21st-century learning

The Technology Committee at Minnesota's North Branch Area Public Schools has been named the 2012 TIES Technology Leadership Team award winner. The committee was chosen for the prestigious award for its leadership in bringing technology to the classroom, efforts in building community around technology in the classroom within the school district and the community, and the wide variety of technologies and practices it encourages in the school district.

Vin Riera, CEO of Bloomington-based education-software firm Plato Learning will announce Thursday that the company is changing its name to "Edmentum" to reflect its growing "online-learning solutions" focused on 21st-century classrooms.

Super Duper Publications has added three educational Fun Deck mobile apps for Apple devices — Listening for Absurdities, What Does Miss Bee See, and What Doesn’t Belong — to its growing number of titles available in the iTunes App Store.

Learning a new language is tedious and demands a lot of practice. Luis von Ahn doesn’t want all that effort to be wasted. In fact, it might be a gold mine. Von Ahn, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, is the co-creator of Duolingo, a free language-­learning site that turns students into an online workforce. His software uses their answers to simple exercises in a translation service that he expects to charge money for.

Brush of Truth, a book app for kids 8-12, was rated five stars by review site Technology in Education for engaging young readers. Created by Story Bayou, the $1.99 app will go on sale for 99 cents on Dec. 7 on iTunes for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Brush of Truth, recognized for its appeal to reluctant readers, also is available on Google Play for Android devices, and for Kindle Fire and Windows 7 devices.