Allison Kipta

"Gov. Jon Corzine has signed a measure that gives high school administrators in New Jersey access to adult students' criminal histories. The bill requires that principals be made aware when any high school student 18 or older is charged with certain criminal offenses. And if a student 18 or older transfers, the old school must share criminal records with the new school." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"The Class of 2013 stormed onto campus this year in heftier numbers, armed, reportedly, with heftier wallets and loaded with the latest trappings of technology, according to findings released today from Alloy Media + Marketing's 9th annual College Explorer, powered by Harris Interactive(R). The College Explorer survey reports that projected annual technology spending among college students (ages 18-30) has reached an all time high at $6.5 billion. These high-tech students are also racking up major media time, with the survey revealing that students are spending a significant and notable portion of their day immersed with their must-have "tech" gadgets. The largest class in history, with 13.8 million college students (ages 18-30) on campus this year, this growing and influential group is responsible for a record $250 billion in projected spending power -- up nearly 6% over 2008 figures. Projected discretionary spending shows a comparable gain, with these college students reporting peak figures at $56 billion. In just four short years, these numbers mark a substantial 37% hike in spending." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"Not long ago Second Life was everywhere, with businesses opening branches and bands playing gigs in this virtual world. Today you'd be forgiven for asking if it's still going." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"You probably remember Google’s Lively. It was around for about a year and then Google shelved it. But did you know that they have been working on a browser-based 3D plugin for a while? It’s called O3D and was posted here last April. Now there are always things being worked on that never quite make it into day-to-day living, but today’s post on Chrome OS puts the virtual web-in-a-browser a bit closer to a reality." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"Join the world's first and largest social networking site dedicated to education and educational technology. Launched in 2004 and with over 20,000 members there is something in here for everyone interested in education." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"As preparation for a workshop I am giving this fall I thought it would be interesting to collect together all the diagrams of PLEs I could find, as a compare and contrast sort of exercise. If you have others, I'd love to know about them. You can log in with the guest account (edtechpost_guest, same password) or email them to me at edtechpost@gmail.com." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"The exercise to collect as many PLE diagrams as I could was not an end in itself, as interesting as that might have been. In doing that, I was hoping to learn from how people conceived of their PLEs and use this as the basis for an attempt to illustrate my own PLE." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"A series of majestic emerald arcs light up one of Britain's most iconic landmarks in this stunning photograph taken with one of the longest-ever exposures." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"As the University of California struggles to absorb its sharpest drop in state financing since the Great Depression, every professor, administrator and clerical worker has been put on furlough amounting to an average pay cut of 8 percent. In chemistry laboratories that have produced Nobel Prize-winning research, wastebaskets are stuffed to the brim on the new reduced cleaning schedule. Many students are frozen out of required classes as course sections are trimmed. And on Thursday, to top it all off, the Board of Regents voted to increase undergraduate fees — the equivalent of tuition — by 32 percent next fall, to more than $10,000. The university will cost about three times as much as it did a decade ago, and what was once an educational bargain will be one of the nation’s higher-priced public universities." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"The birth of Wikipedia, the death of Napster, the iPhone, Facebook, and Twitter were named by the Webby Awards on Wednesday as among the top 10 internet moments of the decade." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"The house of grammar has many rooms, and some of them are haunted. Despite the best efforts of grammatical exorcists, the ghosts of dead rules and the spirits of imaginary taboos are still rattling and thumping about the old place." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"Those usages people keep telling you are wrong but which are actually standard in English." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"Organizer Martha Brockenbrough, who writes about grammar and language for Encarta, has fun suggestions for National Grammar Day, including holding a good-grammar potluck at your office or school and mixing drinks she calls grammartinis. She also suggests correcting other people's grammar, but I hope that instead of marching into grocery stores and scratching out misplaced apostrophes, people will spread the word about the language myths that well-meaning people argue about every day in offices around the world." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"We've selected the sites on this list because on the whole, we think they're pretty good. But "rules" in writing -- unlike, say, rules in Newtonian physics -- are not written in stone. They are established by agreement among experienced writers, even though experienced writers can and do disagree all the time. You'll find, then, that grammar books and sites can offer conflicting advice. Sometimes a source's advice may even conflict with your professor's or boss's favorite grammatical beliefs. But although we cannot endorse any single source, on-line or off, as the last word on words, the sites we've chosen here do offer solid grammatical advice -- and some of them manage to be pretty amusing as well. So surf away, but arm yourself first with your native skepticism and common sense." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet

"PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. It has turned into a massive celebration, with events happening in hundreds of cities around the world, inspiring creatives worldwide. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of "chit chat", it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It's a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace." - Allison Kipta from Bookmarklet