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Numbeo is the world's largest database of user contributed data about cities and countries worldwide. Numbeo provides current and timely information on world living conditions including cost of living, housing indicators, health care, traffic, crime and pollution.

"Singapore Writers Festival 2013 School Programme 25 February - 9 March 2013 The Singapore Writers Festival is back and jumps right into the school year with Words Go Round 2013! One of the few literary festivals in the world that is multi-lingual, focusing on the official languages of Singapore - English, Malay, Chinese and Tamil - the Festival brings literary talents from Singapore and around the world to share with you their ideas, stories and lives. Back from another successful year, the Festival promises the same lively writers, stimulating discussions and exciting interactions."

Great resource from YIS about living with laptops = workshop with parents.

For younger kids - explores the lives of four kids around the world...

free app for the iPad

a Biblioburro -- library by donkey -- in Colombia -- good complement to the book, My Librarian is a Camel

Documentary about trash-pickers in Brazil and about the art of Vik Muniz and his series Pictures of Garbage

"In order for mobile technologies to be effective in the classroom, teachers and administrators will need to let go of the reins and let students take the lead, according to University of Michigan professor and researcher Elliot Soloway. "Kids are the experts on the technology," Soloway says. "Teachers are the experts not on the content but on the pedagogy and classroom management. The two have to live together. They have to learn together.""

Literacy as we know it and teach it; is not enough. There is a new grammar and a new literacy that students must understand and embrace in order access to the information, inspiration, and opportunities the world and web hold. You are central to this change process. Our students need teachers, leaders, policy makers and community stakeholders to be actively involved in creating new visions and pathways for literacy, learning and living.

a summary of how connected educators volunteered "on a tweet" to stream into our school and provide a LIVE professional development opportunity

Ah, modern life. The way we live now is intrinsically tied to increasingly pervasive technology, our relationship to which could be permanently set to "it's complicated." French graphic designer Jean Jullien presented his own playful take on our ever-evolving connection to gadgets, gizmos, and yes, human interaction for Allo?, currently on display at London's Kemistry Gallery.

"Media is everywhere. TV, Internet, computer and video games all vie for our children's attention. Information on this page can help parents understand the impact media has in our children's lives, while offering tips on managing time spent with various media. The AAP has recommendations for parents and pediatricians"

"An ethics policy explains your [school, library, technology, classroom] goals, values and program within the larger context of the [district, school] educational mission, policies and procedures. By stating the rules and identifying the norms as lived in daily practices, the ethics policy offers explicit guidance about an individual's behavior and clarifies the rights and responsibilities of the institution and its stakeholders, the community and its members, the classroom and its learners. "

You don't have to become an expert to help your kids make good decisions. Just get involved in their media lives. By engaging with them, you can help them use these tools responsibly, respectfully, and safely. Here are some ways to be a media-savvy parent this year:

"Do NOT allow the iPads to live in mobile carts - when I see an iPad in a cart, I see money being burned. The carts should be where the iPads sleep when school is closed. This is where they re-charge. But there should be a school-wide routine that as soon as kids enter a room with an iPad cart, they each walk up to the cart and get their assigned iPad. They should keep that iPad on their desk until the end of the day and return it to the cart as they walk out of the classroom. iPads should be as essential to a student desk as pencils were 20 years ago. Teachers (and kids) will be much more likely to pick up and use the devices if they're right there, as opposed to having to plan to take them out and use them for "tech time" and then put them away. Think about how you use mobile tech in your everyday life - you pull your phone out of your pocket to look up information when it's relevant, rather than waiting until your "computer time" later in the week. Students should be able to do the same."

Remember the day when someone rattled off a phone number while you just hoped against hope you'd recall the string of digits as you were dialing? That was working memory toiling away. With the advent of cell phones, you may no longer use it this way very often. But working memory still plays a central role in learning and our daily lives.  If working memory is weak, it can trip up just about anyone. But it really works against a child with learning disabilities (LD). You can take steps to help a child with weak working memory, whether or not LD is a part of the picture. Start by understanding what working memory is all about. 

The concept of 21st Learning has been around since the 1990s. There was a recognition that with the pace of technological change, the jobs of the 20th Century would be unrecognisable to those living in the 21st Century. We had to prepare our students for a future of great difference and uncertainty. As a result, we needed to move towards a more independent, skills based education system rather than the model we had that was based on content knowledge and specific skills for specific jobs. Well, we are into the second decade of the 21st Century and the question has to be asked - how well have we advanced in developing 21st Century Learners?