# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
With talk of "fake news" most everywhere and lots of great media literacy resources for students of all ages, practitioners may be asking: How young can kids be to start learning about news media?

The good news is that it is never too early to start teaching students how to evaluate, analyze, and create media. However, there are some specific considerations for younger learners, especially given the complex and often frightening current events that children may be exposed to.

The first obstacle facing those who work with children between the ages of eight and 12 is bringing news into the classroom at all. Teachers know that students think and talk about current events. During the 2016 election, the New York Times reported that some teachers and parents were horrified by the thought of their students reenacting events or language from candidates they encountered on TV or online.

There are real concerns about the basic content of the news and its impact on students' well-being. Groups such as Common Sense Media have suggested ways to frame conversations about difficult topics for young children.

However, despite the risks, there are plenty of benefits to "bringing the world to school," as Renee Hobbs and I wrote in our book Discovering Media Literacy, and as I noted in an open-access article for the Journal of Media Literacy Education. For several years, we have worked with elementary-age students at a public charter school in Philadelphia, and we are always surprised to learn just what students are capable of thinking about, talking about, and doing when it comes to current events.

I hope some of these tools and frameworks will help librarians, educators, and others working with younger children, as they confront fears of bringing the world to school-and engage in digital and media literacy practices to evaluate, analyze, and make media related to current events and pop culture.

1. Don't confuse media literacy practices with using tech
Before discussing the "do's" of talking about news and current events in elementary school, it is important to clarify one big "don't." Good media literacy practices that engage with media and popular culture-including news and current events-don't require teachers to use any particular media or technology.

This may seem counterintuitive. But especially for young children, it can be overwhelming to experience the "information overload" of doing online research, watching charged imagery in television news, or diving in to "fake news" stories without even knowing much about the "real news."

Most of these techniques don't require any specific technology use-and in some ways discourage it. Conversations about news media are often better without controversial visuals, for instance. Figuring out what students already know in the room, in the form of a question bank or "tweet wall" where students write out their own short responses to a topic, can help to bring news into the classroom without necessarily bringing media into the classroom. (Students do not need to actually use Twitter, which may not be appropriate for younger kids-they can use rectangular construction paper to create short responses or questions that are 140 characters or less.)

Students learn at a very young age that media, especially online and social media, can offer up answers very quickly. Media literacy, by contrast, is about the process of asking good questions and being skeptical of easy answers. This sometimes means avoiding easy sources, easy technologies, and other distractions from figuring out what kids need to know and how to scaffold the conversation with them.

2. Prepare your learning environment for current events
When distressing events happen in the world, our first impulse is often to engage our students immediately in conversations about them. I have seen wonderful discussions, even with young children, about topics as varied as climate change, homelessness, and transgender rights.

What made those conversations work was a sense of trust and understanding between educators and students. But not every topic or event is right for every classroom. Students can lead discussions and may even lead curriculum development based on their own interests-but only if the classroom is in the habit.

Having a constructive dialogue about current events requires students and educators to honor different perspectives in the class and to recognize how differently people view the world. This is one of the core principles of media literacy. Students also need practice to develop careful listening skills so that they are able to follow up each other's comments with a "yes, and" attitude. When kids follow what others have said with "yes, and...," all are encouraged to build on previous comments.

3. Start with background knowledge
Once you feel that the classroom environment is a safe place to explore the often unpredictable and sometimes scary world of current events, it is time to figure out what students already know.

Kids come to school with a wealth of knowledge from their homes, their neighborhoods, and the pop culture that they view, use, and absorb in their everyday lives. Tackling current events in the classroom requires a sensitive understanding of their background knowledge, including not only what they know, but also what they are comfortable sharing; what media rules are in effect in their households; and what kinds of information make up their media diets. In some classrooms I have worked in, very young children regularly refer to adult media, including local news, horror movies, and reality TV. In others, there are taboos among some highly media-restrictive parents who don't want their kids talking about shows like SpongeBob Squarepants.

You might have students free-associate about what they already know, using a concept map, a K-W-L chart, which tracks what a student knows (K), wants to know (W), and has learned (L) about a topic, or a mind map to engage students in what they know about a topic in the news. For instance, rather than going straight to students' impressions about Donald Trump, see what they know about who the president is and what the president does in the world. Rhys Daunic, founder of the New York-based Media Spot, has done great work incorporating mind maps into media literacy programs for children as young as elementary school.

4. Find out what students don't know
Once you have assessed students' background information, it's often a good idea to open the floor for questions so that students can figure out what they don't know. You may be surprised by the questions they ask-and may discover opportunities for building background knowledge further.

For example, students in kindergarten may be able to tell you an endless amount of information about a fictional show or cartoon without being fully aware that the characters are not real. I have seen kids create impressive public service announcements on environmental issues such as recycling without really knowing what recycling is. When I taught fifth graders about the debate surrounding Puerto Rico's status as a U.S. territory, we had gotten deep into the research process before one student noted that we had not identified where Puerto Rico was on a map.

Sometimes, in the rush to teach students how to access credible information, we assume that they have enough meaningful information to get started. That's not always the case.

5. Think of sources as a "who," not a "what" or "where"
Many news literacy techniques involve inspection of a publication and its reputability, for instance, to determine credibility or authority.

But news, like all media, is at its core a set of relationships between creators and users. Sometimes by thinking of "the news" as a source of information, we forget that real people made decisions about how to frame, create, and distribute it.

What does a "credible source" look like to a five-year-old? In one professional development workshop I led, a teacher asked what kinds of news sources she could use to help her kindergarten students learn about water safety. She was concerned that all of the videos and news items she found portrayed drowning risks in a scary or sensationalistic way.

I asked her which people she would want her students to speak with in person in order to learn more about this issue. She was skeptical about the likelihood of talking to a news reporter or local journalist. But it had not yet occurred to her to simply have her students ask a lifeguard, who could provide some primary resources.

In thinking of an issue in the news only as news, we limit resources that help to teach children that all of the information we receive is created, in specific ways, based on a wide variety of sources. Digging in to an issue to think about who is creating knowledge and where that knowledge really comes from-starting with "who do I know who might know this?"-may involve community members, family members, or local organizations.

Tactics for spotting fake news or assessing journalistic credibility often treat newspapers, websites, and other sources of information as "places" to find information, rather than focusing on the specific people who create that information.

6. Don't just get it from Google
As early as second and third grade, students know how to "get things from Google"-that is, ask a search engine a question and accept its result. Some educators would like to maintain that Google is always unreliable, but it is often very good at providing accurate information in limited domains, such as converting units of measurement, providing a basic translation, or understanding a science concept from Wikipedia.

