YHS Read and Learn links

A blog post about APPitic, a resource for apps geared to education.

There is a new kind of ignorance afoot in the world, one that results from overconsumption of information rather than from a lack of access to it.

OF all the challenges faced by college and high school students, few inspire as much angst, profanity, procrastination and caffeine consumption as the academic paper. The format - meant to force students to make a point, explain it, defend it, repeat it (whether in 20 pages or 5 paragraphs) - feels to many like an exercise in rigidity and boredom, like practicing piano scales in a minor key.

New Hampshire schools are now required to create alternatives to any lesson that a parent dislikes - whether it's about the Holocaust, contraception, gravity or anything else. Does this "à la carte" approach turn school into a private right instead of a public good? Do such accommodations benefit students?

From reader exchanges across town or around the world, this article offers ideas for talking about books.

The Internet may well have its downsides, but it also has the potential to make us collectively smarter, according to open-science advocate Michael Nielsen. In Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science, Nielsen argues that networked digital tools, such as discussion boards and online marketplaces, can make it easier for scientists to pool their data, share methodologies, and find far-flung collaborators.

Many scientists want to open up an age-old system of submitting private research to commercial journals that they say is hidebound, expensive and elitist.

Can traditional schools, with a course of study divided into discrete disciplines that rarely overlap, create an environment that is a hotbed for innovative thinking?

Since the summer of 2011, NoTosh has been transforming an initial cohort of schools with The Design Thinking School programme, through the support of the Brisbane Catholic Education Department.

In some colleges professors realize that most students don't really learn well via lectures; they are using strategies involving active learning and problem-solving to ensure that students really learn and understand complex ideas.

Lately educators are bringing social networks, interactive whiteboards, mobile devices and other technology into the classroom, with mixed results. Do these technologies benefit students? What are the downsides?