According to SmartBrief on Ed Tech, Amazon unveiled Whispercast, a service that lets schools manage a fleet of Kindle tablets and e-readers from one website. The service is part of the company’s push to get the Kindle into more classrooms. It allows educators set up and monitor students’ user accounts and limit what students can do with the device, the company said. San Jose Mercury News (Calif.)/Reuters (free registration) (10/17)
Hmmmmm….am wondering how public and academic libraries will fit into this scheme. Let us know in comments if you know or have thoughts….
There is a new hoax making its way around Facebook, and there is a good chance you have already seen it. The post implores Facebook users to repost it by midnight to avoid Facebook’s new monthly charge. According to the post, Facebook has implemented a new, three-tier pricing structure that will go into effect tomorrow (the date is not relevant, it says tomorrow no matter when it’s posted). The proposed prices range from $9.99 a month for gold to $3.99 a month for bronze. The post makes no mention of what features users supposedly get for these tiers.
Zite is a free personalized magazine for your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch that automatically learns what you like and gets smarter every time you use it. Zite delivers all the great news, articles, blogs, and videos you want – and helps you discover new things that you’ll love. Requires iOS 4.0 or later. Selected by Apple as the #1 News App in 2011.
At the Friday luncheon at last week’s MEMO Conference, our own Paul Beckermann, school library media specialist at Dassel-Cokato High School, received the prestigious Media Specialist of the Year award. Paul has also served on the CMLE Governing Board for a total of six years, and as President for the past four years.
Paul has many strengths and accomplishments, most of which might not be evident under his quiet humility. Due to this humility, it was only after I reviewed his many accomplishments that I fully understood what a huge contribution Paul has made to the field. Paul is quite simply outstanding, a master of his craft as teacher/media specialist/tech integrationist. He is worthy and deserving of this prestigious award and we know this will not be the end of Paul’s greatness! We are lucky to have professionals like Paul in our 12-county Central Minnesota region. Well done Paul!
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