However, current events are not easy to "get" from Google and require much more careful searching. Teaching students what Google is (a search engine, not a reliable source of information in itself) and how to use it (using keywords, operators, and techniques such as quotation marks) can begin as soon as they start using Google-often in early elementary school.

Another benefit of limiting search engines' role in researching current events is that in many cases, there is inaccurate or developmentally inappropriate information accompanying a simple Google search. Many librarians and educators may want to curate resources based on Google searches or webquests that they create prior to starting class. Common Sense Media has a comprehensive list of kid-friendly news sources, but librarians should also feel free to use their own judgment based on their knowledge of their students. If conducting a Google search with keywords, librarians may want to test out different keyword phrases in advance.

7. Use media production activities so kids see themselves as media creators as well as consumers
Finally, students benefit from becoming creators themselves, not only to learn about professional roles in journalism, but to go through the process of learning, synthesizing, and sharing information from a variety of sources-the heart of what news really is.

One impressive example of this is a project undertaken by a third grade enrichment teacher who used a comic creation project to explore homelessness in Philadelphia. Students used a variety of sources, from interviewing community activists to watching popular films about homelessness to limited online research to drawing their own comics. One group of students explored how stereotypical images of homelessness in Disney's Aladdin film differed from more realistic portrayals in the Will Smith film Pursuit of Happyness. Another focused on a story of friendship between a student and a homeless child she meets.

Kids who take on independent research like this often find that their knowledge of an issue exceeds surface-level information they might get from news outlets. When our students listened to news stories about homelessness after completing their projects, they took on a new and important role: fact-checkers. When the news used a stereotypical image or did not tell the whole story, our kids were able to push back-taking their first steps as informed users of news media.

David Cooper Moore is a media literacy scholar and practitioner based in Philadelphia and a member of the Leadership Council of the National Association for Media Literacy Education.

This article was featured in our free Extra Helping enewsletter.
Subscribe today to have more articles like this delivered to you twice a week.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Seven Tips for Teaching News Literacy to Eight- to 12-Year-Olds

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
With talk of "fake news" most everywhere and lots of great media literacy resources for students of all ages, practitioners may be asking: How young can kids be to start learning about news media? The good news is that it is never too early to start teaching students how to evaluate, analyze, and create media.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
October is National Information Literacy Awareness Month. While educators always teach their students how to find, access, and evaluate information, they can take a moment to remind their students what literacy means and inform them that October celebrates literacy.

While children are in school, they may want to discuss what they hear in the news, so it is important for educators to teach students media literacy, so when they hear or read stories from the media at home, they know exactly what to make of it.
What is media literacy?
Media Literacy, according to the Center for Media Literacy, is " is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create media in a variety of forms." Media can be in the form of newspapers, online publications, advertisements, commercials, social media platforms, and more.

In order to help students become literate in the world of media, EducationWorld has gathered a list of seven lesson plans, activities, books, and videos for teachers to use.

Media Smarts, an official website dedicated to providing resources for media literacy, created a list of six videos called Media Literacy 101 looking at key concepts. Each video comes with a lesson plan. Here is the introductory video and lesson plan.

1. PBS News Hour Extra - Classrooms can watch videos on latest news stories and teachers can lead meaningful discussions to help understand the significance of current events.

2. The 5W's of a Newspaper Article: In this activity provided by Teachers Pay Teachers, students learn the concept of the 5W's: who, what, where, when and why in order to "gain valuable skills to apply when reading newspaper articles through both a group and individual activity."

3. Media Literacy Web Quest: This lesson plan is geared towards second graders and sends them on a web quest that will "ask students to read and think critically about some of the media sources they are familiar with." Students will be required to "look closely at the purposes of the different kinds of media," and "look at the techniques used to create the different types of media and their messages" by completing three tasks. These tasks consist of exploring websites, watch a video, and looking at examples to gain media literacy.

4. Arthur's TV Trouble by Marc Brown: This book can teach younger students to be careful about what they see on television. Amazon says, "Arthur is duped by slick TV advertising into buying an expensive Treat Timer for his dog Pal. Using his hard-earned money for the purchase, he is disillusioned when the machine shoots treats all over the living room, frightening Pal in the process, and he vows never to be taken in again."

5. The Berenstain Bears and the Trouble with Commercials by Stan & Jan Berenstain: Similar to Arthur's story, Amazon says, "Brother and Sister Bear are not greedy children, but all the toys and candy on TV look so great! Mama Bear has to find a way to teach her cubs that they can't believe everything they see before that pile of unused toys gets any bigger."

Article by Kassondra Granata, Education World Contributor

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Media Literacy Lessons | Education World

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
October is National Information Literacy Awareness Month. While educators always teach their students how to find, access, and evaluate information, they can take a moment to remind their students what literacy means and inform them that October celebrates literacy.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Have you heard about the sixteen-year-old who posted a selfie in which she proudly displayed her brand-new driver's license and credit card? Many of us have done questionable things online-hit "send" too fast, forwarded a work rant to our boss instead of our BFF, gotten into a flame war over political opinions-and recovered. Small mistakes are forgivable, but our students need to learn how to make smart, safe, savvy digital decisions. Here are some examples of how different districts are handling this issue.
CURRICULUM REVISION
Forsyth County (GA) Schools is known throughout Georgia as an innovative district. When administrators implemented a Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) initiative several years ago, they went with a Responsible Use Policy framework instead of an Acceptable Use Policy. "We consciously chose to use positive language rather than a list of don'ts," says Susan K. S. Grigsby, EdS, former district media specialist and the 2011 Georgia Library Media Specialist of the Year. "Instead, the document focuses on respect, keeping personal information private, acknowledging the work of others, understanding the purpose of using technology for educational purposes, and the responsibility to report the inappropriate use of a device or program."

That philosophy carries over into how the district teaches everyone about digital citizenship. After a team evaluated the current offerings on the subject, they discovered that there was a lot of focus on tech integration to improve teaching and learning but not enough on digital citizenship. This summer, they revised their digital citizenship curriculum with materials from Common Sense Media ( commonsensemedia.org), PebbleGo ( pebblego.com), and Rosen Digital's digital literacy database ( rosendigital.com).

