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"The simple truth is that turning students on to nonfiction reading - proving that articles from sources like Popular Science and Gizmodo and National Geographic can be JUST as amazing as The Hunger Games or The Lightning Thief or The Lunar Chronicles - is probably the MOST important contribution that I can make to the academic and intellectual growth of my students. Being exposed to high interest articles from a wide range of fields - space science, biology, chemistry, earth science - might just introduce kids to personal passions and future professions.  Seeing science in action turns what could be just another boring subject in school into an interesting career worth pursuing.  Just as importantly, exposing kids to high interest nonfiction text on a regular basis will build their comfort level with a genre that will increasingly define the reading that they do as middle schoolers, high schoolers and adults. So I'm trying something new this year:  I'm going to use Remind - a free service that allows teachers to send out text and/or email updates to parents and students - to share two or three interesting science current events every week."

"It should be an easy question: What's Canada's geographic centre? But groups in Manitoba and Nunavut say they're right."

"In much the same way that Facebook swept through the dorm rooms of America's college students a decade ago, Yik Yak is now taking their smartphones by storm. Its enormous popularity on campuses has made it the most frequently downloaded anonymous social app in Apple's App Store, easily surpassing competitors like Whisper and Secret. At times, it has been one of the store's 10 most downloaded apps. Like Facebook or Twitter, Yik Yak is a social media network, only without user profiles. It does not sort messages according to friends or followers but by geographic location or, in many cases, by university. Only posts within a 1.5-mile radius appear, making Yik Yak well suited to college campuses. Think of it as a virtual community bulletin board - or maybe a virtual bathroom wall at the student union. It has become the go-to social feed for college students across the country to commiserate about finals, to find a party or to crack a joke about a rival school. Much of the chatter is harmless. Some of it is not."

"Historic Maps in K-12 Classrooms. This resource for K-12 teachers and students developed by the Hermon Dunlap Smith Center for the History of Cartography at the Newberry Library is designed to bring historically significant map documents into your classroom. Inside are high quality images of historic map documents that illustrate the geographical dimensions of American history. "

Woices is a FREE internet service that allows people to create, share and consume echoes, audio records which are linked to a very specific geographical location or real world object. Woices ultimate goal is to extend reality by creating a new layer of audio information, what we call the echoesphere, that will make the world a more interesting place.

Today, we're launching Google Insights for Search, a new product designed with the advertiser in mind. It provides more flexibility and functionality for advertisers and marketers to understand search behavior, and adds some cool new features like a world heat map to graphically display search volume and regional interest. Like Google Trends, you can just type in a search term to see search volume patterns over time, as well as the top related and rising searches. You'll also have the ability to compare search volume trends across multiple search terms, categories (commonly referred to as verticals), geographic regions, or specific time ranges.

Use the study of photography to explore with your students the power of images and their impact on history. In this lesson students learn about the history of American photography by selecting and critiquing photographs in an interactive and collaborative activity. The lesson also incorporates geographic literacy into the fine arts experience by challenging students to focus on the significance of the place, captured in time, that influenced events.

Drain the Ocean is a series that is currently airing on the National Geographic Channel. The companion website has some excellent resources for science teachers.

"Part of what makes games great is how subjective our enjoyment of them can be. The best games unravel in different ways for different people; we play them differently and in different contexts, changing what they mean to us. Unfortunately, when we evaluate games for the classroom we often don't consider how mutable they are. We see them as either containing a certain amount of educational content or not. Some games fit into this model, sure. But for games that are more akin to, say, modeling clay than quizzes -- the learning value is up for grabs; they need people to give them shape and context. On its face, Geoguessr -- a geography guessing game that tosses players into random parts of the world (using Google's Street View) -- doesn't seem to have much traditional educational value. There's not much to be memorized and used on a typical geography test. Players guess where they are rather than know it, and guessing is bad, right? Not quite. Because what Geoguessr gets kids to do is think about what the essence of geography is. It asks the player to consider "place" in every sense, not just from the perspective of a geographer. It asks the player to think like an anthropologist, a scientist, indeed - a detective. In fact, it's one of my go-to examples of "21st century literacy," that notoriously murky way of looking at the world that's tough to understand, let alone teach."

"This week Epic! offered classroom teachers and school librarians in the U.S. and Canada free, forever, single subscription access to its iPad app, an "ever-growing library of high-quality children's books from some of the world's best publishers." Epic! calls itself the first "All-You-Can-Read" eBook service for kids. It currently offers thousands of digital titles from 40 publishing partners, including HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, National Geographic, Kids Can Press, Blue Apple Books. The growing digital collection of titles for ages 2 through 12 includes many recent and award-winning books and represents a mix of fiction and nonfiction. New titles are added each week."

"Here are some great iPad apps to put the world at your kids fingertips. Using these apps, kids will get to explore the geographical and cultural richness of the world and learn interesting facts and information about different continents and cities. Information includes things such as population, languages spoken, flags, cultural mores, and many more. Some of these apps also provide reference maps and 3D imagery."

" Looking for a little old timey computer nostalgia with a dose of espionage and a taste of geographical flavor? Well, gumshoe, you are ready for your next assignment from the ACME detective agency. This time Carmen Sandiego is sneaking around the world via Google Earth. The Crown Jewels Caper is the first of a series of new Where on Google Earth is Carmen Sandiego? games being developed by Google Earth in partnership with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Yup, you still fly around in chase, question local witnesses, and, of course, respond to questions about geography, history and culture as you gather intel about Carmen's location. But this time you get the way-better-than-DOS ability to zoom in and explore the sites. Coming soon are The Tutankhamun's Mask and The Keys to the Kremlin capers."

"While the original layout for the app was quite straight-forward, Snapchat has now evolved into a jack of all trades. The app offers direct communication like texting, calling, video messaging, and more with friends and family in a one-on-one messenger style, lets people record and post their videos and photos to their Snapchat Story that last 24-hours while giving people the option to save their Snapchat Stories to their camera roll, and delivers current news and information from credible sources and entertainment sites like IGN, The Economist, Refinery29, Mashable, Harper's Bazaar, VICE, National Geographic, CNN, The New York Times, and so, so much more."