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"What really works in schools and classrooms? How much difference can homework and class size make to a child's ability? Sarah Montague interviews John Hattie, Professor of Education at the University of Melbourne and Chair of the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership. Over 20 years, he carried out one of the biggest pieces of education research, compiling studies from previous decades and comparing the effect they have on attainment and ability. His work is ongoing, but the results show a league table of effectiveness. It reinforces things you might expect, such as the importance of teachers, but also offers some surprises that might have parents and teachers questioning their priorities."

"Published on 29 Nov 2014. Part one of a Library Q&A - all about becoming a librarian and MLIS degrees. The list of questions were: 00:45 - What skills do you need to be a librarian? 02:40 - What lead me to become a librarian? 03:57 - Do I have a degree, and are MLIS degrees needed in other countries? 04:34 - What kind of coursework did I do for my degree? 06:05 - Did I do a thesis? 06:36 - Did I go to Dal, and if yes, what did I think of it? Also: What advice would I give to new/aspiring MLIS students? 09:15 - Considering an MLIS degree, but concerned about not being able to find a job afterward - what are my thoughts on this? 10:49 - Do librarians make a lot of money? 12:36 - How should someone go about getting a library job while at university? Do they hire non-MLIS students?"

From ReadWriteThink, the Trading Cards app could give students and alternative way to share what they understand about the characters and places from the books they have been reading. The fields/categories that can be documented include: fictional person, real person, fictional place, real place, object, event and vocabulary word. Each category has specific guiding questions to assist students. Space is limited so students have to be able to demonstrate their ideas succinctly and only include the most important information. The app is easy to use, has good "how-to" information, auto-saves and can be printed or emailed.

The post offers a self-assessment survey, created for students and educators, which provides questions that address short- and long-term goals. In doing so, it provides a framework for metacognition (thinking about our thoughts) and helps us each to clarify, reflect on, and prioritize our feelings, actions, and behaviours.

Professors Sameer Hinduja ( and Justin Patchin are the co-directors of the Center for Cyberbullying Research. As researchers, they delve into and provide "up-to-date information about the nature, extent, causes, and consequences of cyberbullying among adolescents." They have released a Cyberbullying Quiz to jump start faculty discussions. The quiz is short (15 true/false questions) and each answer also includes the supporting research. In addition to the quiz, they have also published a comprehensive Cyberbullying Fact Sheet that is written for educators, administrators, and parents.This might be useful as a handout for a teachers or parents.

A good post from Common Sense Media about where teens are with social media today. The questions "Are teens totally over Facebook? Or are they using it even more than ever? are asked and an answer is attempted. From reports it is evident that there are many and varied social media being used by young people. Teenagers are dividing their attention between a sizeable number of apps and tools. These all allow them to write, share, video-chat, and even shop for the latest trends. The advice is:"You don't need to know the ins and outs of every app and site that's "hot" right now (and frankly, if you did, they wouldn't be trendy anymore). But knowing the basics -- what they are, why they're popular, and what problems can crop up when they're not used responsibly -- can make the difference between a positive and a negative experience for your kid." A few of these media are discussed in light of this.

"In our digital society, the concept of what to share in public is hard for kids to understand. And it's harder for adults to pass on sage wisdom because we're also still figuring it out ourselves. While students are grappling with, "Should I post that picture of myself dancing absurdly at that party?", teachers are grappling with the question, "Should I post that picture of myself dancing absurdly at that party?" Teaching about citizenship is an excellent opportunity for teachers to be learners alongside their students." Ideas on how to learn and share are suggested in rest of post.

Some interesting ideas and the questions in the last part of the blog got me thinking. "How do you include student voice in your library program? Does your library space reflect student voice? Are your lessons designed to celebrate student voice? We need to relax our adult expectations and be flexible enough to allow our students to shine"

"Some simple ideas for addressing cyberbullying, online privacy, Internet safety, online privacy, cyberbullying, media balance, online relationships, news and media literacy. The Digital citizenship topics tackle big questions"

"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."

" 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

A useful article about the profession. Teacher librarians have been teaching students how to evaluate websites and warning students about the dangers of going out on the world wide web without applying a critical lens to what they find since the inception of the internet. We constantly remind our students to evaluate websites and ask questions. Concluding paragraph: "Not only is our profession as school librarians crucial in shining the light of literacy on our students, but we must never forget the importance of our fight against information illiteracy. The very survival of our republic depends on an educated, engaged, and information-savvy populace".

The graphic is titled the Inquiry Process and offers a visual representation (a map) of the inquiry journey together. "At its essence, inquiry takes learners on personalized learning pathways that are often unique in their details as well as when they meet particular benchmarks phases.  This map allows learners to visualize where we will go and understand that although our individual journeys may be unique, we are all in a similar landscape that provides connections across topics and questions in the processes we all follow."

"Answer Garden is a simple Web 2.0 tool used for getting feedback from a group. It can be used in grades K-12 to determine the knowledge level of students on a given topic. No registration is required."

"Critical thinking is when the brain is active, making connections to the material and applying original thought to the concept. It's the difference between struggling to remember ("ugh!") and struggling to solve ("yeah!")." Whilst all kids think, not all activities trigger critical thinking. There are some ideas here that use targeted approaches and strategies to cause those young brains to work.