Useful links

“Looking up stuff” (CC BY-NC 2.0) by shareski

Buzzing about Hexagons | Pete Sanderson’s @LessonToolbox Blog “The post describes a number of ways in which hexagons have been used to support learning in the classroom.”

The @DavidGeurin Blog: Adaptable Learners Will Own the Future “We must develop skills that are transferable to unknown situations. To quote Alvin Toffler, the ultimate 21st Century skill is the ability to “learn, unlearn, and relearn.” It is a tremendous advantage to be creative, innovative, and adaptable.”

5 Great eBook Libraries for Kids ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning “The list here offers some options for some popular eBook libraries where parents and teachers can access a wide variety of reading materials designed specifically for young readers. From storybooks to comics and interactive games, these websites will absolutely help you curate the best reading materials for younger readers. “

63 Things Every Student Should Know In A Digital World Many of the things listed here have always been advisable but also apply to the digital world. It is also more apparent in the online spaces when students do not understand the fundamentals of being in that world.

Beautiful questions… and a whole school unit of inquiry – What Ed Said “A beautiful question is an ambitious yet actionable question that can begin to shift the way we perceive or think about something—and that might serve as a catalyst to bring about change.’ Warren Berger ~ A More Beautiful Question. This generally starts with a ‘why?‘ question which identifies the need for change, followed by ‘what if?‘ which imagines new possibilities, and moving onto the ‘how?‘ which leads to action.”

Seven Ways to Cultivate Joy and Empathy in Math Class | Greater Good “One educator shares tales of teaching life lessons to her students, alongside integrals and exponential.”

This Analysis Shows How Fake Election News Stories Outperformed Real News On Facebook – BuzzFeed News Interesting discussion about the growth of “fake news” in today’s world. “In the final three months of the US presidential campaign, the top-performing fake election news stories on Facebook generated more engagement than the top stories from major news outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, NBC News, and others, a BuzzFeed News analysis has found.Up until those last three months of the campaign, the top election content from major outlets had easily outpaced that of fake election news on Facebook. Then, as the election drew closer, engagement for fake content on Facebook skyrocketed and surpassed that of the content from major news outlets.”

Diversity, Cybersecurity and the Future of Libraries: Day 2 Recap From Educause | EdSurge News “Timothy Chester, who won the Educause 2016 Community Leadership Award, says that the overwhelming amount of information available at our fingertips causes humans to react in two ways: shut down or follow the crowd. “People simply follow the voice that is the loudest,” he said, pointing to the current U.S. presidential election and the rise of the Arab Spring as examples. Chester told faculty that, like mass media organizations and governments, they are no longer gatekeepers of information but rather stewards and facilitators that help students make sense of the information around them.”

Save Time with Social Media Tools | Knowledge Quest “Many of us feel time poor. The If This Then That (IFTTT) website, discussed here, does not provide more time but it may save what we have by cross-promotion. It allows users to dive deeper into promoting our work/ideas with a variety of social media tools with the one action. Social media can be a great way to share your journey and advocate for the things you do that impact your school community.

If This Then That (IFTTT) website connects different social media tools by using “recipes.” For example, You may link your YouTube channel to a Google spreadsheet to keep track of what you put there or you may post to your Instagram account and the same post will automatically appear on your Twitter account too.” The how-to is also discussed.

In the war on fake news, school librarians have a huge role to play – The Verge An interesting article that explains some of the problems and how the skills of teacher librarians can assist in informing readers about how to better understand what they seeing/hearing

AASL Defines “Effective School Library Program” for ESSA Implementation | Knowledge Quest “The national association for the school library profession, the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) has defined the term “effective school library program” to assist with the implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) at the state and district level:”

AASL Position Statements – School Libraries & ESSA AASL site. This page has links to their definitions and statements. The first is a definition that is the new position statement, “Definition for an Effective School Library Program,” published by AASL as guidance for administrators, school boards and school librarians in the implementation of ESSA. It provides the elements of an effective school library program as a fundamental component of college, career and community readiness.

Statement on information literacy :: ASLAFrom the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) and Australian School Library Association (ASLA). Its purpose”:To describe what is information literacy in the context of an information literate school community.”

Children and Reading – The Facts – National Reading Campaign National Reading Campaign Sept 2013. “Interested in what the research says about children and reading? All of the reading facts are relevant to how reading shapes children’s futures. But here’s a synopsis of the child-specific research:”

Virtual LC – SLAV LEARNING COMMONS “The new vision of the learning commons sets the library as a hub of activity in the school – a magnet for a range of teaching professionals to connect with students and to extend their own professional learning and practice. The teacher-librarian is a facilitator in this setting, coaching other professionals, connecting them with each other and with resources. The library’s virtual space can be as much of a hub as the physical space, where resources, technology, user-focused design and innovative teaching practices mingle to empower learners. “

Year of the Learning Commons The Libguide for  “Celebrating the Transformation of School Libraries and Computer Labs into a Learning Commons  April, 2015 ~ May 2016. Celebrate, initiate, advocate and create opportunities all year.”

The Research Files Episode 24: Innovative Learning Environments | Teacher | ACER “An interview with the with a member of a research team that will be investigating how teachers are using their learning environments to improve student learning outcomes. They will be sharing strategies and best practice.”

Teaching Questioning in Reading – Before, During and After Lesson – Australian Curriculum Lessons “A good way to get children to think about creating questions as they read, and in turn, builds their comprehension. In this lesson, students use computer software (Inspiration 9) to map out their questions and spend time at the end of the session answering their questions to build their understanding.”