Grigsby, who relocated to Singapore earlier this summer to work in the middle/high-school library of the United World College of South East Asia, says the revised digital citizenship curriculum will include everything from learning to log on and keep a password private to improving skills for researching the state database. It will include on-demand webinars and videos for students and staff. "We will be providing benchmarks of digital literacy along with tools, resources, and programs to reach those goals at every step of the K-12 student experience and are actively developing a similar program for our staff," she says. "If we expect them to teach and to model good digital citizenship, then we must provide them with the tools and resources to do so."
TOOLS THEY
USE FORSYTH COUNTY (GA) SCHOOLS PROVIDE ONGOING PD
In 2012, the New York City (NYC) Department of Education created social media guidelines for staff. Lisa Nielsen was appointed to the newly created role of director of digital literacy and citizenship to support the rollout of the guidelines. Since then, she has worked to support her district to help ensure that staff, students, and their families engage responsibly online. Nielsen does this by providing professional learning opportunities and by working with teachers, students, and their parents to create materials such as guides and activity books.

Nielsen's team partners with Common Sense Education and EverFi to offer digital citizenship classes for teachers throughout the year. Nielsen says teachers like these programs because they include authentic lessons and engaging interactive digital programs like EverFi's Ignition and Common Sense Education's Digital Passport, Digital Compass, and Digital Bytes.

All NYC teachers are invited to attend day-long professional learning events that cover digital citizenship. They also have the opportunity to do additional work to become Common Sense- or EverFi-certified. "It's not necessary to get certified, but a lot of our teachers have done so," says Nielsen. "Teachers become excited about these amazing opportunities, and as a result they have become a community in support of this work."

Nielsen also educates staff in person and through her blog, The Innovative Educator ( InnovativeEducator.com), about how to use social media to enrich teaching and learning. She shares real-life stories of teachers using social media with students to support academic, career, and social success. She provides examples of what happens when people don't act responsibly online and the consequences they face as a result.

In addition, digital citizenship is a frequent topic in the monthly #NYCSchoolsTechChat that Nielsen hosts with co-moderator and tech teacher Eileen Lennon. One of the more popular topics this year was digital drama and confrontation. You can check out the chats here ( participate.com/chats/nycschoolstechchat).
TOOLS THEY USE
NEW YORK CITY (NYC) DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
► NYC's Innovation Partner PD programs, which lead to educator certification, include:
► Apple Teacher
► Certified BrainPOP Educator
► ClassDojo Master Certification
► Certified EdTech Integrator & Digital Citizenship Certified Educator, Common Sense Education
► Certified STEM Teacher, EverFi
► ClassFlow Lead Teacher, Promethean
► Duolingo Certified Educator
► Edmodo Certified Trainer
► GoEnnounce Certified Digital Image Educator
► Google Educator
► Intel Mobile Learning Expert
► Microsoft Innovative Educator
► Mozilla Web Literacy Leader
► PBS LearningMedia Master Teachers
► Promethean Mentor Academy
► Remind Connected Educator
► SMART Exemplary Educator
EDUCATE PARENTS AS WELL AS STUDENTS
The 150 schools in the Denver (CO) Public Schools have flexibility when it comes to choosing their curriculum, but they're all required to teach digital citizenship. Many of the schools use Common Sense Media's curriculum, starting in elementary school, and a lot of teachers have become certified through Common Sense and can train other teachers. Teachers also use BrainPOP's self-paced modules on Internet etiquette.

This month, as the district launches a 1:1 Chromebook initiative at 15 schools, Education Technology Coordinator Brian Dino will run an hour-long program on digital citizenship at each of those schools. "Three students have had to leave school because of oversharing online," he says. "We don't want to scare them; we want to help them learn how to be positive online." In addition, all ninth-grade students will participate in lessons on digital citizenship during the first week back at school.

Dino is a huge advocate of educating parents, too. "All of our Title 1 schools have parent coordinators. We train them to host parent programs and coffees during which they discuss media literacy, how to set up home Internet filtering, and share Common Sense resources and ratings." He likes that Common Sense has a Latino site ( commonsensemedia.org/latino), since one-third of Denver's families are Spanish speaking. Last year, a couple of schools raised money to show the movie Screenagers: Growing Up in the Digital Age ( screenagersmovie.com) and hold a parent discussion. "You need to take a community approach," says Dino. "Kids live in the moment. One photo can damage a life forever, so we try to educate children and their families, model appropriate behavior, and keep the conversation going throughout the year."
TOOLS THEY USE
DENVER (CO) PUBLIC SCHOOLS REPETITION AND INTEGRATION ARE KEY
"The traditional model is to bring in a speaker at the beginning of the year and get everyone excited about digital literacy and making smart choices," says Shawn Brandt, director of technology integration at New Prague (MN) Area Schools. "There's nothing wrong with that, but it wears off a month later and we go back to old habits."

That's why his district strives to talk about digital citizenship whenever the opportunity arises, and in a 1:1 environment that's fairly often. "It doesn't have to be huge lesson. Just a comment as students are logging in to remind them of the importance of protecting their password and to not even share it with a friend goes a long way," he says.

New Prague, which is 1:1 Chromebooks for grades 3 through 12, doesn't have a formalized digital citizenship curriculum. But Brandt sends a tech-integration newsletter to teachers every two weeks that includes digital-literacy tips from Common Sense Media. His goal is to get teachers to incorporate the tips and other digital citizenship lessons into their everyday lessons. "We are trying to get past that mindset of this being something extra. A teacher can have a quick discussion with students about being respectful in the classroom and ask how they show respect online," he says.

Brandt's goal is for students to learn about digital citizenship throughout K-12. "In high school, we talk about the next stage in life and remind students that what they do online now can make the difference in their career path or education. We keep repeating it. Just like any other behavior, you won't develop the habit of making smart online choices unless these lessons are repeated over and over again."
TOOLS THEY USE
NEW PRAGUE (MN) AREA SCHOOLS BRING PARENTS ON BOARD
When Township (IL) High School District 214 looked into how they were teaching digital citizenship and Internet safety, they discovered that students were learning about bullying and cyberbullying in health and about copyright laws in English. Students were also receiving general information during freshman orientation and attending forums delivered by guidance counselors, but the district felt there were even more opportunities to address these topics. This year, the district is adding a digital literacy course for freshmen. "Students will have the whole year to finish the course," says Gabriella Stetz-Jackson, district coordinator for teaching and learning. "We'll pace them and give them incentives along the way." The first part of the course focuses on being successful in Schoology, Infinite Campus, Notability, and other district programs; the second half concentrates on digital literacy.

In addition to making sure students were learning what they needed, the district has done a lot of work to help parents navigate the world of digital citizenship-and particularly the intricacies of social media.

When the district went 1:1 and held sessions for parents about the initiative, they saw the need to offer more support for parents. "We had an Engage event with our feeder districts," says Keith Bockwoldt, director of technology services. "We held it on a Saturday and had sessions on Google Classroom, Notability, and other topics. Parents were very interested." The district partnered with their local Apple store (at the Woodfield Mall) andoffered free evening sessions at the store for parents to learn about the 1:1 iPad program, the district philosophy, and how Apple offers support. "The Apple Geniuses knew how our 1:1 worked and helped parents with whatever they needed," says Stetz-Jackson.

