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Being a first year teacher can be overwhelming to say the least. There is new curriculum to learn, unfamiliar school policies, classroom management challenges, and new teammates. Technology can help to ease some of these first year growing pains.

A new interface for reading new on the web

On October 21, the top videos selected by the YouTube Play jury were revealed and celebrated at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The videos, which can be viewed below and on youtube.com/play, will be presented at the Guggenheim Museums in New York, Bilbao, Berlin, and Venice on October 22-24, 2010. They comprise the ultimate YouTube playlist: a selection of the most unique, innovative, groundbreaking video work being created and distributed online during the past two years.

The annual Horizon Report describes the continuing work of the New Media Consortium's Horizon Project, a qualitative research project established in 2002 that identifies and describes emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, or creative inquiry on college and university campuses within the next five years. The 2010 Horizon Report is the seventh in the series and is produced as part of an ongoing collaboration between the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI), an EDUCAUSE program.

Some things to consider when planning our new spaces

New from National Geo

A must read for the team Libraries have customers, not patrons: If libraries take only one thing from retail, it should be that their job is to attract and entice customers into their space by branding (think logos and bold signage), attractive marketing of books, and a welcoming environment. Kevin challenges librarians to see their library from the customer's perspective - finding things should be breeze, customers should be able to pinpoint the resources they're looking for without a map, and the strategic arrangement of resources should encourage "impulse" borrowing. Think of your library like a monopoly board: When a customer walks in to the space, they should find themselves on "Park Place" or "Boardwalk." The most popular, most interesting and most inviting resources should be front and center. Kevin recommends walking around your space to determine your "hot," "warm," and "cold" zones to ensure that whatever is placed in the hot zone is "paying the rent." Make the books the stars! Instead of thinking about creating complicated "displays," focus on a marketing strategy to "sell" as many books as possible. Keep the covers front and center using a quick and easy strategy for high impact visuals, instead of something contrived that takes ages to construct. Think DVD or CD displays in a mall - the more covers a customer can see, the more likely they'll be to pick something up. Take advantage of the ends of aisles like a supermarket, where browsing can lead to borrowing.

"The study, conducted by Scholastic, the global children's publishing, education and media company, and Harrison Group, a leading marketing and strategic research consulting firm, found that from age 6 - 17, the time kids spend reading books for fun declines while the time kids spend going online for fun and using a cell phone to text or talk increases. Parents express concern that the use of electronic and digital devices negatively affects the time kids spend reading books (41%), doing physical activities (40%), and engaging with family (33%)."

this is a great article