Users of iTunes U now have a lot more elementary education material to choose from—a new initiative launched by several state education agencies, along with the State Education Technology Directors Association (SETDA) will create a home for K-12 educational content within iTunes U.

The initiative, which launched July 1, brings the creation of a K-12 destination to iTunes U with a broad range of content from a number of state and district agencies—including Arizona, Florida, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Utah—as well as museums and other educational institutions.

T.H.E. Journal reports that according to SETDA, the idea of the initiative is not only to bring state and district resources to K-12 educators within their own states, but to provide nationwide and global access to educational content, curricula, learning materials, news, best practices, and other resources.

“This comprehensive collection of quality digital content offers teachers and students a single location to access resources on topics from Florida history to the Navajo language to nano technologies,” said Mary Ann Wolf, executive director of SETDA, in a statement released Tuesday at the NECC 2008 conference in Texas, where the initiative was unveiled. “Teachers can now access these resources in real-time to support teaching and learning. The new K-12 resources on iTunes U address the critical need to engage students through technology-based resources in the core curriculum areas.”

For more, be sure to check out T.H.E. Journal’s full article.

Over the long weekend, Apple posted a handy support document that explains how to replace your original iPhone with a new 3G iPhone. Basically there are two tracks:

1). In the US you don’t need your original SIM as your original “account information will be transferred to iPhone 3G’s included SIM when you purchase iPhone 3G.”

2). Outside the US, “you can use your original iPhone’s SIM with iPhone 3G.”

Once your transfer is complete, all you have to do is back up your original iPhone to iTunes 7.7 and then restore that backup to the new iPhone 3G. This should transfer all your saved SMS messages as well as email accounts, notes, etc. Once that’s done, you should probably erase the old iPhone with the new secure erase option.

Yesterday, the Google Talk team released a new web client that doesn’t rely on Flash, making it possible to chat with your GTalk contacts via your iPhone.

As you can see, the iPhone-optimized GTalk client’s interface is clean and simple. It allows you to set your status at the top and automatically sets to away if you close the Mobile Safari window. It also offers a scrollable list of contacts. At the top of the chat window is a drop down that will list any other open chats and let you switch among them.

Ars Technica reports that a significant problem with the app seems to stem from the client’s use of some sort of JavaScript or other method that keeps the browser constantly loading. Whatever mechanism is being used, running the GTalk web client seems to run down the iPhone’s battery much faster than expected based on some informal testing in Ars Orbiting HQ. Even with iPhone 3G’s improved battery life, that could still be a deal-killer for heavy users.

Still, it’s a step in the right direction. With Jabber transports, its possible to chat with users of other protocols as well, so it could be a one-stop solution. This feature might also make it a handy tool for chatting with students and colleagues, who likely utilize a number of different chat clients.

With only nine more days until the iPhone 3G hits the market, Apple is feeding the frenzy with a brand new guided tour video of the iPhone 3G. The video covers every aspect of the new device, from its “simple, sculpted design” to the new App Store and more. If you’re still undecided about getting an iPhone 3G—and somehow aren’t familiar with how it works—the guided tour is a good way to get a feel for the iPhone in action.

The folks at Ars Technica suggest that the most interesting aspect of the guided tour is the App Store demo. Once you choose to download an app, the icon will show up on the Springboard with a progress bar, showing how much of the app is yet to download. If you’re stuck without a 3G or WiFi connection, the App Store will also be accessible via iTunes, and applications can be downloaded to the iPhone during a regular sync operation.

If the three streaming options aren’t satisfactory, or your don’t have “about 30 minutes” of free time, you can download both an iPod or “Large” version of the video for later viewing (or archiving). If that still isn’t convenient enough, Apple also has a 12-minute video that just highlights the new or updated features of iPhone 3G.

Enjoy.

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.

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, 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.

As you may already know, the imminent iPhone 2.0 software is set to provide more document viewing capabilities, including readers for PowerPoint, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers. However, while these readers will certainly be handy, Apple still has not announced any plans to provide a way to edit docs on the run—a capability especially important to those of us interested in mobile learning.

Today, our friends at TUAW report that at WWDC ’08 Mariner Software announced their plans to mitigate part of this editing dilemma with the release of Mariner Calc for the iPhone, the popular Excel-compatible spreadsheet for the Mac, which will provide iPhone users with the ability to view and edit Excel files in their native file format. According to company president, Mike Wray, Mariner Calc for iPhone will support multiple sheets per document, charts and objects. In addition, the app boasts a maximum of 1,000,000 rows and 32,000 columns.

TUAW asserts that Mariner Calc for iPhone is about 80% of the way to completion and is expected to ship about the time the virtual doors open on the App Store. No price has been set for Mariner Calc for iPhone, but expect this little spreadsheet to be a popular purchase from the App Store.