton Brown's literacy and language programs.
In a follow-up to my post yesterday, the LMS Blackboard has been acquired by Providence Equity Partners.
According to research by Pew, e-reader ownership has doubled in the past six months, outpacing the adoption of tablets.
The Supreme Court overturned California's law banning the sale of violent video games to children. The Court said that video games are protected by the first amendment and the government cannot restrict access to games -- even graphically violent games.
Early education electronics company LeapFrog has unveiled a tablet for kids. The LeapPad Explorer Learning Tablet is a $100 tablet PC encased in kid-proof plastic. It boasts a 5-inch display, a still camera and a video camera, a mic, and 2GB of memory.
Techcrunch reports that the team behind the new LMS Coursekit have raised some investment and are quitting school to focus on building their education company.
The Rhode Island legislature has just passed HB 5941, which issues a blanket ban on the use of social media on school grounds.
A Pennsylvania school district is petitioning the Supreme Court to review a recent decision that protected students' free speech online. The school district claims that it should have the power to discipline students for things posted on social media sites (even when posted from off-campus). A lower court disagreed, and now the school district wants the Supreme Court to weigh in.
Google released Swiffy this week, a Labs program that will convert (some) Flash files to HTML5.
The big tech news of the week, no doubt, is the release of Google+. I'm working on a story on how this might impact education. I'd love to hear teachers' thoughts, particularly those who've struggled to get colleagues onto Twitter. Are we going to have to reinvent the social network wheel for our PLNs?