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"When you are lucky enough to travel and visit with librarians all over the world, you realize the power and the talents of our community. One thing is clear to me: as librarians, we haven't yet leveraged our true power as global connectors.  Lately I've been thinking about our yet-to-be-realized opportunities and how we might realize them. You see, I see convergence. Never before have we had truly effective tools for synchronous conferencing and media-rich asynchronous group discussion. Never before have we been able to leverage our emerging online communities of practice.   Never before has participation been so possible.  Never before has our world been so flat. Never before has it be more obvious that the prefix geo might amplify themes in any curriculum. One of the titles in Heidi Hayes Jacobs' recent Contemporary Perspectives on Literacy series is Global Literacy.  This video introduction describes how the author/editor sees the intersection of three critical literacies: digital literacy, media literacy and global literacy"

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As is required of all women in their 30s, I am in a book club. At the first meeting of this group, one poor unsuspecting woman mentioned that she had listened to that month's selection instead of reading it. That, the rest of the group decided together, is definitely cheating. Never mind that no one could exactly articulate how or why it was cheating; it just felt like it was, and others would agree. She never substituted the audiobook for the print version again (or, if she did, she never again admitted it). This question - whether or not listening to an audiobook is "cheating" - is one University of Virginia psychologist Daniel Willingham gets fairly often, especially ever since he published a book, in 2015, on the science of reading. (That one was about teaching children to read; he's got another book out next spring about adults and reading.) He is very tired of this question, and so, recently, he wrote a blog post addressing it. (His opening line: "I've been asked this question a lot and I hate it.") If, he argues, you take the question from the perspective of cognitive psychology - that is, the mental processes involved - there is no real difference between listening to a book and reading it. So, according to that understanding of the question: No, audiobooks are not cheating.

"Data Never Sleeps 2.0 How much data is created on the web every minute? "

"3 Reasons Why Faculty Meetings Are a Waste of Time By Peter DeWitt on April 10, 2015 6:50 AM Faculty Meeting.png Many school leaders walk into a faculty meeting with a single idea of how they want to move forward and walk out with the same idea. That's telling... John Hattie talks a great deal about the Politics of Distraction, which means we focus on adult issues, and not enough time...if ever...on learning. That is happening around the U.S. for sure. Recently the Assembly of NY State only furthered those distractions, which you can read about here, which means that school leaders and teachers have to work harder to maintain a focus on learning. Quite frankly, well before mandates and accountability, school leaders focused on the politics of distraction and not on learning. Compliance is not new in schools. Faculty meetings were seen as a venue to get through and something that teachers were contractually obligated to attend. During these days of endless measures of compliance, principals can do a great deal to make sure they don't model the same harmful messages to staff that politicians are sending to teachers. Jim Knight calls that "Freedom within form." In Talk Like Ted, Carmine Gallo quotes Marissa Mayer (CEO of Yahoo) when he writes, "Creativity is often misunderstood. People often think of it in terms of artistic work - unbridled, unguided effort that leads to beautiful effect. If you look deeper, however, you'll find that some of the most inspiring art forms - haikus, sonatas, religious paintings- are fraught with constraints. (p. 190)" Clearly, constraints have a wide definition. There is a clear difference between the constraints of compliance and the stupidity of the legislation just passed by the assembly in NY. As we move forward, principals still are charged...or at least should be...with the job of making sure they offer part...inspiration, part...teacher voice...and a great deal of focus on learning. There is never a more important tim

"When Sonja Khan started college, she'd never thought of studying computer science. But when she heard from friends that the intro class was good, she decided to give it a try - and then ended up majoring in it. Four years later, she has just graduated with a computer science degree, is pursuing a master's degree and is headed to a summer internship at Facebook. "I didn't even know anything about the field before; I had never considered it," she said. "I signed up for it pretty much on a whim and really enjoyed it." Ms. Khan's story reads like a dream for universities and technology companies - where only about 15 percent of computer science graduates and technical workers are women. The industry has been under pressure to recruit more. The difficult question, though, is how to encourage more women on paths like Ms. Khan's"

At PodCamp, people arrive with varying levels of knowledge and understanding about the new media community tools that people are using to create relationships with their audiences. Some have never blogged before. Others have never recorded an audio podcast. Plenty have yet to videoblog. The purpose of this section is to provide a list of resources, and also video tutorials that YOU create to help people understand what you know, and give them a leg up on learning and understanding how to use this stuff for their own interests.

"Maybe you have never heard about screencasting, have not paid much attention to it and/or have never tried to create one of your own. Or maybe you have plenty of experience in creating your own screencasts and incorporated screencasting into your lessons or assessments before. Maybe you feel screencasting to be a basic, one of the most important or an essential teaching and learning skill for you as an educator or for your students to have."

"Anyone who has been to any of my presentations in the past couple of years knows that I'm passionate about teaching search skills. Not only search skills, but how search can and is truly changing our world. Search has the possibility to change our classrooms tomorrow because we can ask interesting questions that we never could ask before. If you are asking your students the same questions today that you asked before Google, it's time to updated your questions. Things have changed….the world has changed and questions and information are the main reason why. I consider Dan Russell from Google the father of search today. This guy understands how our world is changing because we can ask questions we never could before. In this TEDx Talk Dan talks not only about how search is changing our world but more importantly the reading strategies we need to be teaching today to our students around how to read digital information. Dan, through research of his own, goes on to show that only 51% of educators know the digital information reading strategy of "Find". That's just one strategy! There are others he talks about in this video. If nothing else this video has fueled my passion even more on why every teacher needs to know and understand this new digital world of information."

