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"I've been writing about apps for a long time, but they are not of equal importance. Microsoft's free Seeing AI app may be a game changer for people with visual impairments.  The research project is designed to turn "turn the visual world into an audio experience," narrating the world for those who cannot see it, in real time using artificial intelligence."

"Dr. Alison Head and her Project Information Literacy (PIL) research team recently released the findings of a new national study on college students and how they consume and interact with a vast and deeply polarized news ecosystem. The News Study findings are the result of an online survey of 5,844 respondents and telephone interviews with 37 participants from 11 diverse colleges and universities. The research also included computational analysis of Twitter data associated with respondents, as well as a Twitter panel of 135,891 college-age people. In the study's press release, Dr. Head shared: News is fast, social, and visual and typically delivered to students in posts, alerts, tweets, and conversations that stream at them throughout the day. And young news consumers are left to assemble and interpret what news means, while many take this evaluative step, others do not. So what? The News Study's Executive Summary offers Five Research Takeaways as well as Six Recommendations."

"I've been exploring the new PuppetMaster app and I am enchanted. I see serious potential for this free, intuitive, open-ended tool to encourage creativity across a wide range of ages, from pre-school to adult! PuppetMaster allows children to animate anything and to record their action and sound to create movies. It encourages the creation of visual art in any medium and it encourages active storytelling and sharing. And the learning curve is tiny!"

"In an effort to prepare the next generation for the future, school and public librarians, as well as teachers and educators at community-run and for-profit camps, have answered the call to teach kids code. But many now recognize it's not enough for students simply to know how to write code. The capacity to build a product or solve a problem requires an entirely different literacy. With this in mind, the focus of coding education is shifting from teaching the specific skill of coding to teaching computational thinking-or the ability to follow a step-by-step process to solve a problem. Technology education programs from CSforAll to Code.org to the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), as well as employers such as Google, all embrace this new context and focus. The future workforce will require a solid grounding in the discipline of thinking computationally, says Chris Stephenson, Google's head of computer science education strategy. She compares this moment to the epistemological shift that happened before the Enlightenment, when scribes guarded reading as a skill only for the chosen few."

"How can educators teach elementary and middle school students to be critical consumers of news and media? We asked media literacy experts-teachers and librarians-for their best tips. Here's what they had to say."

"I don't think I know anyone who isn't in a search rut. We usually begin our search in one of two search giants. But while they may not have achieved verb status, we have other choices well worth discovering. And it's kinda in our ballpark to ensure that appropriate choices are easily available on both desktops and mobile devices. Today, I'd like to share a few search engine options that might be worth sharing in a curation with your learning community. "

"Your voice launches the immersive audio adventure that is one part Oregon Trail, one part Back to the Future, one part Choose Your Own Adventure, and one part classic radio theater. Guardians of History players become Time Travel Agents to explore historical civilizations and learn about the characters and institutions that influenced them. The free, choice-driven adventure is designed for all ages-both students and enthusiasts. A version is designed for players under 13. Time travel begins when you enable tell your smart speaker-Amazon Echo or Google Home, either "Alexa, open Guardians of History," or "OK Google, open Guardians of History." And, if you are using a screen-enabled device like Echo Show, Echo Spot or Google Home Hub, you will be able to see supporting illustrations to enrich the story."

"Our recent article on reading levels and the dangers of using strictly prescribed leveling systems in libraries for young readers sparked much dialogue and debate. One of the most popular and widely used reading systems is the "A to Z" gradient, developed by Irene C. Fountas, professor in the School of Education at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA, and Gay Su Pinnell, professor in the School of Teaching and Learning at Ohio State University. Both researchers have been adamant that their leveling system was designed as "a teacher's tool, not a child's label." We caught up with Fountas and Pinnell, who jointly gave their perspective on leveling, libraries, reading comprehension, and what they say to districts mandating leveled collections. "

"Over the course of the past couple of years, I've become particularly fond of a few Chrome tools that I consider too good to miss.  These would be handy across the board, but especially in Google Classroom and Chromebook environments. "

"As the 2017/2018 school year approaches, it would be good to know about a couple of documents/frameworks that will be influencing the ways we teach with, learn with and support our classroom educator and coach partners."

"The annual K12 Horizon Report regularly identifies and profiles six key trends, six significant challenges, and six developments in educational technology likely to impact teaching and learning. This year, especially, you will find many opportunities for connections to our own mission and practice. But while this year's K12 report practically screams school libraries to me, it does so rather quietly in PDF. This chart from page 9 presents, in summary, the 18 topics selected by the report's expert panel."

"More and more we communicate through video. And I'll bet you know the feeling when you record that very effective screencast or tutorial, and it just doesn't feel ready for primetime. Post-production is what makes your media feel professional and done. But not everyone has access to, or the chops to use, a robust video editor like Final Cut Pro or Adobe After Effects. And not everyone wants to spend the arduous time it sometimes takes to make a video product feel professionally spiffy. Typito is a relatively new video editing tool designed to be your time-saving, affordable, post-production friend.  It allows even rookie editors to create a little magic on top of the videos they shoot or collect."

"Pick a color, literally any color. Search engines come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Now there's one for those of us who are lovers (or seekers) of color. Simple and elegant and particularly speedy, Picular returns results in swatches. a palette of colors associated with your search terms. Select one of the swatches and you immediately copy the RGB color code to your clipboard."