Budd:e Cybersecurity Education – Primary Teacher Resources “The Budd:e Cybersecurity Education package consists of two activity-based learning modules, one for primary school students, and one for secondary school students.  Both modules contain engaging, media-rich activities and resources, developed in consultation with teachers and subject matter experts. You will also find comprehensive Teacher Resources for Budd:e including background and contextual information, a video demonstration of the modules, lesson plans with learning outcomes for each activity, and curriculum maps for all Australian states and territories. Budd:e is part of the broader Australian Government cybersecurity initiative, aimed at creating a safer, more secure online environment for all Australian children”

ThinkUKnow “ThinkUKnow is a free, evidence-based cyber safety program that provides accessible cyber safety education to parents, carers and teachers through schools and organisations across Australia. It uses a network of trained law enforcement members and accredited volunteers from our program partner organisations to deliver the cyber safety education presentations nationwide. Originally developed in the United Kingdom by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre, ThinkUKnow Australia was established by the AFP in 2009.
ThinkUKnow is a partnership between Microsoft Australia, Datacom and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and is delivered in collaboration with the New South Wales Police Force, Northern Territory Police, Queensland Police Service, South Australia Police, Tasmania Police, Western Australia Police and Neighbourhood Watch Australasia.”

Stay Smart Online “Stay Smart Online provides all Australian online users with information on the simple steps they can take to secure themselves online. This includes information and advice on how to secure your computer and your transactions online. This website contains a free alert service that provides easy to understand information on the latest cyber security threats and vulnerabilities, a free interactive education resource for primary and secondary school students, videos with useful tips on protecting your computer, a self assessment tool for small businesses, and information for parents.” Yehnay

Home | Scamwatch Scamwatch is run by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC). It provides information to consumers and small businesses about how to recognise, avoid and report scams.

What I’m Reading—Jeff Wilhelm | edu@scholastic If we want to cultivate lifelong readers, and for our students to gain the benefits and access to civil rights that come from this, what do we need to do? The article suggests that by cultivating all five pleasures (identified i y surveying readers) necessary we can promote lifelong reading. “These are already central to our engaged reading and we must make them all central to our teaching”.

Vaughan Memorial Library : Tutorials : Plagiarism An interactive tutorial that explains plagiarism. It is a big problem with serious consequences. Point out that “Researching ethically is also researching efficiently: not only will you learn how to avoid plagiarism, but you’ll also pick up some good research tips too.”

Eli Pariser: Beware online “filter bubbles” | TED Talk | TED.com “As web companies strive to tailor their services (including news and search results) to our personal tastes, there’s a dangerous unintended consequence: We get trapped in a “filter bubble” and don’t get exposed to information that could challenge or broaden our worldview. Eli Pariser argues powerfully that this will ultimately prove to be bad for us and bad for democracy”

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Useful Links

“Balance when mentoring” (CC BY-NC 2.0) by  rhondda.p 

 How to Deal When Things Go Wrong in Your Makerspace The author has a realistic view of her makerspaces and her students. She shares her wisdom here. ” in the real world things can go wrong. There are days when there’s a lot of mess and days when students rebel and refuse to work on any projects. The fact of the matter is that things go wrong in my makerspace all the time. Over the years, I’ve learned a few things about how to deal with them and not let them get me down”

Create Your Own Printable Board Game “Board games can be great fun and a good educational tool too. From this site you can try creating your own game with a range of printable versions available. It can be fun and it is easy to do using these templates.

249 Bloom’s Taxonomy Verbs For Critical Thinking “Bloom’s Taxonomy’s verbs–also know as power verbs or thinking verbs–are extraordinarily powerful instructional planning tools. In fact, next to the concept of backwards-design and power standards, they are likely the most useful tool a teacher-as-learning-designer has access to.

They can be used for curriculum mapping, assessment design, lesson planning, personalizing and differentiating learning, and almost any other “thing” a teacher–or student–has to do”

Harry Potter Scavenger Hunt ” Harry Potter Scavenger Hunt”

Create a treasure hunt “This website creates the most exciting treasure hunt games you can imagine. All of the puzzles and clues are included, all you need to do is print the clues and hide them around your house and back yard.”

How to be a Scholar. 6 Steps to Encourage Critical Thinking | College Ready This is a simple infographic that could be used as a poster in the classroom. It would serve as a reminder to students to ask themselves the type of questions that will lead to them developing their critical thinking skills and become better learners.

Authors and Their Day Jobs: INFOGRAPHIC | GalleyCat “An infographic that gives the day jobs of several high-profile authors including Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen King, and Harper Les

22 Tricks That Can Make Anyone A Keyboard Ninja An infographic that offers some useful keyboard shortcuts.

Common Sense Digital Compass | Educational games for kids to help teach digital citizenship and digital literacy skills. “Digital Compass is a choose-your-own adventure, interactive game developed with 6th to 9th graders in mind, in which students step into the shoes of one of eight characters to experience the twists and turns of daily digital life. Invite students to explore digital dilemmas, make good (and not-so-good) decisions, and try out possible solutions through stories and mini-games – all without risking their real-world reputations. Discover how Common Sense Educational’s award-winning digital literacy and citizenship curriculum seamlessly integrates into blended-learning environments.”

Teaching Students to Self-Monitor their Behavior – Education to the Core “Self-monitoring allows students to take charge of their behavior in order to earn “reinforcers”. This is a great tool for a student (or students) that have trouble staying on task, remembering to raise their hand, or even just following the general rules of the classroom. Students are in charge of recording their behavior. This helps keep them accountable and helps them understand what they need to do in order to earn a “reinforcer”. It’s also great for the teacher, since it can be difficult to teach and take data on student’s behavior at the same time.”

