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"Last week I shared National Geographic's excellent multimedia timeline of the Pacific Theater of WWII. National Geographic offers a similar timeline of the European Theater. While the title of the timeline is World War II in Europe, it does include include events that happened in Africa and some events in the United States. The timeline World War II in Europe includes pictures, text, video, and maps of events beginning with Hitler's first violation of the Treaty of Versailles through the end of the war in Europe."

An inspiring first European overview A groundbreaking new European study, released today at a major EU conference hosted by the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, sheds light on how teachers use digital games in the classroom with their pupils for learning purposes. The conference was opened by the European Commissioner for Education and Culture, Jan Figel, underlining the importance of the study. It covers commercial as well as "serious" games. It was carried out by European Schoolnet, a network of 31 Ministries of Education, commissioned by the Interactive Software Federation of Europe (ISFE).

"Mention robots to many English teachers and they'll immediately point down the hall to the science classroom or to the makerspace, if they have one. At many schools, if there's a robot at all, it's located in a science or math classroom or is being built by an after-school robotics club. It's not usually a fixture in English classrooms. But as teachers continue to work at finding new entry points to old material for their students, robots are proving to be a great interdisciplinary tool that builds collaboration and literacy skills. "For someone like me who teaches literature by lots of dead white guys, teaching programming adds relevance to my class," said Jessica Herring, a high school English teacher at Benton High School in Arkansas. Herring first experimented using Sphero, essentially a programmable ball, when her American literature class was studying the writing of early settlers. Herring pushed the desks back and drew a maze on the floor with tape representing the journey from Europe to the New World. Her students used class iPads and an introductory manually guided app to steer their Spheros through the maze. Herring, like many English teachers, was skeptical about how the Sphero robot could be a useful teaching tool in her classroom. She thought that type of technology would distract students from the core skills of reading, writing and analyzing literature. But she decided to try it after hearing about the success of another English teacher across the country."

"A new survey commissioned by Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30) found that young girls in Europe become interested in so-called STEM subjects around the age of 11 and then quickly lose interest when they're 15. "Conformity to social expectations, gender stereotypes, gender roles and lack of role models continue to channel girls' career choices away from STEM fields," said psychology professor Martin Bauer of the London School of Economics, who helped coordinate the survey of 11,500 girls across 12 European countries. The survey also found that girls' interest in humanities subjects drops around the same age but then rebound sharply. Interest in STEM subjects does not recover. "This means that governments, teachers and parents only have four or five years to nurture girls' passion before they turn their backs on these areas, potentially for good," Microsoft said."

"Gold mining has been an integral part of world conquest from the time of the explorers. Gold and silver drove the explorers and Conquistadores to decimate world populations and colonize foreign lands, bringing home vast amounts of wealth to nations during what became known as the Age of Imperialism. Europeans colonized all parts of the globe in search of gold, silver, and cash crops. Although the colonization of America started as a result of turbulence in Europe and the search for religious freedom, it wasn't long before people struck out in search of riches here, too. The fever started with the California Gold Rush at the end of the 1840's. Ten years later, gold was discovered in Colorado, and silver at Pike's Peak and Nevada. Now, everyone wants a piece of Alaska."

"Fotopedia Wild Friends is a beautiful iPad app that takes students on a photographic tour of Europe and beyond. The app features more than 2,400 images of animals. The images can be viewed on their own or as parts of slideshows. At any time students can tap an image to open a short passage of text about the animal(s) they're viewing."

"Children are natural makers - give a kid a cardboard box, and she'll transform it immediately into an oven, a spaceship, an elevator, or something else that I probably cannot imagine. Recent years have seen a growth of the maker movement, or an enthusiasm for inventing and creating new technologies and tools, in the U.S., Europe, and many countries across the world. Here is a look at the origins of the maker movement, how it fosters creativity, and some of the resources available to kids."

"Imagine when a journey from A to B is no longer routine as your car in the near-future encourages a sense of play, exploration and learning. This is the image engineers and designers from Toyota Motor Europe (TME) and the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID) had of Toyota's "Window to the World" vehicle concept."

On Tuesday, 21 June 2011, EE hosted a debate on school libraries in South Africa at the University of Cape Town. The night before, the debate took place at Wits University in Johannesburg. The panel brought together library experts from Europe, Australia, South America and Africa as well as local library experts. The panellists were asked to provide insight into the importance of school libraries, share unique perspectives on challenges in advocating for their provision and to address the challenges and opportunities that information technologies (e.g. e-books) present in the campaign for school libraries in South Africa.

"Having worked with many schools across Europe this is the starter set of apps that seem to hit the spot. Having a small number of apps when starting your iPad journey is key for me. It gives pupils and teachers the opportunity to get familiar with a set of apps and use them across age groups and subjects."

"Make unplugged coding the perfect DIY gift: no time, no cost, lot of fun, new skills. CodyRoby is the new method to play with unplugged coding games at any age. Download your free CodyRoby starter kit and make a perfect gift in a few minutes (watch the video tutorial). The kit includes 40 cody cards, a cody-card box, a chess board, 5 Roby pieces, and 24 tiles. Follow the instructions below step by step and watch the video tutorials to get started soon!"

"Representation matters: Girls do better on science tests when their textbooks include images of female scientists. And a 2017 survey by Microsoft found that girls in Europe begin to show interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields at 11 years old but lose it at around 15-and a lack of female role models is one reason for the drop in interest. That's why we've created this list of books showing girls and women who are passionate about STEM fields. After asking librarians for recommendations, pulling still more from School Library Journal, and checking best-seller and award lists, we selected picture books, biographies, novels, and memoirs appropriate for kids from kindergarten to 12th grade. These books-most of which were published in 2016-represent a wide range of STEM fields, from marine biology to volcanology to math. "

"A Scholarly Role for Consumer Technology"