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There are many tools available for students to publish their ideas to in the year 2015 and you no longer need a great knowledge of HTML and CSS. With the surge of online blogging and publication systems, students now have many opportunities to express their thoughts and ideas with the added chance of getting global feedback on those insights. The author of this post offers a list of some of the online publication tools they recommend that enable students to post their creative impressions on."

Good article about Makerspaces (& STEM /STEAM) and schools. The discussion puts perspective into the equation. The authors talk about three values of student learning and empowerment: agency, authenticity, and audience and these are used as a basis for decisions about what happens in classrooms. I like the last few sentences. "Defining making in education in terms of tools, spaces, or disciplines is insufficient. Learning through making is a philosophical approach that can affect classes across the curriculum and schools across the globe. It's time to change the paradigm."

"This article, reprinted from the June 2014 issue of Teacher Librarian: The Journal for School Library Professionals, is a thoughtful and insightful  examination of the philosophy and pedagogical underpinnings of the maker movement.  The authors' analysis and argument are strong, and the benefits they tout are inspiring."

The author of the post has created a Symbaloo page of free Image sources. The page is linked from here

Another interesting way to use the technology with a good explanation about how the author did this.

Many games and quizzes, all based around literature including those about: authors, genres, opening lines, last lines, particular novels, poets and poetry, nursery rhymes and even words used in novels.

"The goal of this website is simple: to list the series of every book in order. We provide the book series in order by author(ie: Lee Child), and then in order of the character or series(ie: .Jack Reacher) Where applicable, we provide you with both the publication order of the books written, as well as the chronological order of the books." May be useful for school libraries as it has YA titles as well.

By Ken Haycock - Published in 'World Libraries' Vol 19 2009 "Although a popular focus for librarians, advocacy is often misunderstood and rarely evaluated. It is not publicity, public relations, messaging, marketing, or lobbying alone. It is a planned, deliberate, and sustained effort to develop understanding and support incrementally over time. Greatest success comes through positive relationships, employing proven strategies for social influence - consistency and commitment, reciprocation, authority, liking, social proof, and scarcity."

"A list of some short stories with surprising endings that could be used for learning or teaching careful reading. Sometimes the author tries to give the reader a fair chance to figure out what's going to happen. Even though a twist ending is supposed to give the reader a jolt, in hindsight it should seem perfectly reasonable. The best ones seem inevitable and seamless."

Some ideas here to get you started. "What draws teens into a story more than anything? Voice. They want to read about a teen that's going through intense experiences--whether it's realistic fiction or fantasy. There are many brilliant YA audiobooks. The author shares a few of their favorites.

"Creating comic strips can be an effective method of communicating for the young and a great way for teachers to encourage reluctant writers to start producing stories. There are a growing number of free comic strip websites available online where visitors can easily digitally create their own comic strip story." The author shares their experiences of a couple of comic strip websites that they have tried out recently.

"Plagiarism is presenting someone else's work as your own. It can include copying and pasting text from a website into a project you're working on, or taking an idea from a book without including a citation to give credit to the book's author. Plagiarism is common, and the Internet has made it even more common. However, if you are careful to cite your sources it's not too difficult to avoid plagiarism."

"A good fact-checking site uses neutral wording, provides unbiased sources to support its claims and reliable links, says Frank Baker, author of Media Literacy in the K-12 Classroom and creator of the Media Literacy Clearinghouse. He adds, "Readers should apply the same critical thinking/questioning to fact-check sites." This post offers an annotated list of 10 fact and bias-checking sites that can be shared with students. Here's a rundown of 10 of the top fact- and bias-checking sites to share with your students."

Blog post discussing this literature "For the most part, the authors fully realized that these books should be classified as fiction, and they liked the term "informational fiction" because it acknowledged all the research they'd done and that the books were mostly faithful to the facts. But the Library of Congress labelled these books "juvenile literature" (the term they use for nonfiction). And in most cases, publishers and reviewers called the books narrative nonfiction."

" DET site page assist learning from home. They will continue to update this page in the coming weeks. On this page: Learning continuity contingency planning: early childhood and Learning continuity contingency planning: schools Online options Offline options Tips for remote curriculum delivery  Learning continuity contingency planning: early childhood When planning for children's learning continuity in the event of closure, early childhood education and care services may consider: identifying ways early childhood teachers and educators can initiate group or individual contact with children to maintain learning opportunities implementing activities with children by using available technologies maintaining contact with families to discuss and track the wellbeing of children and discuss the progress of children's development identifying ways educators can improve the implementation and documentation of the service's program and maintain educator practice. There are resources services can provide to support parents and carers to engage in learning activities with their children at home: Play-based learning for pre-schoolers - provides suggestions for good structured and unstructured play experiences for 3 - 5 year olds How to build literacy skills from birth to year 2 - includes tips on how to help build children's skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing How to build numeracy skills from birth to year 2 - includes tips on how to build children's skills in maths, measurement and patterns Building STEM skills for children - includes ways to engage children with STEM related experiences. Raising Children Network also has a range of learning activities for pre-schoolers. It includes tips and ideas as well as videos of drawing, writing, storytelling, counting and other activities that can be done at home. Services may also want to give parents information about talking to their children about COVID-19. For example: UNICEF's How to talk to

An interesting article comparing the ways in which we read in print and onscreen. The author discusses the results he gathered between 2013 and 201. He obtained data from 429 university students drawn from five countries (the U.S., Japan, Germany, Slovenia and India). The students in my study reported that print was aesthetically more enjoyable, saying things such as "I like the smell of paper" or that reading in print is "real reading." What's more, print gave them a sense of where they were in the book - they could "see" and "feel" where they were in the text.

"An ongoing list of the best stock photo sites the author has come across."

"The 7th edition of the Scholastic Kids and Family Reading Report was released last month. Scholastic presents the results of a survey, managed by YouGov, of 2758 adults and children. This biannual report is, I think, one of the best windows into what families are doing and thinking when it comes to kids' reading. I'm in the process of going through the material and there are certainly causes for optimism overall. However, one of the major  findings hit me hard: The Decline by Nine". Author discusses some results and how she intends to overcome them

"A collection of 15 writers - some alive, some long gone - reading their own words (all fiction, with the exception of William Faulkner, whose Nobel Prize speech is included because it's now often taught alongside his novels and stories, and Joan Didion's memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking). "

"The best way to choose a good book is through your child."