Hack Education

If you aren't an educator or you don't have kids, you might not know about Flat Stanley. So some background: Flat Stanley is the titular character in a series of books written by Jeff Brown. Stanley was given a massive bulletin board by his father in order for he and...

Last week, a study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that cellphones have become near ubiquitous: 83% of American adults own one. Over half of all adult mobile phone owners had used their phones at least once to get information they needed right away. And more than...

Apologies for being a day late on the weekly news roundup. I turned 40 yesterday, and I'm using my birthday as the excuse for the paucity of posts. I share a birthday with several awesome folks in the tech world, including investor Fred Wilson. He turned 50 yesterday -- happy...

eSchool News' Dennis Pierce penned a post this week about social search, expressing concern about the ways in which search algorithms will impact learners. His article draws heavily on the work of Eli Pariser, author of The Filter Bubble. The problem, according to Pariser, Pierce, and others, is that what...

Last week, I broke the news that Google plans to shut down Android App Inventor, its DIY tool for building mobile phone apps. Google did indicate that it will open source the code for App Inventor and said that due to App Inventor's adoption by educators, that it was looking...

How reliant are you on Flash-based websites? Have the debates and discussions about its future made you reconsider using Flash-based content with students? Reports of Flash's death: greatly exaggerated? Since the release of the first iPhone, Apple's move into mobile has not supported Flash. Some people have argued that Apple...

We all know how it works in the animal kingdom: when you watch two leopard cubs play, for example, you expect that it's not simply about fun and pleasure. It's about honing skills; it's about figuring out hierarchy. And yet, with humans, we often forget that play is serious. We...

Google announced last month that it would be shuttering Google Labs but wouldn't reveal at the time which of the experimental projects incubated there would become full-fledged Google products and which would get the ax. Unfortunately, it looks like Android App Inventor won't be one of the projects to leave...

Please see my previous posts about what I mean when I speak of innovation and e-books. With that in mind -- and with an open mind, I promise -- here are some of my favorite "innovative" (or okay, at least interesting) e-book apps. In no particular order... 1. Inkling: Inkling...

When it abandoned its plans to build a student-focused tablet earlier this year, Kno said it was pivoting from hardware to software in order to focus on digital textbooks. The first version of the Kno iPad app was released at the beginning of the summer, and while it boasted an...