21apples

learning in the 21st century

Heath Brothers (of Switch fame) giving our their new e-book for free. Get it now!

We're proud to announce that we've just released a new e-book called The Myth of the Garage and Other Minor Surprises. It's a collection of our favorite columns for Fast Company magazine.

And it's free.

Here's how you can get it:

  1. Get it for the Kindle or  the Nook or the iPad.
  2. For readers outside the U.S. or without ebook readers, download the PDF version of Myth by going to our Resources page and signing in using your email address (the same one this note was sent to).

We'd appreciate it if you'd forward this email to any friends who might be interested - everybody loves to get something for nothing.

Thanks!

-Dan & Chip

I love their book Switch, and can only imagine that this is worth reading. It's certainly worth more than $0.00. Enjoy!

Preventing racist Halloween costumes

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I am thankful for the work of Ohio University's Students Teaching About Racism in Society (STARS) who came up with this poster campaign. It's a small group that has suddenly become a bit of an internet sensation (Colorlines).

They are college students making strong statements about how we can each make healthy choices over hurtful choices for Halloween. While keeping race and ethnicity in mind, it is important to talk to students about provocative costumes, and how objectification of women (in particular) is equally problematic.

How does your school go about getting into a mess with costumes?

Pearson's Free OpenClass LMS for Google Apps

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I have just started toying with OpenClass, a free LMS (learning management system) from Pearson, which is a Google Apps for Education tool. It's quite capable, yet basic at the same time. It reflects a certain structured class setup, without much obvious room for flexibility. There seems to be some social features like the class wall, but it's difficult to assess how collaborative students will be able to be. It seems like Google Docs are well integrated, which could help, but what about discussion boards, wikis, etc?

I think this is a useful free tool to start with, but is likely yet to compete with Moodle, Blackboad, HaikuLMS, and the like.

Apple (and I/you) remembers Steve Jobs

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Apple's front page today is dedicated to Steve Jobs. They also have a site where you can read their statement as well as send your thoughts in.

Mr. Jobs left a legacy on the world that is difficult for me to even wrap my head around. My first computer (my dad's first computer) was a Mac 512k, and without it I don't think I would set off down a path that let me to educational technology which led me into my latest work, helping build a high school and evolving the curriculum of a JK-12 school.

Steve, thank you.

Google serves inappropriate ads for education

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We are using Google Apps for Education at my school. Here's the ad I was just confronted with when I logged in to my e-mail. This after we have opted out of ads. You are unable (to my knowledge) to opt out of web clips.

It is frustrating that we don't have better control of this.

update: it seems that each user can turn off web clip under mail settings - web clips. I don't imagine that most would ever make it that far.
Posterous theme by Cory Watilo
  
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