In addition, she and a district colleague created a six-week course for parents to learn about digital citizenship, social media, and iPads in the classroom. The social media section discusses how the district and teachers use social media, focusing on the positive, and also includes information about the sites students use and offers suggestions for how to discuss the topic with their children. Parents who finish the course receive a certificate of completion, and their names are forwarded to the Board and superintendent. "They do it on their own time and recommend it to friends. We even opened it to incoming parents so they can prepare ahead," says Stetz-Jackson.
TOOLS THEY USE
TOWNSHIP (IL) HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 214 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Be Internet Awesome: Google's new digital citizenship and safety program was developed in collaboration with the Family Online Safety Institute, the Internet Keep Safe Coalition (iKeepSafe), and ConnectSafely and includes resources for kids, educators, and families.

BrainPOP Digital Etiquette: A free movie that teaches about the dos and don'ts of netiquette. It covers the different types of digital communication and how to bring courtesy and respect back to the Web. Includes lesson ideas, too.

Common Sense Education Digital Citizenship Curriculum: Used by more than 300,000 educators and administrators worldwide, this K-12 program includes resources to help students, teachers, and families navigate cyberbullying, Internet safety, and other digital dilemmas.

NetSmartz Workshop: From the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, this site offers resources to help teach children ages 5-17 how to be safer both on-and offline. It features videos, games, activity cards, and presentations for parents and guardians, educators, and law enforcement.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
DIGITAL CITIZENSHIP LESSONS FOR EVERYONE

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Resource for Education Technology Leaders focusing on K-12 educators. Site contains a Software Reviews Database, articles from Technology & Learning Magazine, articles from Educators in Educators' eZine, Event and Contest listings, Reader suggested Web sites, and weekly news updates on education technology leaders."

# data[].attributes.body
from DK

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Scratch Day a global network of events that celebrate Scratch-and the young people who code and create with it. This month learn more about coding with these fun activities and share projects with one another.

Here are some great ideas on how to set up a Scratch Day event in your community.
A coding activity you can do without a computer
Coding is built on a series of basic commands, including start, stop, and repeat. These commands become the instructions for the the code to follow. Before kids start coding online, have them practice creating real-life coding scripts as a group.

Have kids walk around the room and write down every start, stop, and turn they make. They can record how fast they went, which direction they moved, and where they turned. Everything they do is a prompt that will become a line of code.

After they have documented every move, kids can turn it all into a set of instructions.

Example:
Enter door
Turn right
Walk straight ahead (slow)
Stop at desk
Walk straight ahead (fast)
Stop at chalkboard

Thinkersmith's My Robotic Friend is another great game that teaches the fundamentals of coding without a computer. Coders write scripts to help their "robot" teammates create the correct configuration out of cups.

After kids understand the basics of commands and scripts, they can do some hands-on coding practice with Scratch.

2. Try these snack ideas for the "Server" Area

Ruby Rails - Red licorice twists
Raspberry Pi- Mini raspberry pies
Pixel Bytes - Party Mix such as Chex Mix
Bugs - Gummy worms
JavaScript - Coffee (for adults)

3. Test out this recipe for mini raspberry pies (makes approximately 12 mini pies)

Ingredients
Pre-made pie dough
Berry pie filling (8 oz can)

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees Use a large cookie cutter (or the pie can) to cut 24 circles for the tops and bottoms of the pies Place 12 circles in a muffin baking pan Spoon filling into each one Cover each pie with a top Bake in oven for 20-25 minutes or until the tops are slightly golden brown Let pies cool and then enjoy

4. Build your computer coding library with DK

Be sure to build your own coding library with all our DK books. Plus, you can download a free coding kit to add to the fun.

"An absolutely wonderful introduction to programming games." - Kirkus Reviews

"Clear instructions and plenty of images that make coding just about foolproof." - Booklist

"This 40-page full-color workbook is perfect." -GeekDad.com on Coding with Scratch: Games)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to Host Your Own Scratch Day | DK Explore

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Scratch Day a global network of events that celebrate Scratch-and the young people who code and create with it. This month learn more about coding with these fun activities and share projects with one another. Here are some great ideas on how to set up a Scratch Day event in your community.

# data[].attributes.body
lots from M. Luhtahla

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
For her own productivity, Luhtala likes the changes Audible has made to its app, which now allows her to put different news sources into channels, that can be read aloud to her while she's getting ready in the morning or commuting to work. "It is transformational for me to be able to have my newspaper read to me through an app," she said.

She's also pleased that Google Slides now allows users to insert charts, which she says has been long overdue, and adds more functionality. In addition to highlighting some of her favorite digital learning tools, Luhtala called on her professional learning community to recommend their favorite learning apps. Together, they offer this list to overburdened educators looking to hone in on just the right tech tool.
30 APPS LIBRARIANS RECOMMEND

Adobe Capture: "This is one of my two favorite new things," Luhtala said. The app lets users take a photo of something and then trace the outline. A student can then erase parts, color it in, or enhance areas, all based on the initial sketch provided by the photo. "This has been my dream app because I don't draw well, but I do art well," Luhtala said. "It is super rich."

Adobe Voice (now called Adobe Spark): Librarians recommend this app because it's an easy way of kids to attach a voice memo over an image. It can be a good presentation tool. "You have to have a subscription, but you don't have to pay for your subscription,"Luhtala said, so don't be put off by a sign up process.

Photo Editor by Aviary: This powerful photo editing app allows students to make all the tweaks they need to produce a stellar photo. Luhtala said it reminds her of Photoshop, but for a phone.

This app allows users to add images, text, video and interactive stickers to an existing product. "I love uploading student work and adding interactive things on top," Miller said. Her college-aged daughter, meanwhile, uses it for presentations because it's a good storytelling tool. Students can also work on individual Buncees and then stitch them together into a collaborative project. The end result doesn't print well, but it is possible to create a QR code for the Buncee and view it on the app or website.

There are many blogging sites for students that work well, but Miller recommends this one because Kathy Cassidy uses it with first graders. "I've always loved using Kidblog and Edmodo, but this is spot-on the easiest things I've seen, especially for younger learners," Miller said. Rather than asking five- and six-year olds to remember usernames and passwords, students can login with their photos. The app version costs $5.99 but the web-based version is free.

