"You don't have to be an expert on texting, Instagram, Minecraft -- or whatever else your kids are into -- to have The Talk. Start by reading up on what's going on in your kids' world (for younger kids and older kids). Ask them to show you what they like online, and why. Make sure to listen :) Then, express a few basic expectations, with the understanding that this isn't a one-and-done kind of chat. Good luck (you'll be fine)! Here are the 5 basics to cover during The Talk:"

"A collection of a number of websites that teachers, parents and students can use to help guide student reading selections. The aim : to assist students to find books to that they really like, then they'll be more inclined to make time in their busy schedules for reading."

"The most successful makerspaces include tools, materials and resources that inspire and allow for an environment rich with possibilities, allowing all students the opportunity for open-ended exploration.  In addition to tried-and-true favorites such as Spheros, Makey-Makey kits, littleBits, and Legos, there is now such a vast array of makerspace-related products available. As this year draws to a close, we can't help but reflect upon some of our favorite makerspace things. "

"2015 was a big year for libraries' digital efforts, with a record number of readers borrowing ebooks and digital audiobooks. Overdrive, the leading supplier of digital content to libraries and schools, reported Tuesday that, in 2015, readers borrowed more than 169 million ebooks. This marked a 24-percent increase over 2014. There was also a notable spike in audiobook usage, which saw a faster growth rate than ebook library borrowing"

From Common Sense Media. " Scope & Sequence tool to find age-appropriate lessons that address digital literacy and citizenship topics for your classroom. You can browse by grade band or click a category to highlight the lessons that address that topic. From professional development materials, to student interactives, to lessons and assessments, and family outreach materials, our comprehensive curriculum is turnkey to implement."

A piece that brings together, in an annotated list, a number of useful tools for writing purposes. There are also a number of other mentioned in the comments that follow the post.

An interesting article about the skills today's students need. "teaching students to find reliable sources, synthesize research findings and communicate results is more urgent than ever in a world where every blogger with a keyboard can pose as an expert."

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"

ReadWriteThink Notetaker. Useful for a wide variety of reading and writing activities, this outlining tool allows students to organize up to five levels of information.

The Comic Creator a simple, interactive tool that invites students to compose their own comic strips for a variety of contexts. Easy to use and offers templates and image choices to make it easy for students who worry about their drawing capabilities

"The Cube Creator. Summarizing information is an important postreading and prewriting activity that helps students synthesize what they have learned. The interactive Cube Creator offers four options: Boigraphy creator, mystery creator, story cube and create-your-own cube"

Word mover is designed to help students develop poems and short stories. When students open Word Mover they are shown a selection of words that they can drag onto a canvas to construct adesigned to help students develop poems and short stories. When students open Word Mover they are shown a selection of words that they can drag onto a canvas to construct a poem or story. Word Mover provides students with eight canvas backgrounds on which they can construct their poems. poem or story. Word Mover provides students with eight canvas backgrounds on which they can construct their poems.

This tool gives students options to add both text and images to their covers using various templates. It does not include an option to save the work, so students have to complete and print their covers in one session.

"Social media can be an incredibly useful teaching tool. The social networks students use are conducive to so many facets of modern learning such as collaborative planning, data and resource sharing, and progress updates concerning group work. It appeals to our digital natives, and social media is very easy to use. The prospect of teaching with social media can be alluring or repulsive, depending on your understanding of it, and your experience with it. The truth is, it doesn't need to be difficult or stressful. For any teacher wanting to broaden connections with students through different teaching strategies, social media is a terrific choice. That said, it pays to do a bit of homework on the subject before diving in. Let's look at some of the things that are worth considering before making the move to teaching with social media in a classroom environment."

The annotations accompanying each allows you to compare each of these tools

"Depending on your point of view, content on the internet can be a vast collection of treasures or a big pile of gold specks mixed in with an even bigger pile of dirt.  This has given rise to content curation, the process of finding the gold among the dirt, as a very popular online activity. At its most basic, content curation is the process of finding, organizing, and presenting content from the flood of information and media that inundate the web by the second.  Similar to museum curators, content curators sift through a seemingly never-ending amount of digital objects to unearth individual items worthy of being showcased for a specific audience."

The home page for MediaSmarts. This is a Canadian not-for-profit charitable organization for digital and media literacy. Their vision is that children and youth have the critical thinking skills to engage with media as active and informed digital citizens. "What We Do: MediaSmarts has been developing digital and media literacy programs and resources for Canadian homes, schools and communities since 1996. Through our work we support adults with information and tools so they can help children and teens develop the critical thinking skills they need for interacting with the media they love."

"Part of a series devoted to facilitating proper student internet interaction in the classroom. This classroom might be 1 to 1 or might be using technology to leverage student centered learning. In this post I would like to discuss ten important ideas to consider when using internet resources and tools in the classroom."

"One teacher's plan for teaching students about being safe online and their digital footprint. The goal is to get them thinking about what they put online and the consequences those posts can have." Some goof videos and ideas here