Today, The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) released the long-anticipated update to its National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) framework.

As our friends at T.H.E. Journal report, the original —released in 2000—focused primarily on the transition from static learning content to electronic, interactive tools for the enhancement of teaching and learning. While it did emphasize collaboration to a certain degree, the role of teachers themselves remained largely transmitter/facilitator of textual materials, albeit electronic ones, and the primary emphasis of the framework was on technology knowledge and skills–something that seems fairly remedial by today’s standards.

However, NETS-T 2nd ed., which launched this week at the NECC 2008 conference, takes an entirely different approach, casting teachers into the role of facilitator, collaborator, and, significantly, “co-learner,” rather transmitters of information.

An introductory note to the revised document reads, “Now and in the future, effective teachers of digital-age learners will be challenged to move away from models of teaching and learning as isolated endeavors. As they model work and learning that reflects inventive thinking and creativity, teachers must become comfortable as co-learners with their students and with colleagues around the world. Today it is less about staying ahead and more about moving ahead as members of dynamic learning communities. The Digital Age teaching professional must demonstrate a vision of technology infusion and develop the technology skills of others. These are the hallmarks of the new education leader.”

Be sure to check out the revised NETS-T for yourself.

According to TUAW, the iPhone App Store is open and ready for business, but only if you’re a developer.

TUAW claims that Apple has opened the App Store to allow registered developers to prepare the final versions of their apps for distribution. As we all know, Apple has the ultimate say concerning the apps that will acutally appear in the App Store when it launches in early July. TUAW’s anonymous source speculates that larger app developers could get preferential treatment in obtaining expedited approval.

The source also mentioned that developers will be able to select prices for their apps, as long as the price ends in 99 cents. So, for example, prices of $0.99, $1.99, and $99.99 are all acceptable. “Free” is also an option, as expected.

In related news, developers will be using iTunes Connect, familiar to bands and artists who sell their music through the iTunes Store, to monitor the financial performance of their apps. Additionally, Apple will withhold any payments until the developer’s share of the sales reaches $250, or its regional currency equivalent. TUAW asserts that it is unclear what increments Apple will pay after that threshold is reached.

Developers can find out more information about submitting their apps from the “Program Portal” on Apple’s secure developer website.

Information access software provider ClassLink recently announced a partnership with HP focusing on the utilization of both thin-client and virtualization solutions for education. ClassLink provides unlimited—anytime, anywhere—access to instructional software and files for students and teachers.

“Our interests are aligned,” said ClassLink CEO Berj Akian, in a prepared statement. “ClassLink provides a unique, award winning technology solution for delivering educational software 24/7 using application servers and virtualization. HP, with its continuing dedication to thin clients, blade servers, virtualization, UMPC’s, etc., makes this partnership a great fit for the education market. Together we can help students and teachers access their instructional software on a platform that’s affordable, reliable and available 24/7.”

According to our friends at T.H.E. Journal, the benefits of these technologies include cost-effective computing, increased reliability, and application stability. ClassLink and HP will showcase their “vision for the future of instructional technology” in San Antonio, TX, next week at the 29th annual National Educational Computing Conference.

Sun Mircosystems recently publish a handy collection of white papers intended to underscore the importance of industry standards in developing a network-computing model for education. Sun asserts that open architectures are crucial to the world’s education marketplace and envisions a network-computing model for education in which teachers, administrators, students and communities will have unlimited access to the tools that enable them to access information, web learning, peers, parent-teacher communities, and greater learning opportunities.

Click here to download a PDF of Sun’s Open Standards in E-Learning white papers.

As you may have noticed, Apple’s iTunesU now includes an area called “Beyond Campus,” which features a wide range of audio and video materials from sources not necessarily tied to colleges and universities, such as American Public Media, The New York Public Library, PBS, 92nd Street Y, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Science Digital Library, the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Smithsonian Global Sound. Like all of iTunes U, Beyond Campus is free, easy to use, and accessible via any Mac or PC.

Today our friends at Open Culture posted an article highlighting Beyond Campus’ ResearchChannel. Housed at the University of Washington, the ResearchChannel brings together content from leading research and academic institutions and then distributes it to consumers mostly through satellite and cable but also via the web—iTunesU and YouTube.

The ResearchChannel may prove to be quite a handy resource for supplemental teaching and learning material, offering insightful programs such as “Dark Energy, or Worse: Was Einstein Wrong?”; “Bioenergy and Biofuels: An Overview”; “The Psychology of Blink: Understanding How the Mind Works Unconsciously”; “The Teen Brain” and “Mesopotamia to Iraq: Perspectives on the Middle East.”

If you’re interested in reading more about The ResearchChannel, be sure to check out oculture’s full article.

At a recent Citrix Application Delivery Conference in Melbourne last week, Citrix used its thin client desktop software, XenDestop, to demonstrate an iPhone running Windows XP. Using the Citrix ICA client — a UNIX application that allows devices to access Windows sessions on a Citrix server — the presenter was able to run Windows on the iPhone via Wi-Fi.