Luhtala appreciates Goodreads because it helps make reading social. Students can easily search each other's reading lists for ideas. As a librarian, she also finds it to be a huge timesaver when teachers are coming up with their summer reading lists. She can scan the books' barcodes and easily add 50 to 100 books, order them in lists and embed them on the library site or in emails to students. Miller recommends Biblionasium as a good alternative for younger learners, especially because students can recommend books to one another. If a library uses Follett Destiny, sharing functions are integrated there too.

This study guide creation tool has taken off at New Canaan High School. "It has gained huge traction not among teachers, but among students," Luhtala said. Her students use Quizlet for almost everything, divvying up the work of making flashcards amongst themselves. Interestingly, Kahoot has also become a student favorite, but not necessarily for studying. Luhtala has noticed students using it for social activities like organizing prom. "These tools were designed for education, but the kids are using them in completely different ways," Luhtala said.

A favorite of Jane Lofton, this easy-to-use app allows students as young as five to create videos. They can add their voice over the images and explain their thinking or their story. This app is only for iOS devices.

A long time image manipulation app favorite of Miller's, this free tool has seamless integration with Evernote, which owns it. The app allows users to annotate over anything, circling errors, adding text or arrows, etc. "I use it a ton on my phone," Miller said.

Mindmup: This is Jay Salerno's favorite mind mapping tool. It is a Chrome extension, so it integrates well with other Google products."I just think it's really great to give kids lots of options when you're asking them to diagram their thinking," Luhtala said.

Scratch and more: All the librarians that contributed to this list acknowledge that it's a great idea to get students started coding early. Some well-liked apps include Scratch, Scratch Jr, and Hopscotch. For younger students Miller recommends Kodable and Daisy the Dinosaur as well.

The app offers an easy way to move images from a phone to a computer, although Miller cautions it may not be free for much longer.

Recommend by Miller's son who is in fifth grade, this game rivals Minecraft in his mind. He likes it because it's easier to create things than in Minecraft. The game costs $4.99. "I like how they can add words and the characters look a bit more realistic than they do in Minecraft," Miller said.

"You stand in a spot, particularly in a city, and it finds you on the map and tells you about the history of what was there," Luhtala said. "It's very powerful." The app shows the Google Maps street view with a historical overlay. Kids can also add their own content, which could make for a fun digital storytelling tool or examination of primary sources.

This image manipulation tool adds some fun to digital storytelling by allowing students to animate mouths or eyeballs. "I really loved this one because there were a few more features that were a bit richer for older kids,"Miller said. She sometimes uses Chatterpix as well.

Check out previous years favorites here and here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Librarian Approved: 30 Ed-Tech Apps to Inspire Creativity and Creation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For her own productivity, Luhtala likes the changes Audible has made to its app, which now allows her to put different news sources into channels, that can be read aloud to her while she's getting ready in the morning or commuting to work.

# data[].attributes.body
Look at LC for Native Am info

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By Stacy Dillon and Amy Laughlin on

Follow on Twitter

@blackhistoryheroes Images of famed (and less well known) historic people, places, and events.
@historyinpics Historical pictures range from the jaw-dropping to the knee-slapping.
@mmcnycyouth Promoting peace, tolerance, diversity, and human rights among youth.
@worldhistory101 Frequent tweets about historic events, culture, celebrities, and scientists, all designed to inform and entertain.
@WReligionNews Reporting on every world religion from agnosticism to Wicca. Pictures and news from around the world.

The "We Need Diverse Books" movement calls for literature that reflects and honors the lives of all young people. Access to diverse books and resources serves to empower students. Giving them the proper tools to understand and respect cultural similarities and differences enables students to cease using the "us" and "them" dichotomy when relating to peoples around the world and, ultimately, become culturally literate citizens.

From materials that showcase the important aspects of North American culture, such as the history of Native American peoples, to apps and websites that detail issues abroad, including the flow of refugees through Europe, these tools serve to enrich students' discovery and understanding of places and cultures other than their own. Each tool provides readers with the ability to experience cultural differences through literature, history, and playful exploration. Start here to launch a lesson, engage in deeper inquiry, or expand classroom instruction.

Websites

International Children's Digital Library
Free | All ages-Learn about another culture, language, or people through the lens of its picture books. The ICDL currently contains more than 4,600 full-text books in 59 languages, and visitors can search for books in specific languages or regions. Works can also be located using keywords, titles, or genres, as well as cover color. Books are clickable and easy to read in their scanned versions. This is a great way to share books in languages that are not always accessible in schools and public library collections.

Lucify: The Flow Towards Europe
Free | Gr 7 Up-This website uses infographics to demonstrate the flow of refugees through Europe. The dynamic map makes the current refugee crisis more obvious and visible to students. Lucify also uses a chart and specific infographics to make the numbers more understandable. Linked to this page is a section showing the cost of displacement. This is a very powerful tool for helping students understand where refugees come from and where they are going. A big missing question, though, is the "why" of their refugee status. A supplement to deeper study and discussion.

The Big Myth
Free | Gr 3 Up-This Flash-based website is a hub for world creation mythology. Content is available in three languages (English, Dutch, and German), and users can access the mythology either through an interactive map (where the myth is read aloud) or as PDFs in the teacher section. Along with the stories are sections outlining the pantheon of gods, the culture of the people, and questions to answer. As a bonus to educators and students alike, there are links and biographies that provide a wide variety of sources for further study.

Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis
Free | Professional Resource-World (and United States) history is deeply enmeshed with religion. Many public educators may be faced with challenges when trying to design a religion unit (or even broach the topic of world religions in the classroom), and the IUPUI Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture's resources can help support teachers and librarians seeking information on how to "teach about religion without teaching religion." The site offers hundreds of syllabi dating back to 1991-mainly from college-level courses, but there are some K-12 resources available-for inspired teachers who aren't afraid to wade through the mass quantity of text and cherry-pick ideas to use in a religious studies unit.

African American History Month Teacher Resources
Free | Gr 3 Up-This incredible site, courtesy of a partnership among Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, serves as a tribute and rich source for African American history. The teacher page provides lesson plans and activities to support learning about the civil rights movement, the history and abolition of slavery, African American leaders, and more. A resource to be used all year round.

Library of Congress:
Native American Lib Guide
Free | Gr 5 Up- American history is incomplete without a study of Native American tribes. The Library of Congress has a sleek Native American Lib Guide aimed at teachers preparing units on Native history. A deeper look into their sources includes websites and links to content on specific and varied tribes, instruments, traditions, and informational sources (including games and quizzes for students) that will round out lessons.

Apps

My Life as a Refugee (iOS)
Free | Gr 5-8-Developed by the United Nations refugee agency, My Life As a Refugee is a slideshow-style app that prompts users to make decisions based on the real-life situations of refugees. Users begin by choosing a persona and then make timed choices regarding their future-acting fast is a must. Harsh realities are not sugar-coated, and the life and death repercussions of day-to-day decisions are made palpable. The app also features a section on refugee news and a place to donate to UNHCR.