Homeschool Unit Study: Coding Games Unplugged! “These unplugged coding activities is that you can really see why each line of code is important. This is especially true in the activities where you are writing code for another person to follow. Simple but effective”

Coding in the Classroom: A Problem Solving Framework | Edutopia “Learning to code means stepping out of your comfort zone, dealing with frustration, and leaning into discomfort. For a student that is new to programming, it’s easy to give up and walk away from it all when you encounter a bug (a logic or syntax error) in the code you’ve written.To that end, one of the first class lessons is the importance of problem-solving. Good problem-solving boils down to two main components: asking the right questions and doing research well. ”

Teach Your Kids to Code: 6 Beginner’s Resources for Parents | Edutopia “Introducing computer programming to your kids can be a challenge, especially for those who aren’t familiar with the nuances of code. Fortunately, in the last few years, a number of apps, software, and guides have been produced that make the often-complex subject of computer coding easy to grasp for young learners. These are a few resources that parents can share with their kids to help them start learning about programming.”

Buckling Bookshelves: 1001 Children’s Books “This is the list from 1001 Children’s Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up.”

Assessing Digital Literacy: Standards, Tools, & Techniques — Emerging Education Technologies “Digital literacy is like any other core curricular subject. It is no longer an option, just as reading and math are not. Students must be digitally competent if they are to be successful in school and in their professional and personal lives as adults. Indeed, many of the best jobs for years to come will involve digital expertise. Educators have spent years developing reading and math curricula and crafting, as well, all sorts of assessment tools for these subjects. State departments of education have developed state-wide competency testing in core subjects; national testing services have spent years developing and refining assessments. Computer literacy, however, because of its newness, has not been an area in which standards and assessments have been articulated, codified, and developed.”

Quizizz: Fun Multiplayer Classroom Quizzes This is a fun online quiz game. It is similar to Kahoot but it is not speed-based. Students can move at their own pace. These to tools offer similar classroom experiences but whereas Kahoot is great for fast thinking and suits the quick-thinking student, QuizIzz, it offers the online quiz game excitement without the stress of having timed in your responses

Ways to Make Your Classrooms Introvert-Friendly – Julie Smith A few of the ways this author has tried to make their classes more comfortable for introverts.

5 ways to motivate different kinds of students with digital learning tools – Microsoft in Education blog “Motivation is crucial to learning. Without motivation, students are prone to just memorizing information or crunching for an exam instead of immersing themselves to really learn about the topic. Ideally, with high motivation, surrounded by a culture of learning and supported by a community of experts, students can learn deeply, actively share information, and even create new knowledge. One quite detailed motivational model relevant to schools (Tapola, Veermans & Niemivirta, 2013), categorizes students into five different achievement goal orientations. Each type of goal orientation responds to different ways of motivating, which is made easier by personalized learning and tools in a digital learning environment.”

Do YOUR Kids Think that Being Right is More Important than Being Curious? | CTQ #CTQCollab Some good discussion here. “Questions with no clear right answer should be fun to think about and wrestle with.” “Our educational system has failed if it has trained students to think that “there must be only one answer, and the teacher knows what it is, and they have to be the first to guess what it is.”

Stopping hate: how to counter hate speech on Twitter “Get The Trolls Out has developed the guide “Stopping Hate: How to Counter Hate Speech on Twitter?” which contains useful tips and advice on how to counter hate speech on Twitter.”

The Dead Good Reader Awards 2016 Winners – Dead Good Interesting list of awards

The Heart of Digital Citizenship | Anne Collier | TEDxGeneva – YouTube Bullying & harassment online? Empower youth to make the Internet better! This YouTube video published on 16 Jun 2016. “Digital citizenship is an intriguing but still very abstract idea with a dark past and great potential. A journalist who has followed youth Internet safety and citizenship for nearly 20 years, Anne Collier looks at what digital citizenship is, the struggle it emerged from, and five ways adult society can make it engaging and useful to young citizens, the heart of any digital citizenship discussion about youth. [There ia a link to the research references in her talk: http://www.netfamilynews.org/tedxgene…%5D”

School Librarians and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) | American Association of School Librarians (AASL) This page is updated regularly with new documents. “AASL continues to examine ESSA, unpack the provisions for school libraries within the ESSA, and communicate how they will impact the school library community. AASL’s ongoing work with the ALA Washington Office, as well as the association’s partnerships with other educational organizations, will highlight opportunities within ESSA language for school library programs. Read more about the next steps in the link below for ESSA Opportunities for School Librarians.  “

Definition for effective School Library Program http://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/aaslissues/positionstatements/AASL_Position%20Statement_Effective%20SLP_2016-06-25.pdf The American Association of School Librarians supports the position that an effective school library program has a certified school librarian at the helm, provides personalized learning environments, and offers equitable access to resources to ensure a well-rounded education for every student

Instructional role of the school librarian http://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/aaslissues/positionstatements/AASL_Position%20Statement_Instructional%20Role%20of%20the%20SL_2016-06-25.pdf The role of the school librarian is to guide students and fellow educators through the intersection of formal and informal learning. The instruction the school librarian offers is integral to a well-rounded education. As educators and instructional partners school librarians are critical to teaching and learning in the school community. The school librarian plays a prominent role in instructing students, faculty, and administrators in a range of literacies, including information, digital, print, visual, and textual literacies. As leaders in literacy and technology, school librarians are perfectly positioned to instruct every student in the school community through both traditional and blended learning.

Infographic: The 9 Rules of Digital Citizenship “Citizenship is the qualities that a person is expected to have as a responsible member of a community. Therefore, digital citizenship is the qualities a person is expected to have as a responsible member of the digital community.” ( rules explianed)

20 Cyber Bullying Quotes That You Must Spread Right Now – EdTechReview™ (ETR) “Children should be able to live a life free from bullying and harassment and it is time that we all took a stand against this. ” Everyone has the above right. Some ideas about starting the conversations that might hepl to alleviate some of hte problem.

