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Great connections between classic texts and the world today suggested by teenagers.

Parenting suggestions from the Center on Media & Child Health

"Importantly, our early indications suggest that the least effective method of reading may be the one society has been clinging to for centuries: reading on paper."

"Research suggests that the most creative children are the least likely to become the teacher's pet, and in response, many learn to keep their original ideas to themselves." Gifted kids don't often produce something new but excel in the 

Two psychiatrists suggest playing video games with your children.

Kids are growing up in a digital world. They connect, share, learn, explore, and play in way unimaginable just a  generation ago. This is the only world they know and their parents, teachers, political leaders and even the media  are all doing what they can to catch up. The emergence of social media, in all its extraordinary forms, is pushing the  boundaries of what we think of as private while giving us all, and our children, a platform to express ourselves anytime,  anywhere.  It can be an unnerving prospect to a parent or teacher to see their kids pack so much processing power in their  pockets. The media have played on these fears with screaming headlines and nightly news leads about cases of  online predators, pornography, cyberbullying and sexting. Some lawmakers have proposed online safety legislation  based on a single event, such as a suicide that had an online component to it. At least RQHVtate Dttorney  Jeneral suggested raising the age limit for kids accessing social media to 16 years.  While understandable, these reactions are not always helpful or healthy

Great suggestions for note taking on ipad - notability, penultimate, noteshelf, Paper, note taker HD, Remarks,  Bamboo paper, 

"Social trends analyst Paul Flatters argues that childhood today is better than ever before, and he explains why wrongly thinking the reverse is bad for us as individuals and as a society. Paul deconstructs several examples of recent media coverage, and explains why charities and academics have a vested interest in exaggerating the negative. He also seeks to dispel the inevitable gloom of early January by pointing out the many ways in which research suggests life is certainly no worse, and much better, for children and families than it has ever been before. "

Excellent design suggestions across a range of contexts.

good suggestions of blogs to follow - one from Jeff Utecht who is coming to us in the next school year for the COTAIL course

Nice to see that we do all of these things already! As the iPad is currently the 'class leader' in education, there are many educators who have found themselves with an iPad to 'see what it can do?' The challenge is to demonstrate enhanced learning, so here are ten suggestions that may help:

With the start of a new school comes a new season of CNN Student News. CNN Student News started back up again yesterday. The format is the same as it has been for years. The roughly ten minute episodes feature US stories, a world news stories,  "shout out" to a class, and a quick quiz. Transcripts for each show are available for download as are suggested viewing questions to cover with your students. 

Our language of saying "going online" carries the connotation that we go to a different place, and with that, who we are in these places has a different identity. With the ubiquity of mobile devices, we effectively carrying the internet in our pockets, and for me, carries questions about the blurred boundary of "online" versus "offline". In this video, I would like to explore these questions, share some stories, and make some suggestions about managing our own identities versus having it managed for us.

"Telling a brief story around a single photograph seems like such a simple idea. Add to that a sharing element and you think: another clever web platform to distract and amuse us. But there's a lot more to Cowbird.The interface is beautiful, as one would expect from Jonathan Harris, Cowbird's creator. The Web artist and programmer behind the 2006 Web project "We Feel Fine," Harris thinks big. His goal with Cowbird: nothing less than to create "the world's first library of human experience," according to the site.While you can add audio, the focus is on the image, which floats front and center, full screen, with the accompanying story beneath in plain text. To get a feel, you'll need to spend some time with the stories posted thus far, as the site suggests."

As for her advice for parents, Takeuchi suggests that they make screen time into family time by watching TV or playing video games with their kids. That would help inform parents about how much digital media their kids are consuming and make it a more enriching experience.

This site has some great suggestions for making beautiful posters. It talks about white space, font, color etc. It has links to hundreds of great examples to look at. 

"there is most certainly an extraordinary array of options for videos which expand educators' understandings and inspire advances in 21st century learning."

The features in Google Docs can be used to facilitate a digital writer's workshop based on peer editing, and they are particularly useful when combined with cooperative grouping strategies to fine-tune students' editing skills. While students are writing their drafts, teachers can take advantage of opportunities to lead small instructional groups to help them focus on specific cooperative grouping job-related skills, then students can share their drafts with other group members who use comments to suggest revisions based on their job. The immediate feedback provided by peers will likely encourage writers to check comments and revise at home and stay on task during classroom work time. The revision history will keep student comments and revisions honest and focused on the task.

Twitter for PD - some good suggestions in here.

"The program for this year's ISTE had a few sessions with "Google-proofing" in the title. Since, I suppose no one copies directly from print sources anymore, "Googling" and "plagiarizing" are synonymous. And as professor Hokanson suggests in the quote above, when there is a direct transfer of information from source to student product - with no cognitive processing stop in-between - little learning occurs as a result of the assignment. It is busy work that no one likes."