Amazing World Atlas (iOS; GooglePlay)
$2.99 | Gr 4-6-Brought to you by the folks at Lonely Planet, this app is filled with games, quizzes, and maps aimed at upper-elementary-age kids. Learn about countries, capitals, and flags while playing a series of games complete with a cheering section. The more kids play, the more games they unlock.

Globe Smart Education 1 (iOS)
$19.99 | K-Gr 3-Though pricier than most apps, this friendly global primer is visually attractive and easy to use. It includes real stories from children in the Netherlands, Indonesia, Haiti, Burundi, and the United States, complete with audio narration and striking photography. Along with the personal narratives are key facts and background information about each country and culture. A teacher's guide section includes lesson plan support, extended activities, and discussion prompts. A fine resource for early childhood education units on global studies and social-emotional learning.

Stacy Dillon is the lower school librarian at LREI in Manhattan; Amy Laughlin is a children's librarian at Darien Library, CT.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Nine Resources for Building Cultural Literacy | Mix It Up

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By Stacy Dillon and Amy Laughlin on Follow on Twitter @blackhistoryheroes Images of famed (and less well known) historic people, places, and events. @historyinpics Historical pictures range from the jaw-dropping to the knee-slapping. @mmcnycyouth Promoting peace, tolerance, diversity, and human rights among youth.

# data[].attributes.body
Fake News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By Laura Gardner on

Last week, a new study from Stanford University revealed that many students are inept at discerning fact from opinion when reading articles online. The report, combined with the spike in fake and misleading news during the 2016 election, has school librarians, including me, rethinking how we teach evaluation of online sources to our students. How can we educate our students to evaluate the information they find online when so many adults are sharing inaccurate articles on social media?

While social media isn't the only reason for the surge in fake news over the last 10 years, it's certainly making it harder for information consumers of every age to sort through fact and fiction. As articles about the Stanford study get shared around Facebook, I have two thoughts. One, I have to teach this better. And two, as information literacy experts, we school librarians are more important than ever. Joyce Valenza offers timely tools in her news literacy toolkit for a "post-truth" world.

Until now, I have taught web evaluation the same way every year: I start by introducing students to the CARS method of web evaluation (similar to the CRAAP test), using tools to evaluate credibility, accuracy, reasonableness, and factual support. I offer up sites for them to evaluate (all fake, such as Save the Guinea Worm, DHMO, and Mankato, MN). Many kids figure out that the sites are fake, and that leads to a discussion about how publishing on the web is different from print. " Fake News vs. Real News: Determining the Reliability of Sources," from the New York Times has many examples of fake posts on social media, as well as lesson ideas.

In follow-up lessons, we use the CARS strategy to evaluate other websites in order to rank their usefulness. I teach students about websites such as Snopes.com and Politifact.com, resources to fact-check Internet rumors and sensational "news" they see. In addition, we spend some time looking at domain names and URLs.

I end the unit with a presentation and discussion of the reliability of information from news sources I gathered during a two-week teacher training workshop I attended at the Center for News Literacy Summer Institute at Stony Brook University. My presentation runs through how the dissemination of the news has changed over time, our current challenges in a world of information overload, and the blurring of the meaning of "journalist" in an era of social media and blogs. All this takes around four to five lessons, which I teach in my stand-alone sixth grade library skills class (I see students once every six-day cycle).

Rethinking how we teach evaluation

Teaching evaluation of information has never been so critical, and I'm thinking fast while updating my unit before relaunching it in January. Students can't rely on "about us" pages of websites any longer. While educating them about how to evaluate websites that look accurate and mimic the news, I'll focus on these four points.

Read laterally. I'll spend more time teaching students how to Google or crosscheck an organization or "news" source or claim before believing or sharing information found online. "Reading laterally" in this way helps them discover if a source is biased or even completely fake. I can emphasize this as part of the CARS method, asking questions such as, "Is the author an authority on the subject?" and "Does the information on the site agree with other sources?"

Keep it non-political. So many current examples from the 2016 election season are hot-button issues that may open discussions we aren't ready for in our classrooms. I have found Snopes to be a good source for non-political examples of inaccurate web content. For example, here is a completely fabricated article about Clint Eastwood rejecting the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Talk about social media more. The pitfalls of social media can't be ignored, and we have to discuss rules for sharing or re-sharing articles. I like the "triple check" rule from CNN's Brian Stelter. Lesson 13 from the Center for News Literacy teaching materials has some good examples from Hurricane Sandy and other news events when inaccurate social media posts were overshared.

Switch it up. An alternate way to evaluate sources that I'm considering teaching my students is the IMVAIN method. It might be a better fit now than CARS, given how our news sources are changing. Here's an example of how a New York City middle school uses it.

The IMVAIN analysis weighs the following factors:

Is the material Independent or self-interested?

Does it have Multiple sources or only one?

Does it Verify, or assert?

Is it Authoritative/Informed vs. uninformed?

Are sources Named or unnamed?

Embracing the opportunity

As challenging as it is to teach about web evaluation without getting political, I can't help but see this as an opportunity. In a time when school librarian positions are still being cut or undervalued around the country, this is a chance to talk about how critical our role really is. We have a chance to not only share our expertise with teachers in our schools, but also to show our personal networks on social media that this is what school librarians do; this is what we teach, and this is why every school needs a school librarian. We show students how to evaluate information in a world of information overload.

When I speak at my state's ESSA hearing next week, I will say that this is a large part of why my role is valued in my school. The town I live in does not have any school librarians in the district; the position was considered expendable because of all the resources on the Internet. But given the current state of affairs, perhaps people will finally see what we have known all along...that we're more important than ever.

2016 SLJ School Librarian of the Year finalist Laura Gardner is a National Board Certified Teacher in Library Media, a teacher librarian at Dartmouth (MA) Middle School, and a 2016 Touchcast Ambassador. She tweets at @LibrarianMsG, and you can follow her library on Instagram and Snapchat at @DMSLibrary366.

This article was featured in our free Extra Helping enewsletter.
Subscribe today to have more articles like this delivered to you twice a week.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By Laura Gardner on Last week, a new study from Stanford University revealed that many students are inept at discerning fact from opinion when reading articles online. The report, combined with the spike in fake and misleading news during the 2016 election, has school librarians, including me, rethinking how we teach evaluation of online sources to our students.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
One of the many ways I learn from my students in the Master of Information program at the Rutgers School of Communication and Information is through the digital presentations they craft. Students are asked to present to their peers an overview of an author's work, an idea for school or public library programming or, this coming fall, a plan for digital storytelling. The formats they choose are as eye-opening as the books, writers, and programs they investigate.