Of course, we’ve seen a jail broken iPhone with the capabilities to VPN into a windows running machine, but now Citrix appears to be offering a program that will allow you to do this without unlocking your iPhone.

There is no specific release on the option; it is still being tested and demoed on the phone. The good news is that this option will be relatively inexpensive compared to the corporate versions offered by Citrix in the past.

For more on Citrix’s iPhone option, check out ZDnet’s coverage of the conference in Melbourne.

The University of Cincinnati and Apple are hosting Vision 2020 the first week of August. The theme for the event is “Digital Ubiquity & University Transformation”. The conference will provide the opportunity for administrators and faculty from around the country to share ideas and best practices concerning digital ubiquity in higher education. Conference organizers suggest that this is the conference for anyone interested in integrating notebooks, iPhones or iPod touch devices into their campus environment.

Featured speakers include former Maine Governor Angus King, the University of Cincinnati President Nancy Zimpher, dean and CIO leadership panels, NMC CEO Larry Johnson and KnowledgeWorks CEO Chad Wick—who will address “Emerging Technology Trends: Shaping the Future of HIgher Education”— along with over 25 other college and university presentations. Institutions are encouraged to bring teams of 3 or more; teams receive a substantial discount if they register before July 11.

For information on the conference, speakers and registration, visit the web site at http://daap.uc.edu/vision2020/

Yesterday, iPhone Atlas posted an interesting article about the possibility of discounted corporate and business voice and data rate plans for the iPhone 3G. And, of course, any discussion of group plans for the iPhone is particularly appealing to those of us seeking to utilize the device on our campuses.

As you may know, AT&T generally offers special employee discounts for corporate rate plans, including reduced device pricing, reduced plan pricing, and free trials. Some business plans are subject to specific calling plans, calling features, phones or accessories. Companies have the option of sharing these discounts with their employees through a sponsorship program. Employees are occasionally able to get substantial discounts through these programs; discounts of between 15% and 25% are available on devices, services, etc. Some devices may even be free with a minimum two year contract and other incentives.

However—as iPhone Atlas suggests—whether or not such discounts apply to the iPhone is still unclear. According to AT&T spokesman, Mark A. Siegel, who spoke with iPhone Atlas earlier this week, business discounts are handled on a case-by-case basis per the agreement between AT&T and your business. Currently, there is no definitive answer as to whether or not the iPhone will be eligible for this program. Siegel indicated that as the July 11th launch date draws near, both this issue and other matters related to the AT&T plan pricing will likely become more clear.

Of course, the first version of the iPhone was not eligible because of the agreement with Apple regarding revenue sharing, etc. However, iPhone Atlas suggests that now that the iPhone is being sold in a subsidized fashion like other phones, the doors may be more open.

Today, Ruth Reynard posted another interesting article for T.H.E Journal in which she discusses ways to “move beyond the obvious” in the educational usage of podcasts. Reynard asks: “Can more be achieved with podcasting in the context of student authorship and academic collaboration that would heighten student engagement and maximize knowledge building in instructional contexts?”

In response to her own question, Reynard begins by asserting that student engagement through authoring is an area in which podcasts can serve a tremendous educational purpose. She suggests that with the mobility and compact nature of podcast technology, capturing and publishing student voice becomes even more powerful for students as a publicly accessible and multidimensional representation of that voice. The public nature is accentuated through the mobility in that student voice can now be heard by multiple users and within multiple contexts and it can both present a multimedia publication and receive multimedia and multi-user input.

Reynard goes on to state that podcasting is also a powerful way to build knowledge through collaboration; it can provide a great way both to represent and to modify new ideas. She writes: “through individual or group authorship, ideas can be represented symbolically or realistically through the use of various media and published in a public space. Once the idea or ideas are made public they are not owned but can be modified by others through a process of collaboration.”

If you’re interested in working podcasts into your instructional repertoire, be sure to check out Reynard’s full article in T.H.E. Journal.

Yesterday, 280 North launched the public beta of their first application, 280 Slides, which lets you create presentations quickly and easily right in your desktop browser. Our friends at TUAW suggest that “280 North turns making beautiful, web-based presentations into quick work.”

The application is built on a platform called Cappuccino, using a library called Objective-J (named for its similarities to Objective-C), which provides a highly useful layer of functionality to standard javascript. According to 280 North, Objective-J provides a web development platform that is more “Cocoa-like” by removing a lot of the lower-level variables that are the bane of most web developers.

TUAW reports that 2 of the three members of 280 North are former Apple employees, working on the iPhone and iTunes, respectively. They state that 280 Slides isn’t so much “Apple-inspired” as it is “good-inspired,” but the Keynote resemblance is hard to deny, especially in comparison to other, less-polished web-based presentation apps.

Be sure to click over to TUAW for a video interview with 280 North and learn more about Objective J in this interview with with Ajaxian.