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"The internet doesn't come with an instruction manual, but it should-to give users the skills to separate truth from falsehood so they can distinguish between propaganda and the indisputable and confirmable. And colleges should be the place leading students through this reference book. That's the argument of Michael Caulfield, director of blended and networked learning at Washington State University Vancouver, and it isn't just some "hot take" designed to be provocative. He actually wrote the manual. And he has already convinced more than a dozen colleges to adopt it (and more than 100 college libraries to prominently link to it). Recently, he's started research in an effort to prove that it works (and can help preserve American democracy). Plenty of people are talking about the importance of information literacy these days, and many educational institutions see it as part of their mission. And yet it's more complicated than it seems. Earlier this month researcher danah boyd gave a provocative keynote speech at SXSW EDU arguing that media-literacy efforts at colleges are "backfiring," turning out graduates that are good at questioning everything, and selectively believing what their gut tells them is true."

"Teaching a new language to non-native speakers may be one of the most challenging educational jobs out there, so ELL teachers can use all of the help they can get! Thankfully, many excellent resources for ELL and ESL exist online, from full-service websites to reference tools and communities, all designed to make the task of educating ELL students just a little bit easier and more effective. We've scoured the Internet to share 50 of the best of these resources, and we hope you'll find lots of valuable content and tools through these incredibly useful links for ELL educators."

"Please, No More Professional Development! By Peter DeWitt on April 17, 2015 8:10 AM Today's guest blog is written by Kristine Fox (Ed.D), Senior Field Specialist/Research Associate at Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations (QISA). She is a former teacher and administrator who has passion for teacher learning and student voice. Kris works directly with teachers and leaders across the country to help all learners reach their fullest potential. Peter DeWitt recently outlined why "faculty meetings are a waste of time." Furthering on his idea, most professional development opportunities don't offer optimal learning experiences and the rare teacher is sitting in her classroom thinking "I can't wait until my district's next PD day." When I inform a fellow educator that I am a PD provider, I can read her thoughts - boring, painful, waste of time, useless, irrelevant - one would think my job is equal to going to the dentist (sorry to my dentist friends). According to the Quaglia Institute and Teacher Voice and Aspirations International Center's National Teacher Voice Report only 54% percent of teachers agree "Meaningful staff development exists in my school." I can't imagine any other profession being satisfied with that number when it comes to employee learning and growth. What sense does it make for the science teacher to spend a day learning about upcoming English assessments? Or, for the veteran teacher to learn for the hundredth time how to use conceptual conflict as a hook. Why does education insist everyone attend the same type of training regardless of specialization, experience, or need? As a nod to the upcoming political campaigns and the inevitable introduction of plans with lots of points, here is my 5 Point Plan for revamping professional development. 5 Point Plan Point I - Change the Term: Semantics Matter We cannot reclaim the term Professional Development for teachers. It has a long, baggage-laden history of conformity that does not

Our collective ability to learn and by doing so, adapt to changing circumstances through the acquisition of new skills and dispositions is what Edward de Bono refers to as EBNE; Essential But Not Enough. - What then might education need as it develops a response to times of rapid change?

I would like to propose that one cause of curriculum overcrowding is a phenomenon I refer to as "Idea Creep".

"Bronwyn Bevan (former Director of Research and Learning at the Exploratorium) just published an expanded literature review of the research on Making for the National Academies of Science committee on Out-of-School Time STEM. Though practice is still way ahead of research in Making and Tinkering, this new paper references 66 different studies, many of them are new ones published in the last 18 months. Recent publications document how STEM-Rich Making supports the development of STEM learning identities, deepens engagement with STEM concepts and practices, and leverages learners' cultural resources. The paper was published in the journal Studies in Science Education, and it might be of interest to anyone interested in the connections between research and practice in our making and tinkering programs. You can download it by clicking here."

"Coding books for kids are a fun way to spark an interest in web design, game making and programming. Although much of this information is available online, presenting information in a book format can help kids improve their literacy skills, and give them an easy reference without having to search. Some of the books are 'how to' manuals, while others are more interactive workbooks. There are also younger kid-friendly "lift the flap" books, that encourage little hands to explore and learn. Here is a run down of 10 of the coolest coding books for young learners."

"While brain training games and apps may not live up to their hype, it is well established that certain other activities and lifestyle choices can have neurological benefits that promote overall brain health and may help to keep the mind sharp as we get older. One of these is musical training. Research shows that learning to play a musical instrument is beneficial for children and adults alike, and may even be helpful to patients recovering from brain injuries. Competition: tell us your innovative transport idea… and win an iPadPro Read more "Music probably does something unique," explains neuropsychologist Catherine Loveday of the University of Westminster. "It stimulates the brain in a very powerful way, because of our emotional connection with it." Playing a musical instrument is a rich and complex experience that involves integrating information from the senses of vision, hearing, and touch, as well as fine movements, and learning to do so can induce long-lasting changes in the brain. Professional musicians are highly skilled performers who spend years training, and they provide a natural laboratory in which neuroscientists can study how such changes - referred to as experience-dependent plasticity - occur across their lifespan."