We've all been using one presentation tool or another for years. What the new digital platforms are doing is shifting the focus from presenting information to creating an experience. With these programs, one can immerse an audience in what an author, a book, a series, or a genre does. As a result, in addition to familiar tools for sharing books such as trailers, podcasts, and social media, we now have new horizons for book presentations.

At first, PowerPoint was the option everyone knew and preferred. Then Prezi, with its swirling links and opportunities to embed clusters of information within other clusters, became a favorite. Some students felt a bit dizzy navigating in Prezi. Others, though, were able to play with the format to create an experience that is both aesthetically pleasing and informative, as in this presentation by Rebecca Operhall.

This past semester in class saw the advent of Google sites (credit to student Susan Elko), which can be adapted to create a combination of visual fun and informational depth, as seen in this FlipSnack presentation (by Kate Reid), which also echoes the look of a book allowing users to embed PDFs into its pages. Pinterest has been around for a while and is useful for large-scale projects. It has the disadvantage of lacking hierarchy; all pins appear to have the same value. But it offers a clear, attractive display (credit to Christine Williamson) that invites exploration.

Google docs (thanks to Alexandra Steiger) remind me of PowerPoint-easy to use and able to handle a range of clear digital links. And now there are emaze and Nearpod. I must admit that, while I have a committed relationship to PowerPoint and have flirted with by Prezi, I am just head over heels for emaze and Nearpod.

Emaze is a mini-museum. It is reminiscent of Second Life, minus the avatar and the need to learn to fly and explore whatever happens to be constructed there. If PowerPoint and Google Docs are slide shows-2-D rectangles to design and fill, emaze is a 3-D space in which the experience of moving from one display to another has a physical dimension. Instead of passive audience members in a darkened room, viewers navigate a gallery, pausing to look at an image, text, or film, or glance at a caption ( as visible in Kate Reid's work).

The one student example I have seen of Nearpod (credit to K. Antigone Trowbridge) is also very promising. The platform offers a slide format, but it can incorporate other presentation formats, such as Pinterest or Prezi, so somewhat of a meta-presentation tool and experience. I was so mesmerized by the Sand Ar t video in this Nearpod presentation (slide 6) that I was inclined to like anything that Nearpod brought my way.

Next semester, the students in my Materials for Children class will become familiar with Storybird, using it to create 32-page books. In class, we'll do that with paper and cardboard. Online, Storybird will allow each student to consider the choices that come in displaying art and text on single pages and spreads (e.g., minimal vs. heavy text). In many ways, this platform brings to book creation what I see developing in all these newer platforms: the marriage of art, text, flow, and design. The grammar of picture books is becoming a design structure that applies to effective presentations-and nearly everything we do.

While I'm limiting myself to what I've seen and used in class, Dr. Joyce Valenza, who many of my students also study with, was kind enough to share an extended list of the presentation software she is currently sharing (no fewer than 40 items!).

Of course, being new does not always mean better, or that it necessarily supersedes other options. My son in high school is hard at work on a research paper. The other day he told me that he realized that old fashioned 3" X 5" note cards were really helpful. He has a stack of apt quotations with full references at hand and doesn't have to hunt through a stack of books bookmarked with sticky notes when he needs them. Sure, he could type those notes into a program just as well as he can write them on cards. But the basic lesson of finding information and carefully recording it has not changed. What have emerged are forms of short narration that are in themselves innovative and exciting.

This article was featured in our free Extra Helping enewsletter.
Subscribe today to have more articles like this delivered to you twice a week.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Presentation Tools Worthy of the Content | Consider the Source

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
One of the many ways I learn from my students in the Master of Information program at the Rutgers School of Communication and Information is through the digital presentations they craft. Students are asked to present to their peers an overview of an author's work, an idea for school or public library programming or, this coming fall, a plan for digital storytelling.

# data[].attributes.body
something for PD 2017-2018?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Draw the Pigeon in 9 Steps courtesy of The Pigeon Comes to Pittsburgh: A Mo Willems Exhibit co-organized by Children's Museum of Pittsburgh and The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.

# data[].attributes.body
Track reading minutes w/o paper

# data[].attributes.body
consise info

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
MLA just rele ased the 8th Edition of its Handbook. And, there are some key changes between MLA 7 and MLA 8 in this fresh look at documenting sources that you will need to note!

I chatted with Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Associate Executive Director and Director of Scholarly Communications at MLA. She shared:

Our hope for the new edition is that it helps students and instructors think about "how" and the "why" of citation practice-to focus on the principles, rather than getting obsessed with the details.

The first thing you'll notice when you get your copy is its size. Weighing in at a slight 160 pages, compared with the 292 pages of its older sister, you sense right away that this edition represents serious simplification.

You'd be right about that. Previous editions focused separate sections on the treatment of every possible source format. Recognizing that works are now published in a dizzying array of formats, MLA 8 recommends one universal set of guidelines that apply across source types.

This more thoughtful and slightly format-agnostic approach, asks researchers to focus on relevant questions as "who is the author?" and "what is the title?" In other words, cite the simple traits shared by most works.

This lovely chart of guidelines, also illustrates punctuation. It is included in the book as a reproducible practice template.

And more good news, Kathleen Fitzpatrick promises additional digital resources and templates will be made available when the MLA Style Center launches at the end of this month. (You can sign up now for notice of the launch.)

So, as we revise our own teaching and resources for MLA 8, we'll need to think about these core elements: Author. Title of the source. Title of the container, Other contributors, Version, Numbers, Publisher, Publication date, Location.

What else is new? Here are some highlights of other changes:
Thinking about the container
That element of container is important. Containers are the places sources live and they are now core element 3.
Losing some abbreviations
In a works cited list, common terms like editor, edited by and translator are no longer abbreviated. A short list of recommended abbreviations is included on pages 96-97.
Multiple authors, no more rule of four
When a source has three or more authors, only the first one shown in the citation follow by et al. In previous versions, et al. was used for sources having four or more authors. (Speaking on the other side of this fence, this new rule means I lose visible credit for the current big project on which I am a primary investigator. This will likely anger many hard-working researchers, doc students, if fact, most of my collaborative academic colleagues!)
Listing pages
In works-cited lists (but not in-text documentation) page numbers are now preceded by p. or pp.
Good-bye city!
The city of publication is no longer given for book sources, except in special cases. The rationale is that the location of a publisher serves little purpose today.
Issues are less of an issue
Citing issues of scholarly journals is now a bit clearer. They are identified now a "vol. 23, no. 3" rather than coded as "23.3" And, if the issue is dated with a month or season, the month or season is now cited along with the year. (vol. 23, no. 3, Mar. 2016.)
URLs and web sources

URLs are now list for web sources without the preceding http:// or https:// Angle brackets [ ] are no longer necessary.

