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The best way to improve children's performance in the classroom may be to take them out of it.

Social media. Web 2.0. You know what these things are and you take advantage of them every day on the net. Whether you're socializing on Facebook, updating Twitter, or just adding a new bookmark to Ma.gnolia, social media has become an integral part of our daily lives. However, that doesn't mean that it's something that everyone innately understands or knows how to use - especially when it comes to using it for marketing, PR, or other business-related purposes. That's why many of today's colleges and universities are now offering "social media" classes as an option for their students.

Author Daniel Pink discusses what it will take for students to succeed in an outsourced and automated world--and how schools should change their approach to education accordingly.

Only a handful of years ago, it was common to hear people laugh at Wikipedia. Anyone can edit it! How could you take it seriously? These days, just as blogs are, wikis are on their way to winning a reputation as serious publishing platforms.

With energy costs soaring to record levels, taking steps to reduce energy consumption isn't just good for the environment--it's also essential for the fiscal health of schools.

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.

We'd like to introduce you to an alternative way to communicate -- one that makes it easy to meet with the people you need to, when you need to -- all it takes is a web-enabled PC and something to say.

Take notes and share them right away!

Taking Center Stage-Act II (TCSII): Ensuring Success and Closing the Achievement Gap for All of California's Middle Grades Students promotes, illustrates, and supports the concepts embedded in the California Department of Education's (CDE) 12 Recommendations for Middle Grades Success. Created specifically for middle grades educators, the Web portal delivers developmentally responsive and research-based practices through videos, professional learning activities, and best practice vignettes focused on the young adolescent.

Review, video tutorial and some tips on a great tool for developing online rresearch, note taking and essay writing.

"Classroom Conundrum: Take One Tablet, One Laptop, or Both"

"Man, it's a great time to be a note-taker. For a couple of decades-first as a student, then as a professional journalist-I filled notebook after notebook with notes, covering classes, press conferences, interviews, and more. When I was done, I'd have to find someplace to store them until (most likely) I'd throw them out. The notes I did keep? Useless. My on-the-fly handwriting is a horrible thing. The result: A lot of personal and professional history gone to waste."

Now, you can take your password along with you using the portable version of password manager. This program can run on your PC without installation and therefore can be launched from a flash drive.

"If you were to take a glance around a classroom in which no smartphone policy has been set, it would be easy to conclude that texting at school is nothing but a distraction. Just look at all of those bent heads and rapidly moving thumbs! Take a look at the caliber of those texts - "wat r u doing l8er" - and it would also be easy to assume texting will one day bring about the end of literacy and analytical thought, if it hasn't already. This may be true - and it may also not be. The studies in this area are even newer than texting itself, and results are mixed, with one study indicating that texting makes students worse in one academic area while another study finds the opposite. Let's take a closer look at the good and the bad of texting, as well as at a few ways you can harness the benefits for the good of your classroom."

"Unfortunately, the way computer science is currently taught in high school tends to throw students into the programming deep end, reinforcing the notion that code is just for coders, not artists or doctors or librarians. But there is good news: Researchers have been experimenting with new ways of teaching computer science, with intriguing results. For one thing, they've seen that leading with computational thinking instead of code itself, and helping students imagine how being computer savvy could help them in any career, boosts the number of girls and kids of color taking-and sticking with-computer science. Upending our notions of what it means to interface with computers could help democratize the biggest engine of wealth since the Industrial Revolution."