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A great overview of Lance's research into the effectiveness of libraries.  He answers the question: Do school libraries or librarians make a difference?  His answer (A HUGE YES!) is back by 14 years of remarkable research.  The point is proved.  But this information remains unknown to many principals and superintendents.  Anyone interested in 21st century teaching and learning will find this interview fascinating.

"Staying focused is harder than ever. Seriously. If you were a student a decade ago, your biggest distraction was likely AOL Instant Messenger or perhaps that party down the hall. Now there's texting, social networks, blogs, videos, podcasts, you get the idea. All of these are dangerous time-sucks when it comes to trying to get some proper studying done. If you've hit a few roadblocks during your time studying then this straightforward visual guide to the biggest study tips will help you out. It's especially useful for distracted students who have trouble figuring out how to balance their online travels (web surfing?) with their required studying."

" "Let's help them do great things with technology while avoiding the pitfalls.""

"Common Sense Media's service Graphite, which offers independent ratings and reviews of learning apps and websites, has compiled this list of the best arts apps for students. For complete reviews, and for each app's "Learning Rating," visit the Graphite website."

"The mind-body connection is widely accepted in health and wellness, inspiring people to practice yoga or meditation, and for competitive athletes to seek sports psychologists.  But what role does the mind-body connection play in the math classroom? Recently, a MIND Research Institute psychologist, mathematician and education researcher teamed up to explore decades of research into how our bodies can be involved in learning, and the ways that technology makes it easier than ever to put these powers to use in the classroom. This infographic presents highlights of what they found."

"Coding is the ability to write step by step instructions (programs) for a computer to understand to complete a task. The Hour of Code website has tons of ready to go online activities that get students to write code that results in a number of cool outcomes, such as making a monster dance, creating avatars, remixing music or making a game. When students complete these easy tutorials they learn these important skills- logic, problem solving, fitting puzzle pieces together, selection, instructional writing, editing, revision, and creation. Below are some great websites to find engaging coding projects that take an hour or less. Most require no registration! Just provide students with a quick introduction to the task on the projector and the link for them to get started. I would highly recommend doing the activity first. In the next post I will introduce you to unplugged activities, which get students to focus on specific coding skills you will notice in these activities, which include working with puzzles, providing good instructions, problem solving and algorithms."

This was a very interesting article. How can we use technology to augment critical thinking and ask students the right sort of questions to get them motivated to think? That's the sort of thing educational technology should be about, not just "answer the test question". Thank you for sharing!

"Below you will find 56 of the best math resource websites available. Parents and teachers of children 3 to 23 who are looking for videos, games, worksheets, printables, lessons, tutorials, calculators, worksheet generators, activities or interactives will likely find what they are looking for. "