3. Integration of Blooms’ Taxonomy and Multiple Intelligence in English Classroom — Rao – The ELT Practitioner “integration of both Blooms Taxonomy and Multiple intelligences gives a teacher a wide spectrum of knowledge that can be successfully implemented in an English class to develop a learner who is a thinking and creative individual. The combination paves the way to holistic development of the child. This implies that students generally may engage in higher order thinking and problem solving in an area of intellectual strength and only lower order thinking in an area of relative weakness. For example a student gifted in linguistic intelligence may produce a creative and original poem but may struggle with a task that demands high-level spatial ability. The planning needs to be done very carefully by the teacher. The points suggested here may be taken care while planning a lesson.”

Is it original? An editor’s guide to identifying plagiarism – Poynter “Plagiarism is a serious charge. If true, it has the potential to upend a career and mar a journalist’s reputation for life. And yet, in today’s world of aggregated news, plagiarism is an imprecise word that stands for a spectrum of offenses related to unoriginal work. And its severity varies dramatically depending on a variety of circumstances.”

Three schools reforms that will lift student outcomes “Take stock of how Australia is doing in the field of Education, where it’s going, and what governments can do about it. This series, written by program directors at the Grattan Institute, explores the challenges that Australia faces and advocates policy changes for budgets, economic growth, cities and transport, energy, school education, higher education and health”

Positive, Negative or Neutral? Crucial Conversations on Digital Citizenship | Connected Principals “The whole notion of “digital citizenship” is a messy conversation, but it is definitely one we need to have with our students to ensure that they have all of the opportunities to find and create their own path moving forward.”

6 Ed Tech Tools to Try in 201 6 | Cult of Pedagogy “An up-dated list. Each of these tools can make teaching more efficient and effective, and student learning deeper and more engaging.”

Future Ready Librarians – Future Ready Schools “As schools seek to become Future Ready, it is necessary to identify and cultivate leadership beyond district and building leaders. School librarians lead, teach and support the Future Ready goals of their school and district in a variety of ways through their professional practice, programs and spaces. If properly prepared and supported, school librarians are well-positioned to be at the leading edge of the digital transformation of learning.”

Get your Ditty on “This little tool allows you to create digital music. This post discussed a few challenges you can do with your students and classroom.”

Remembering Future Shock’s Alvin Toffler | Data Literacy for High School Librarians

Sharing our makerspace ideas

We had a successful meeting the other night where teacher librarians got together to talk about how they are creating maker spaces in their libraries. The ideas and approaches vary widely but they all share the same goal of allowing the students to express their creative side and learn at the same time as enjoying what they are doing.

We were going to run it like a teach meet with very short presentations but a few people had to pull out due to illness so each presentation went a little longer. We also had the opportunity to try out some of the activities spoken about.

The best part of these meetings is the sharing that happens with everyone talking about the approaches they take in their schools. Even when using the same materials, the approaches and resulting student creations can be very different.

My part of the evening included the presentation below.

Pinterest boards:

• Bookfaces
• Our bookfaces
• Book spine poetry
• Maker ideas for school libraries

There are many posts and articles written about makerspaces and (school) libraries. Below in one presentation I like.

Useful links

   by  Ken Whytock 

• 6 of the Best Hidden Features in Google Chrome – The Gooru Best Resources for Google Apps “Google Chrome is actually much more than just a web browser. Google has tucked away a lot of hidden functionalities into the Chrome browser. Jotting notes on a built in notepad, playing a dinosaur themed browser game when the wifi is out, and even finding your lost cell phone on a Google map, are just a couple of the cool things most people can do. These are six of our favorite hidden Chrome tricks you can try out right now”

• Free Technology for Teachers: Two Chrome Extensions That Can Help You Stay on Task A couple of Chrome extensions explained here that that Richard Byrne uses when he finds himself falling into social media vortex and not being as productive as he should be. These extensions are equally useful to students as they are to adults.

• Supporting the Teacher Maker Movement | Edutopia The post offers eight ways to support teachers with the emphasis on what can principals do to support the teachers who want to develop curriculum. “To implement true, rigorous units you need eager, innovative teachers and supportive principals. “

• 50 Things You Can Do With Google Classroom

• ISTE 2015 Panel |Finding The Right Tool for Digital Classrooms

• The Ultimate Directory Of Free Image Sources – The Edublogger “sources for free images and organizing them in such a way as to help you find what you’re looking for. Here are the criteria we’ve examined: Subjects: Does a site focus on specific genres of images, or is it a mass collection of various image types? High Resolution: Lots of great image resources emerged in the pre-Web 2.0 phase, but it wasn’t until bandwidth dramatically increased that allowed for the uploading of much higher resolution images suitable for editing and printing. License: The licenses vary extremely from source to source. Some are listed as Creative Commons (with variations on attribution and availability for commercial use), others are Public Domain, and still others have unique licenses that maintain copyright while allowing users to download or embed photographs. To better understand Creative Commons licenses, check out our post on Images, Copyright, & Creative Commons. Safety: Government sites and many specific subject collections are extremely safe for students to use. But before you start using one of these sites for student blogging, check out our safety note and examine the site to see if you find it appropriate for students. Some sites are terrible for filtering out inappropriate con”

• Block Party: Legos in the Library | School Library Journal Another reflection on the why and how of a lego club run from the library. “Playing with Legos offers them something physical, something imaginative, and something mechanical. And, of course, they love the challenge of building on a different theme each time we meet. Little do these boys know that there’s an ulterior motive-to get them to read. What’s the connection between Legos and books, you ask? Promoting play contributes to early literacy development by increasing attention span, memory, creativity, and language and vocabulary skills. It also lays the foundation for logical mathematical thinking, scientific reasoning, and problem solving-things they’ll carry with them throughout their school years, says “Play = Learning,” a recent study by Dorothy Singer, a senior research scientist at Yale University’s Department of Psychology and Child Study Center.”