"Below are two handy visuals we published awhile ago featuring what we think are some of the best educational web tools and iPad apps curated specifically for librarians. The web tools are organized into the following categories: Database portals, research tools, curation tools, animated video tools, poster creation tools, note taking tools, timeline creation tools, tools communicate with parents, presentation tools and reference tools. "

What changes when we refer to ourselves or our students as members of the community of thinkers and learners that they are apprenticed to? What changes when we are mindful in our use of a language of identity?

"The Definition Of Bloom's Taxonomy, I said, "In one sentence, Bloom's Taxonomy is a hierarchical ordering of cognitive skills that can, among countless other uses, help teachers teach and students learn." Bloom's Revised Taxonomy is simply an update to the original taxonomy that made expanded on the vision of the original while revising the language and hierarchy of the popular Cognitive Process Dimension (what are referred to as the 'levels' of Bloom's Taxonomy)."

"Math anxiety refers to intense feelings of apprehension in the face of having to solve mathematical problems and can have important consequences both academically and professionally. Indeed, many basic life skills, like setting and sticking to a budget or filing one's taxes are, for many people, an endeavor fraught with anxiety and discomfort."

"WINTER GARDEN, Fla. - On the wall of a classroom that is home to the West Orange High School TikTok club, large loopy words are scrawled across a whiteboard: "Wanna be TikTok famous? Join TikTok club." It's working. "There's a lot of TikTok-famous kids at our school," said Amanda DiCastro, who is 14 and a freshman. "Probably 20 people have gotten famous off random things." The school is on a quiet palm-tree-lined street in a town just outside Orlando. A hallway by the principal's office is busy with blue plaques honoring the school's A.P. Scholars. Its choir director, Jeffery Redding, won the 2019 Grammy Music Educator Award. Amanda was referring to a different kind of stardom: on TikTok, a social media app where users post short funny videos, usually set to music, that is enjoying a surge in popularity among teenagers around the world and has been downloaded 1.4 billion times, according to SensorTower. "

"Last week, Mona Lisa smiled. A big, wide smile, followed by what appeared to be a laugh and the silent mouthing of words that could only be an answer to the mystery that had beguiled her viewers for centuries. A great many people were unnerved. Ars Technica Join Ars Technica and Get Our Best Tech Stories DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX. SIGN ME UP Will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy Mona's "living portrait," along with likenesses of Marilyn Monroe, Salvador Dali, and others, demonstrated the latest technology in deepfakes-seemingly realistic video or audio generated using machine learning. Developed by researchers at Samsung's AI lab in Moscow, the portraits display a new method to create credible videos from a single image. With just a few photographs of real faces, the results improve dramatically, producing what the authors describe as "photorealistic talking heads." The researchers (creepily) call the result "puppeteering," a reference to how invisible strings seem to manipulate the targeted face. And yes, it could, in theory, be used to animate your Facebook profile photo. But don't freak out about having strings maliciously pulling your visage anytime soon. "Nothing suggests to me that you'll just turnkey use this for generating deepfakes at home. Not in the short-term, medium-term, or even the long-term," says Tim Hwang, director of the Harvard-MIT Ethics and Governance of AI Initiative. The reasons have to do with the high costs and technical know-how of creating quality fakes-barriers that aren't going away anytime soon."

"A very popular buzz phrase on the education scene for a while now is growth mindset. We reference it repeatedly. We tweet about it and try to instill the value of failing in the learning process to students. Unfortunately, many of us are talking the talk, but not walking the walk when it comes to growth mindset in the learning process-especially in grading practices."

"The phrase "artificial Intelligence" was coined by pointy-heads at MIT in 1955. Back then, it referred to an obscure field of computer science devoted to then-hypothetical programs that could engage in tasks that "require high-level mental processes such as: perceptual learning, memory organization, and critical reasoning." Fast-forward to 2023: While AI has been a murmur in tech circles for the last few years, those conversations really get loud until the commercial release of products like Chat GPT and DALL-e. Now everyone is talking about AI, everywhere you go-hyping it, demonizing it, fearing it-but most of all, misunderstanding it. This is partly because it's a complex subject-we don't even agree on what "intelligence" is, let alone "artificial intelligence"-but another reason so many are getting AI wrong essentially comes down to that familiar villain capitalism. With the explosion in popular interest, advertisers and marketers are using terms like "AI," "AI-powered," and "artificial intelligence" as a selling point so much, they're beginning to lose what little meaning they once had."

"In 2006 there was a term that started to grow in the United States-- STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). The basis of the STEM movement was the growing concern that our students were not prepared for the high-tech jobs of the future. Just a year later a well-know researcher, Georgette Yakman, announced the need to include the arts in STEM programs; thus STEM became STEAM. Georgette took the inclusion of the arts and expanded on how it relates to the other STEM subjects. Her well-know quote is "Science and technology, interpreted through engineering and the arts, all based in elements of mathematics." This is a rich beginning to our dive into the 21st century job market... but! We have lost sight of one very important aspect of our education and all jobs, be they high-tech, low-tech, or no-tech. What about the importance of reading? Without the ability to read and write, there is not a job to be found for which STEM or STEAM education is going to be enough preparation. ELA, or English Language Arts, is a critical component of the core standards. There are also standards that help reference reading and writing for science and the technical subjects. The notion seems to be that reading is still a critical element in any student's success. Why not give it its proper place... STEM to STEAM to STREAM, standing for Science, Technology, Reading, Engineering, Arts and Math. "