"Currently, there seems to be a gap between what our schools and universities teach and the lifelong learning skills students must learn to master on their own. And yet, the need for students to master lifelong skills has never been greater. Corporate leaders confirm their importance for promotion and advancement, while economists contend these skills hold the key to countering projected job losses due to automation. With all the buzz around the Common Core, MOOCs, and blended learning, it's time to prioritize skills that prepare students to learn for life. With schools like Summit Public Schools and Lindsay Unified making efforts to experiment with new approaches to learning, there's an opportunity to focus on a new set of skills. I believe these skills can be broken into three categories: Reflection, Research, and Resolving. Grounded in educator Malcolm Knowles' definition of learning, these 3Rs take students beyond the centuries-old, subject-specific 3Rs of reading, (w)riting, and (a)rithmetic. Armed with them, learners can thrive in a world where learning never ends."

"My students have noticed that I often say "You'll never see that in a math book". Some of the topics we explore take a twist and some of the methods I use to teach are a little unorthodox (but they help). Students affectionately call this a "Yencafied" lesson strategy, and often add a hashtag (#yencafy) in their notes! Come the end of this school year, I mentioned to my classes that I'd been thinking about this "never-see-that-in-a-math-book" theme, and I decided perhaps some of these strategies should show up in math books… and that these books should be authored by them. They loved the idea!"

"For too many students, doing mathematics means just plugging numbers into a memorized formula to get an answer. And because they don't understand the formulas they're using, they often fail to use the right one. Take a look at Isaac's work below, for example. He is a fifth grade student who tried to find the surface area of a rectangular prism by incorrectly adapting a previously memorized formula for calculating perimeter. He calculated two times the length plus two times the width (2L + 2W) and tried to account for the height by multiplying it by 4, then adding it to the previous sum. Unfortunately, Isaac is not alone in this type of approach. Students who use formulas by rote may never come to see mathematics as sense-making and may never understand the formulas they use. And there are so many formulas to memorize! Teachers who prematurely introduce students to formulas risk denying them opportunities to develop the necessary conceptual foundations for mathematical understanding."

It seems that we never have enough of it and the result is a feeling of constant pressure to do things quickly. As a result, we fall into a pattern of making quick decisions, with incomplete information and then proceed to take hasty action and seek short cuts. Our busy lives, the business of those around us, the schedules we set ourselves and the constant stream of distractions and interruptions ensure we have very little time to do things well and we never seem to get things done. 

"With March being National Reading Month, I thought it would be the perfect time to immerse ourselves in STEM-infused literature! Books are so important to growing a STEM mindset, especially with the earliest of learners. Books open doors and windows to worlds and experiences which many students may never have the opportunity to enjoy in person; they give students examples of critical thinking, innovation, persistence, and creativity - all skills needed throughout a student's education and into their future careers. This month, instead of sharing my favorite STEM resources, I reached out to our STEMtastic Discovery Education STEM Community for help, and the response was overwhelming! Asking educators about their favorite books is like asking a chef about their favorite foods; you receive incredibly extensive lists that stretch your thinking to places you never imagined. What started as a list with three categories grew organically to encompass the breadth of literature supporting a STEM mindset in students, educators, and the everyday population."

"Data is on overdrive. It's being generated at break-neck pace, flooding out of the dozens of connected devices we use every day, and it shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, the number of internet users has grown over a billion in the last five years, more than half of the world's web traffic now comes from mobile phones. In its fifth year, Data Never Sleeps shows exactly how much data is created every single minute. From tweets to swipes, likes to shares, the digital world is exploding. Have a look."

"I never really learned how to cook. Other than scrambling eggs over a fire during Boy Scout camping trips, it just wasn't something I was taught growing up. Because I never learned how to make a healthy meal for myself, I ended up eating a lot more fast food than I should've-especially when I was young and early in my career. That's not the case for Robert Hand's students. Robert works at Mount Vernon High School, which is about an hour north of Seattle. He teaches family and consumer science-what we would've called "home economics" when I was in school. In other words, he helps his students learn how to take care of themselves after high school, including how to make a nutritious and delicious homemade meal. In just six years of teaching, Robert has had such a big impact on his school that he was named the 2019 Teacher of the Year for my home state of Washington. He was nice enough to visit my office earlier this year and show me how to make one of his students' favorite dishes: barbecue chicken."

"I am beyond elated - our PreK-6 elementary school received monies, through our district's Computer Science Resolution 2025, to create a STEAM (science, technology, arts, math) makerspace. I never thought our Title 1 school would get the opportunity to create such a space. I never thought I would get the opportunity to help create a fully equipped makerspace. A few of use spent the past few weeks rearranging our library so that one side contains our books and the other our STEAM materials."

"5 Free Ways to Never Miss a Twitter @Reply"

We'll be brief: Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words ("For sale: baby shoes, never worn.") and is said to have called it his best work. So we asked sci-fi, fantasy, and horror writers from the realms of books, TV, movies, and games to take a shot themselves.

Never leave the house without two things: 1. a Swiss Army knife, and 2. your camera. Why the knife? Because it's a multitasking tool that you can use a kajillion different ways. Why a camera? For exactly the same reason.