• Lego Movie Review & 10 Lego Activities for Kids – In The Playroom

• Two Ways to Build a Rubber Band Powered Lego Car – Frugal Fun For Boys “Here’s a fun contraption to build out of Lego bricks – a rubber band powered Lego car!  Aidan (11) and I have two different versions to show you, and hopefully these will inspire the builders at your house to create their own!  This would also be a great project for a Lego club”

• Two Ways to Build a Lego Catapult – Frugal Fun For Boys A simple but effective Lego challenge.

• Lego Challenge Game & Lego Themed Snacks – Sunshine and Hurricanes “Kids of all ages can form teams or work individually to complete the challenges outlined on the free, printable cards we’re offering at the end of this post! We’ve got a couple versions of the cards. One set incorporates vocabulary words as descriptions of the challenge to add an educational component for those looking to combine learning with fun! The second set of cards include the same challenges, but we’ve removed the vocabulary words to make it easier to play the game across age groups. After printing the cards on heavy cardstock, cut them apart and stack them into a pile or toss in an empty container for kids to draw from. We had all the kids form a circle and emptied a bin of basic Lego pieces into the center. Next, have them choose from the top of the deck or the container, read the challenge aloud, assign a time period to complete it (10-15 minutes seemed to work best for our group) and have everyone get started!”

• iPad Literacy Stations ~ Mrs.Wideen’s Blog I liked this for the Lego Creation Stationhowever there are more ideas here. “At this station, I have pre packaged 4 different ziplock bags of 100 legos each.  Students will choose the lego bag, and take a planning sheet.  Students are asked to draw and write about what they are planning to create.  (The boys in my class are crazy about lego so I thought this would be a great motivator for them.)  Students then will build their creation using their blueprint.  When they are finished, they will take a picture of their creation, add it to the class book that I have created on the Book Creator App and write a summary of their creation and how it compared to what they had originally planned.”

• The Return of Lego Fun Friday! – Frugal Fun For Boys Some great ideas providing themes/building challenges that could be used with a Lego Club. “Lego Fun Friday is a twice-a-month feature.  Each time, we share photos from the building challenge and then announce the next challenge to take place in two weeks.  “

• The Show Me Librarian: How to Host a Lego Club The post offers a how-to by documenting how it runs in the author’s own library. “Lego Club is engaging for kids of all ages, easy to manage from a staff perspective, and enjoyable for everyone involved. I think everyone should seriously consider hosting a Lego Club at the library. “

• Free LEGO Printables for Upper Elementary Homeschool Encouragement “Upper Elementary Free LEGO Printables. Seventeen amazing free LEGO printables or printable sets “

• NEA Approves National School Library Study | School Library Journal It will be interesting to see the research findings and some hard data to support library services. “The National Education Association (NEA) is set to launch a study to measure student access to school librarians and libraries. The project was approved by its Representative Assembly at the organization’s annual meeting that just ended in Orlando, FL. The study will examine issues around school libraries and staffing, from current state laws and the requirements they lay out for schools to the ratio of “professionally qualified school librarians to student, by state,” according to NEA’s web site. The educational advocacy group will also look at additional topics, including school library closings—how many, the grade levels at schools affected by shuttered libraries, as well as school librarian positions that have been lost.”

• The Book Addict’s GUIDE to paranormal, sci-fi, & fantasy! “Another Book Addict’s GUIDE. She started with just straight paranormal, but mixed in some sci-fi, some fantasy, and the genres melded together into a combined grouping into one giant guide. You can still choose your own adventure here based on what each book contains” links to title at the end.

• The Book Addict’s “GUIDE” to “Crossover” Books! An infographic that lists of young adult books that would also have appeal to adults. At the end the (linked) titles are listed with the subjects they cover.

• Leading learning: making the Australian Curriculum work for us http://www.acleadersresource.sa.edu.au/index.php?page=bringing_it_to_life From Dept of Ed & Child Development, SA. “We have thought deeply about what we value for our students’ learning, how this is represented in the learning areas through the essence, and how this essence helps us work with all the components of the learning area. In this section we work with our colleagues using the BitL tool to ensure our pedagogy brings the essence of the learning areas to life in the classroom. It helps us engage our learners as scientists, as mathematicians, as historians, and as great communicators – so that they not only know about the important understandings and develop the skills within each learning area, but can bring this understanding to bear in their everyday contexts in powerful ways.”

• Minecraft in school? How video games could be the future of learning – CSMonitor.com “A new study is the latest to support the use of video games, in particular the popular children’s game Minecraft, in classroom learning. Maths, geography, art, design – these are just some of the things that children can learn from the popular video game Minecraft, a new study shows.”

• App Smashing For Educators: Leveraging Tools To Maximize Communication | Imagine Easy Blog “For decades, schools have attempted to build and maintain this crucial bridge to lasting learning. Research shows that the stronger the connection between home and school, the greater the academic achievement can be for students. There are some new tools listed here that all educators can leverage to easily maximize parent-teacher-student communication”.

• Kathy Schrock’s Kaffeeklatsch: Android apps for the remembering level of Bloom’s As always Kathy has Some great advice. First the infographics that set up the ideas and then offers some ideas for apps to assist teachers to use with students.

• Why Wolfram Alpha has a place in math and two more game-changing ideas for schools. @coolcatteacher “Students who self-assess are the best? That’s what Alan November says. Research shows that students who self-assess their work become top students. What does this mean? Any school can improve with these three things.”

