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Wenger argues that there are three crucial characteristics of a community of practice: domain: a common interest that connects and holds together the community community: a community is bound by the shared activities they pursue (for example, meetings, discussions) around their common domain practice: members of a community of practice are practitioners; what they do informs their participation in the community; and what they learn from the community affects what they do.

Nearly 40% of parents with children aged 2-to-13 who read ebooks plan to purchase a new e-reading device for their children this holiday season

Goerge Barkouris (62), who found himself homeless for the first time in his life during the massive wave of unemployment in 2010, lost his home last November. Barkuris had worked for over 25 years in music and radio production but lost a contract with the public sector due to cuts in 2001. He then worked as a freelancer until 2008, but "when the crisis hit it was impossible to make money to pay for my house," he said. He has now found shelter in Klimaka’s hostel for homeless people in exchange for contributing to its street work program, which consists of riding Klimaka’s van around the streets of Athens, handing out food and other assistance to people in need.

Mixbook (or Mixbook for Educators) is a photo-based creation platform that offers hundreds of layouts and backgrounds to choose from along with customizable frames and text to make your book beautiful. Just pick a layout, drag-and-drop your photos into the photo slots, and edit to your heart's content.

Though the site's examples suggest using the books to gather wedding, travel, and baby albums, this program can absolutely used to create stories around historic photographs and artifacts, original art, to produce a class yearbook, to share an oral or personal history or journey, to tell the story of a field trip.  Mixbook for Educators now offers a secure collaborative environment for sharing their ebooks, as well as discounts on printed products, should you choose to print.  (A similar option is Scrapblog.)

Storybird, a collaborative storybook building space designed for ages 3-13, inspires young writers to create text around the work of professional artists and the collection of art is growing. Two (or more) people create a Storybird in a round robin fashion by writing their own text and inserting pictures. They then have the option of sharing their Storybird privately or publicly on the network. The final product can be printed (soon), watched on screen, played with like a toy, or shared through a worldwide library. Storybird is also a simple publishing platform for writers and artists that allows them to experiment, publish their stories, and connect with their fans.

The rights to be a creator, to govern and develop one's own knowledge, and to share with others are fundamental freedoms for the Internet age.

Although we find ourselves as travelers in the age of over sharing, it turns out we remain quite adept at avoiding the really tough topics.

Google’s Eric Schmidt recently stated that every two days we create as much information as we did from the beginning of civilization through 2003. Perhaps the sheer bulk of data makes it easier to suppress that information which we find overly unpleasant. Who’s got time for a victim in Afghanistan or end-of-life issues with all these Tweets coming in?

Between reality TV, 24-hour news, and the constant hammering of the stream, I am less likely to tackle seriously uncomfortable topics. I can bury myself in a mountain of incoming information. And if my stream is any indication, I’m not alone. For me, repression used to be a one man show. Now I am part of a broader movement — mass avoidance through social media.

Music inexperience, changed pattern of practice and performance anxiety are associated with playing-related problems in child instrumentalists and are therefore important issues for music education.

Research on adult musicians has adopted these models and identified individual intrinsic factors such as age and gender, music performance anxiety and enjoyment, extrinsic factors such as music practice habits and type of instrument played and intrinsic–extrinsic interaction factors such as playing posture, technique and student–teacher interaction which influence the development of PRMP.

The aim of this study was to describe the music practice of child instrumentalists and determine their associations with playing-related musculoskeletal problems (PRMP), accounting for gender and age

The most obvious takeaway, he said, was that "the age of the computer lab is kind of out," in which students travel out of their classrooms to log on.

The idea kids can access tools for learning 24 hours a day and can access learning not bound by the walls of the school is critical," Hobbs said. "It's indicative of what we mean by a 21st-century education."

Erikson’s Stages of Development  Erik Erikson, a German psychoanalyst heavily influenced by Sigmund Freud, explored three aspects of identity: the ego identity (self), personal identity (the personal idiosyncrasies that distinguish a person from another, social/cultural identity (the collection of social roles a person might play). Erikson’s psychosocial theory of development considers the impact of external factors, parents and society on personality development from childhood to adulthood. According to Erikson’s theory, every person must pass through a series of eight interrelated stages over the entire life cycle. Infant (Hope) – Basic Trust vs. Mistrust Toddler (Will) – Autonomy vs. Shame Preschooler (Purpose) – Initiative vs. Guilt School-Age Child (Competence) – Industry vs. Inferiority Adolescent (Fidelity) – Identity vs. Identity Diffusion Young Adult (Love) – Intimacy vs. Isolation Middle-aged Adult (Care) – Generativity vs. Self-absorption Older Adult (Wisdom) – Integrity vs. Despair