This is the first in a series of articles from guest writer Stephen Berer focusing on literacies, fluencies, and projects for museums and classrooms. The following series of articles will discuss how to successfully use museums as multimedia classrooms, and how to bring the best of the museum experience back into your classroom.

Geoconferencing marries two well-known concepts: video conferencing and geocaching-an outdoor scavenger hunt in which students use GPS devices and mobile devices to travel to specific coordinates in order to locate hidden items known as travel bugs. Travel bugs have unique codes that owners and participants can use to track a bug's movement on geocaching.com.

http://edudemic.com/2012/11/students-better-online-researchers/

Google is usually one of the first places students turn to when tasked with an assignment. Whether it's for research, real-time results, or just a little digital exploration … it's important they know how to properly Google. Lucky for teachers (and students, of course), Google has a handy set of lesson plans that are just waiting to be unleashed upon the leaders of tomorrow.

While I understand there's a LOT more to research than just Googling, it's important to note that this is where nearly all students start their research. Therefore, it's a critical skill if they're going to start down the right paths.

Below are 15 lesson plans courtesy of Google designed to make students better online researchers. They're organized by difficulty and meant to help students (and everyone) become better online searchers.

Geography frequently takes a back seat to history in the social studies classroom, but teaching geographic literacy is essential if students are going to understanding the challenges and opportunities of our complex world. We have created 10 activities for teaching about geography using Times content, all related to the National Geography Standards, which were produced by the Geography Education National Implementation Project. Our list is a grab-bag of ideas - from designing maps to analyzing border conflicts - and teachers can use the activities in any order, or as a road map for tracking ongoing coverage of geography-related issues.

Futurist website nowandnext.com put together this awesome infographic predicting all of the technologies, behaviors, and ideas that will probably be distant memories by 2050. Among their predictions: no more retirement four years from now, no more secretaries six years from now, and no more free parking or sit-down breakfasts by 2019. The European Union is seen as surviving the current crisis before extinct in 2039. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/everything-that-will-go-extinct-in-the-next-40-years-2012-8#ixzz2BRtiTeVD

Seven free resources for teaching about the election Teachers, students can benefit from these interactive tools The 2012 presidential election is drawing near, and educators across the country are using campaign efforts as a chance to teach students about the democratic process, the major issues in the race, and how these issues might affect students now and in the future.

Online game lets students slash, tax their way to balanced budget University of Maryland (UM) College Park students last week finagled with federal spending and deficit reduction so that, at the very worst, they could delay economic Armageddon in the United States.