With spring in the air, students typically clamor to get outside—and teachers would often like to follow. April is an ideal time of year to explore outdoor learning opportunities, and these apps and sites can lead the way. READ MORE: Apps for Outdoor Learning | Cool Tools | The Digital Shift.
I would also recommend the Encyclopedia of Life’s Tools & Resources page for more tools to enhance outdoor educational activities.
A new iOS app called FireChat is blowing up in the App Store. But it’s not the app itself that’s causing such a stir, it’s the underlying networking technology it taps into.
The idea behind FireChat is simple. It’s a chatting app. After registering with a name — no email address or other personal identifiers required — you’re dropped into a fast-moving chatroom of “Everyone” using it in your country. The interesting aspect, however, is the “Nearby” option. Here, the app uses Apple’s Multipeer Connectivity framework, essentially a peer-to-peer feature that lets you share messages (and soon photos) with other app users nearby, regardless of whether you have an actual Wi-Fi or cellular connection.
Read More: This Little-Known iOS Feature Will Change the Way We Connect | Gadget Lab | Wired.com.
Education & Technology
Librarianship
Are Digital Libraries A ‘Winner-Takes-All’ Market? OverDrive Hopes So | Forbes
“Schools and libraries in all forms are transitioning their spends from providing physical items that are being stored on shelves and branches to digital items — the fastest portion of their growth,” said Steve Potash in a recent interview. Potash is President and CEO of OverDrive, the Cleveland-based provider of technology for managing and distributing digital content for lending libraries.
Gross: Fifty Shades of Grey goes viral – literally | theguardian
Library copies of the bestselling sadomasochistic romance were found to carry traces of herpes and cocaine.
Google is making it more convenient for schools around the country to integrate tablets and educational apps into the classroom.
The search giant on Wednesday officially launched tablets running Google Play for Education, a version of the Google Play app store specifically designed for K-12 schools in the U.S.
Read: Classrooms Go High-Tech With Google Play for Education | News & Opinion | PCMag.com.
Education & Technology
The LA Times Trolls Innocent Teachers | TechCrunch
The once-respectable LA Times is leveraging its dwindling platform to attack individual teachers under the guise of data transparency. The editorial board won a court case allowing them to use a highly contentious, self-designed algorithm to rank the best and worst teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Neither the suicide of one of the shamed teachers, nor the widespread criticism of the statistical methods have aroused the editorial board’s better judgment.
Google Earth Tour Builder lets you tell stories through maps | Engadget
Google has used Earth and Maps to tell tales of unfolding tragedies and soldiers fighting for our country. Now its opening up those tools to the public, allowing users to build what they’re calling “Tours” through Google Earth. Tour Builder was released in honor of Veterans Day and it allows users to create narratives tied to points on a map. More Google news: Google Quick Actions Let Users Act on Emails Without Opening Them | Mashable, Your Face and Name Will Appear in Google Ads Starting Today | Gizmodo and Apple maps: how Google lost when everyone thought it had won | theguardian
Librarianship
Read: The Beginner’s Guide to SoundCloud | Mashable
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How many books did you read last year? If your answer is more than one, congratulations: you’re more well-read than about 25% of Americans over age 16, according to a 2012 Pew Internet survey.
Ironically, as we become more surrounded by words in the digital age, less of us are finding time to actually read them. The good news is that your smartphone or tablet can help.
Trying to stray from the obvious reading apps, like e-readers, we’ve gathered eight excellent apps that’ll help you improve your reading ability and become a better literary citizen, while simultaneously boosting your brain function.
Whether you’d like to read more, faster or some combination of the two, these apps will light your path to wisdom.
Includes overviews of the following apps:
infophile 