• ISTE 2015: Takeaway Tips for a Library Maker Space | ISTE 2015 | School Library Journal Useful summary from one conference attendee about maker spaces in school libraries. “The maker movement was front and center at the 2015 ISTE conference—and that’s a good thing for me. After following maker initiatives with great interest for some time now, I have the opportunity to design a maker space this year for 6th–12th grade students at my school”

• The Learning Innovation Cycle How Disruption Creates Lasting Change “In education, most of the talk around disruptive innovation revolves around education technology, owing to the potential scale of these technologies, and desperation of education to revise itself. But innovation doesn’t necessarily have to be a matter of economics, as Christensen originally thought of the term, nor of technology, which is the most tempting angle. It can, but there are other disruptors that can lead to innovation that have little to do with either. What might be more interesting than the disruptors, then, might be the process itself. “

• Why maker technology is crucial for students with learning difficulties | eSchool News | eSchool News “3D printing and hands-on learning opens up new worlds to some students”

• Teaching Kids Skills For Deep Reading on Digital Devices | MindShift | KQED News “There’s no doubt that the experience of reading online is different than reading in print, but does it affect comprehension? While several studies have found student comprehension and retention are lower on digital devices, could it be that students just need to learn the right tools to enhance their digital reading? Maria Konnikova explores the research and theories behind reading in her New Yorker column.”

• Book list for pre-teen gifted readers – The Babblery “Pre-teen gifted readers often run into a problem around the age of ten: as younger children they read everything in children’s literature that they could get their hands on. By the time they reach ten years old, they’re starting to run into roadblocks when looking for appropriate books. Some ten-year-olds are ready to go on to Young Adult fiction, but most aren’t. Young Adult, with its focus on teens’ changing bodies and questioning of their place in the world, is often inappropriate and sometimes very upsetting for “tweens” who have outgrown children’s books but are looking for meaty reading to satisfy their literary cravings.”

• Info 101: Book list for pre-teen gifted readers – National gifted children | Examiner.com “By the age of ten or eleven, gifted children are apt to be more sensitive and demanding readers than their peers. They’ve already read everything on the last book list. What will satisfy their hunger for complex, lively stories without teen-focused relationship issues that come up in so many modern novels for teen readers? This post offers a list of books recommended by parents and teachers of kids in this age range”

• Info 101: Book list for young gifted readers – National gifted children | Examiner.com “This list was created with the help of parents who wanted a list of books appropriate for young readers (through 7 years old) who are ready to read long chapter books but are emotionally sensitive”

• Gifted Parenting Support: Finding Age Appropriate Books for Gifted Readers “A difficulty for working with gifted children is where to find age-appropriate reading materials for them. More often than not, one of the early signs of giftedness is being an advanced reader; like years and years advanced for their age. This poses a significant problem for adults because very young children ‘can’ read books which are simply too mature for them.”

• DOs and DON’Ts of Social Media Pictures “A picture’s worth a thousand likes. Or at least more likes than a post without one. Numerous studies have shown that including a profile picture is essential to garnering more page visits, and picture posts are more visible on social media. There’s an active online discussion around the perfect avatar or cover photo, but there is no comprehensive guide to visual engagement for your brand’s entire social media profile.”

• Trends Aside, Libraries Support Student Content Creation Now | Horizon K-12 Report | School Library Journal “The annual Horizon report, released June 29 by the nonprofit New Media Consortium, examines the trends and technologies that will shape primary and secondary education over the next five years. It references libraries as being at the forefront of maker spaces, which are among 18 major trends that include the rise of STEAM education: the intersection and importance of science, technology, arts, engineering, and math. The Horizon Report broke down challenges to school technology adoption into three categories: “solvable,” “difficult,” and “wicked,” representing a range of difficulty to implement over the next five years. The “solvable” problems reflect what many libraries are already doing, like focusing more on blended learning and STEAM. The “wicked” problems were far more dramatic: shifting toward deeper learning approaches and rethinking the role of school itself.”

• 23 Tools For Students To Publish What They Learn There are many tools available for students to publish their ideas to in the year 2015 and you no longer need a great knowledge of HTML and CSS. With the surge of online blogging and publication systems, students now have many opportunities to express their thoughts and ideas with the added chance of getting global feedback on those insights. The author of this post offers a list of some of the online publication tools they recommend that enable students to post their creative impressions on.”

• Minecraft in Education…Not Just A Game | RafranzDavis.com “Minecraft is more than a game. It’s like having a blank canvas to do and be anything. It’s like having a master key to your greatest adventure. The worst thing that can happen if we let kids play is that they will learn much more than our standards sometimes allow. Those who play minecraft know this but the problem is that most people in charge of schools and curriculum do not. So, how can we change that?”

• Design Make Share: An Outline for MAKING in the Classroom | Design Make Teach “Design Make Share is a method for integrating MAKING in the classroom. This method applies to 3D printers and any other type of MAKING from cardboard and scissors to laser cutters and CNC machines.”

• » Biloxi Teachers Paint Lockers to Look Like Spines of Famous Books “The English hallway transformed into a brightly colored Avenue of Literature by teachers. Each of the 189 lockers that line the hallway – unused for more than a decade – has been painted over to look like the spine of a popular book. The project was spearheaded by a group of teachers, who decided to devote their summers to creating an environment more conducive to a love of learning than a procession of defunct storage units. Teacher Elizabeth Williams explained, “We want students to come back to school in August and walk on the hallway and be absolutely amazed with what we’ve done and be curious. We want that to be the driving spark for reading in our classrooms.” In deciding which titles would earn a spot on the Avenue, the Biloxi teachers tried to draw on a wide range of genres, interests and reading levels. Each novel in the Twilight series is represented, but so are Watership Down and Johnny Tremain”

• From Legos to Maker Labs: Fun and Learning After School | graphite Blog One teacher explains how he took his interests and created some rich learning opportunities for his students first using legos and creating a lego club and then embracing the maker movement strategies to further the learning opportunities.

• Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy Verbs [Infographic] “According to Churches on his wiki Edorigami, “Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy describes many traditional classroom practices, behaviours and actions, but does not account for the new processes and actions associated with Web 2.0 technologies …” This means the revised Digital Taxonomy verbs listed below are applicable to you facilitating technology use in the modern classrooms. We hope you find this infographic of Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy verbs useful in your classroom practices. Please feel free to share it with colleagues you feel may benefit from having a list of taxonomy verbs!”

• How You Can Become a Champion of Digital Citizenship in Your Classroom | EdSurge News Digital citizenship is (or should be) about positive behaviours and needs to be an essential topic that is addressed in the classroom. Often dire warnings and trying to restrict student access results in the opposite effect to what you’re trying to achieve. Teachers need to find a way to integrate digital citizenship lessons within the school day. post with ideas and links

• Microsoft launches site for teachers taking Minecraft into the classroom | Technology | The Guardian “Microsoft, which bought the game’s developer Mojang for $2.5bn in 2014, has launched a site aimed at teachers, aiming to foster a community of educators swapping lesson plans and other tips based on Minecraft. This site was announced (2015) by Microsoft’s vice president of worldwide education Anthony Salcito, complete with a list of some of the ways schools are already incorporating Minecraft into their lessons”

• Bloom’s Taxonomy: A Practical Approach for Deeper Learning | Not Just Any Brick In The Wall “Useing Bloom’s as a basis this teacher has made an altered taxonomy that provides him with a structure in which to categorize questions to aid the learning of pupils. It is, therefore, a useful aid in the design, delivery, or evaluation of my lessons, teaching and, more importantly, the learning of my pupils. I use it as a framework or checklist to ensure I’m using the most appropriate approach to pupil learning in order to develop the desired capabilities (or capacities) and outcomes for them. Here are examples of some of the questions / activities I’ve used (or have penciled in to use):”

• A Reading Log Kids Can Color To assist with motivating readers this site offers some printable reading logs that can be coloured in as books are read.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Useful Links

   by  Kackpr 

• The Guardian Books Podcast | Books | The Guardian The Guardian Books Podcast. Presented weekly and features the most well-known writers from all over the world. There’s Kazuo Ishiguro on his latest book, novelist Will Self and philosopher John Gray in conversation, Amit Chaudhuri on his reworking of the Odyssey paired with feminist economist Katrine Marçal. A good range presented beautifully every week.

• Put the Power Back in PowerPoint With More Images and Less Text! — Emerging Education Technologies
  

• Proposal to teach school students computer coding a sign of the times: professor – ABC Newcastle NSW – Australian Broadcasting Corporation
  

• Let the kids use their phones in class | Teacher Network | The Guardian Interesting article from the Guardian. “The effect of banning mobiles was the equivalent of an extra week’s schooling over the academic year, according to the research. It also found that the ban had a greater positive impact on students with special education needs and those eligible for free school meals.”

• 4 Powerful Chrome Apps to Enhance Your Reading Experience ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning “Some good Chrome apps to help you enhance your online reading experience. The extensions we curated for you today allow you to create a comfortable reading environment where you can enjoy your reading with no distractions and no eye strain. Using these apps will enable you to eliminate  ads and flash animations from your page, browse multi-page articles in one, seamless view, disable surrounding webpage noise and clutter and many more.”

• 8 Steps To Design Problem-Based Learning In Your Classroom

• New Teachers: Designing Learning Environments | Edutopia This post on Edutopia offers a list of resources that includes tips and guides on classroom design and layout to help maximize the possibilities of the learning environment.

• Coding in the Classroom: 16 Top Resources | Edudemic The resources identified and discussed here offer teachers a variety of ways to teach students the basics of coding and also offer tips on how to keep them interested as they go.

• Advocating for School Libraries – a Primer | YALSAblog “AASL provides this definition: Advocacy is the ongoing process of building partnerships so that others will act for and with you, turning passive support into educated action for the library program.”

• Creating an Authentic Maker Education Rubric | Edutopia “Many teachers are excited about the maker movement andcreating projects for their classrooms. How will assessment be done? How can teachers prove that deep, rich learning is occurring through making? How do we justify a grade to students and parents alike? By crafting a three-part rubric that assesses process, understanding, and product, teachers can rest assured that they are covering all the bases.”

• Going beyond the Dewey Decimal System – Cranston Herald “Explores the changing roles, joys and demands of running a school library program at the elementary, middle and high school levels in the Cranston Public Schools.”

• Instilling a love of reading | Teacher | ACER “Research has shown that reading for enjoyment has an impact on academic achievement.. One of the ways teachers can encourage students to read for pleasure is by reading aloud to them, but it is a practice more associated with primary school settings.” But it works in Secondary schools too.

• Favorite Tech Tools For Social Studies Classes | MindShift | KQED News “Rachel Langenhorst helps teachers in her district find solutions for those issues. She used to teach social studies, but is now the K-12 Technology Integrationist and Instructional Coach at Rock Valley Community Schools in Iowa. “Really be cognizant of the digital tools you’re picking and why you are picking them.” She put together a list of favorite digital tools for the social studies classroom and shared them during an edWeb webinar. She emphasizes that, as with any classroom technology, teachers need to be careful not to just substitute a tech tool for an analog one. Instead, technology should be used to enhance classroom learning in ways that wouldn’t be possible otherwise, including expanding learning beyond the classroom walls.”

• Tomorrow’s Learning Today: 7 Shifts To Create A Classroom Of The Future “These aren’t single tools to “try,” but news ways to think about how learners access media, how educators define success, and what the roles of immense digital communities should be in popularizing new learning models.”

• 4 Ways to Bring the World into Your Class with Skype in the Classroom – Microsoft in Education Blog – Site Home – TechNet Blogs “Skype in the Classroom is an online community that enables thousands of teachers to inspire the next generation of global citizens through transformative learning over Skype. Here are some ideas to spark your next lesson and give your students something to look forward to!”

• Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator: Tech Requirements of a Decade Two 21st Century Learning Space ” What should the tech requirements be for a 21st century school?  When considering this, it is important to remember that the physical space of school is just a part of a student’s learning environment.  The reality is that to live is to learn.  School should be an extension of life with the same tools and access”

• LibGuides: Pedagogy to Oppress? – Hybrid Pedagogy “Ultimately, when we construct LibGuides around the resources that the librarian thinks the student should know about in order to ace their research paper, we attempt to simplify the processes of research. Yet, as Freire points out, this is problematic because it positions research as a transferral of information, rather than as an act of exploratory and liberatory meaning-making. In effect, when we fail to engage critically with new technologies such as LibGuides, we run the risk of perpetuating banking-model pedagogies that deny learner agency and position inquiry as a procedural skill instead of a rich, sociocultural practice that forms an integral part of human activity. While this lack of conversation about pedagogy and design is not unique to LibGuides, librarians have a long commitment to social justice, critical praxis and liberatory teaching. Let’s make sure our instructional materials don’t let us down.”

• Free Technology for Teachers: How to Cite a Tweet in MLA, APA, and Chicago Style
  

• Top 10 Tech Tips for Teachers #SketchNote – Shake Up Learning “Ten tips for successful technology integration in the classroom – the Sketch and Canva versions”

• Free Technology for Teachers: 30 Tutorials on Visual Design – And Infographic Lesson Plans Some of the new lesson plans on Canva’s education page include comic book creation, a lesson on sugar in our diets, and a lesson on illustrating ideas with infographics. That last lesson plan takes advantage of Canva’s new infographic design templates. To use the infographic templates or any of the other design templates in Canva simply log-in and open the design menu. Each template can be customized with your own images, fonts, and colors. You can also customize the dimensions of each template.

• Free Technology for Teachers: Create Rubrics and Email Grades from a Google Spreadsheet “This option provides a useful way to build rubrics, mark assignments and send out marks to students. Also, because you can collaborate using Google Spreadsheets, this option could provide teams of teachers with a way to collaborate on the development of rubrics. It also provides an opportunity to share in the responsibility of scoring assignments.”

• 8.5 Types of BAD Social Media Etiquette TO AVOID Infographic… | Chris The Story Reading Ape’s Blog
  

• Improbable libraries: unusual places to bury your head in a book… | Books | The Guardian “Regardless of the ultimate fate of the printed book, reports of the imminent death of the library as a physical entity seem to have been greatly exaggerated. Bookless digital public libraries are already starting to appear, the first in San Antonio, Texas, where lines of bookshelves have been replaced by e-readers, computer workstations, laptops and tablets. The simple truth is that, like Roald Dahl’s character Matilda, people like going to libraries. Indeed, going to the library is like getting a pay rise, according to a survey conducted in 2014 by the UK’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The survey, which attempted to quantify how happy different activities make us, showed that while dancing and swimming nearly always cheer us up, so does going to the library. “

• Free Technology for Teachers: Ten Sites and Apps to Inspire Creative Writing “There are ten options that are included in Richard Byrne’s slideshow with suggestions for writing prompts”

• Wear Audio – Record Audio on Your Android Phone or Watch | Android 4 Schools “One of the features of Wear Audio is the ability to adjust the recording quality settings. On Wear Audio you can adjust the audio gain, enable noise and echo suppression, and adjust the audio compression settings. If you’re looking for an audio recording app that students can use without having to create and remember yet another password, Wear Audio might be the way to go. Students could use the app to record short reflections on what they learned during the week or perhaps start a podcast that they could even publish.”

• WWF Together – A Beautiful App About Endangered Animals | Android 4 Schools
  

• Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 – Kinetic Typography Animation ᴴᴰ – YouTube This is an animated video of Sonnet 116 produced by Crescent Entertainment. The images produced in this video add a lot of drama to the sonnet. In class we talked about how the speech used in most of Shakespearean sonnets appeal to the senses, especially sight. I thought this take on Sonnet 116 provided interesting visuals for what the Poet was actually saying. This type of video could be an interesting idea for a possible Sonnet 2.0 project. – Jasmine Stevens

• Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 – Kinetic Typography Animation ᴴᴰ – YouTube This is an animated video of Sonnet 116 produced by Crescent Entertainment. The images produced in this video add a lot of drama to the sonnet. In class we talked about how the speech used in most of Shakespearean sonnets appeal to the senses, especially sight. I thought this take on Sonnet 116 provided interesting visuals for what the Poet was actually saying. This type of video could be an interesting idea for a possible Sonnet 2.0 project. – Jasmine Stevens

• Monty Python – Hamlet – YouTube

• Hamlet Mash Up (2013) – YouTube “Published on 7 May 2013 198 movies and TV shows quoting Hamlet in less than 15 minutes, because I thought that was funny. These clips are extremely short (1-10 seconds are clipped out of each movie), and built into a new whole, so this falls legally under fair use. “

• 22 Modern Book Shelves to Display Books in Creative and Beautiful Ways Some interesting ideas for displays of books.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.