The citing of DOIs (digital object identifiers found in most databases) is now encouraged

And, it is no longer necessary to cite the date of access for an online source.
No more n.d.
When a date for a source is not offered, you no longer need to use placeholders like n.d. for "no date"
Publishers
Publishers' names are now given in full, with businessy words like Company ( Co.) dropped. But abbreviations for academic presses ( U, P, and UP ) carry on.
In-Text Citations
The basic principles behind in-text citations in MLA style have not changed, but in MLA 8:

Times are now cited for video sources

The use of my trans. can be user to identify your own translation of non-English text

Advice is offered for shortening long titles for inclusion in parentheticals

Parenthetical punctuation is summarized

Suggestions are offered for citing in formats other than traditional papers-like slides, videos and web projects,

Those pesky articles
For titles of periodicals that begin with A, An, The, the article is now treated as part of the title. The article is italicized and its first letter is capitalized. For instance, " The Georgia Review "

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Shifting into 8th (On MLA's new edition)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
MLA just rele ased the 8th Edition of its Handbook. And, there are some key changes between MLA 7 and MLA 8 in this fresh look at documenting sources that you will need to note! I chatted with Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Associate Executive Director and Director of Scholarly Communications at MLA.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
We were guaranteed a free press, We were not guaranteed a neutral or a true press. We can celebrate the journalistic freedom to publish without interference from the state. We can also celebrate our freedom to share multiple stories through multiple lenses.

But it has always been up to the reader or viewer to make the reliability and credibility decisions. It is up to the reader or viewer to negotiate truth.

News literacy is complicated. In our attempts to discern truth, we are confounded by a 24/7 news cycle. News hits us across media platforms and devices, in a landscape populated by all degrees of professional journalists and citizen journalists and satirists and hoaxers and folks paid or personally moved to write intentionally fake news. All of this is compounded by the glories and the drawbacks of user-generated content, citizen journalism, and a world of new news choices.

Professional journalists themselves face new practical and ethical challenges relating to anonymity, privacy and safety, as well as reliability in their attempts to verify sources of breaking news from social media and user-generated content in all media formats. (The Verification Handbooks are a wonderful lens into this complicated process.) The Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics lists four guiding principles; the first of which is seek truth and report it.

Even news that is vetted by editors and publishers sometimes emerges from that process a bit processed, perhaps leaning in a particular direction.

And word choice itself is connected to truth. Over the course of the last decade we've seen professional news organizations and governments struggle with the politics and potential loadedness of words, notably terrorist and illegal immigrant. (See the AP Stylebook Blog and Reuters Handbook of Journalism.)
On news literacy
In its glossary, Stony Brook University's Center for News Literacy defines news literacy as:

The ability to use critical thinking skills to judge the reliability and credibility of news reports, whether they come via print, television or the Internet.

Our kids need new types of filters. Beyond larger notions of information literacy, I see the case for a specific focus on news literacy. Not as a lesson of good vs. bad. Not as an attempt to pitch traditional media against social media or peer review against popular publication. Not through the examination of hoaky hoax sites. And certainly not as a one-of, checklist type of lesson for a 9th grade social studies teacher in September.

We need to teach the important lessons of everyday civics for new consumption and production landscapes. These lessons involve sustained critical thinking, a practice to engage in regularly as we read and view and inquire with learners of all ages acros s disciplines.

A recent Stanford Graduate School of Education report, Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Literacy assessed the news literacy of students from middle school through college.

Students were asked to perform such tasks as: determine the trustworthiness of tweets, distinguish between news articles and opinion columns, identify ads on a news website, compare and evaluate posts from a newspaper's comment section, identify the blue checkmark that distinguishes a verified Facebook account from a fake one, consider the relative strength of evidence presented by two posters in a Facebook exchange, decide whether or not to trust a photo on a photo-sharing website, determine whether a website can be trusted in an open web search, search to verify a claim about a controversial issue, assess the reliability of a partisan website, identify the strengths and weaknesses of an online video. (p. 6) (Note: Most of these tasks could authentically be taught in our libraries during the natural course of any inquiry project.)

The Executive Summary shared disturbing results:

By high school, we would hope that students reading about gun laws would notice that a chart came from a gun owners' political action committee. And, in 2016, we would hope college students, who spend hours each day online, would look beyond a .org URL and ask who's behind a site that presents only one side of a contentious issue. But in every case and at every level, we were taken aback by students' lack of preparation . . .

Never have we had so much information at our fingertips. Whether this bounty will make us smarter and better informed or more ignorant and narrow-minded will depend on our awareness of this problem and our educational response to it. At present, we worry that democracy is threatened by the ease at which disinformation about civic issues is allowed to spread and flourish. (pp. 5-6)

I see a serious need for librarians to build a few seaworthy arks from the news media flood to aid students in discerning credibility, reliability, and bias in context of their information needs and the context of the text itself. I can see us introducing the broad notion of triangulation to children for whom the word may be difficult to say.
What's going on? Fake news
In the weeks leading up to the election we were drawn to stories about Pope Francis endorsing Donald Trump and WikiLeaks' confirmation that Hillary Clinton sold weapons to ISIS.

Fake news is not new. But its potential for virality is and our awareness of it is newly awakened. Some suggested it played a role in the outcome of the election. Google and Facebook both announced that they would try to eliminate fake news from appearing in their result lists and newsfeeds by blocking fake news sources from using their ad networks.

This video TEDEd by Damon Brown offers a student-friendly explanation as well as strategies for analyzing news sources:

And fake news is but one flavor of news that is less than accurate. It is but one bucket into which readers and viewers should sort types of truthiness.

Fake news itself comes in a variety of flavors:

Pure fake news sites use fabricated stories to lure traffic, encourage clicks (click bait), influence or profit using intentionally deceptive, but highly intriguing, often sensational information.

Hoax sites also share false information with the intention to trick readers/viewers

Satirical sites present news with a comical, often exaggerated spin

Born digital images and edited images alter and often misrepresent visual reality

In addition, sometimes journalists just get things wrong. Their sources they choose to interview may not offer truth or a full picture. Stories reported in process lack the wisdom of hindsight and may be missing full context.
Post-truth or truthiness
Oxford Dictionaries recently announced post-truth as its 2016 international Word of the Year. Oxford defines the word as relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.

It is well worth noting that the concept is not new. Oxford traces post-truth's history from a peripheral term simmering for at least a decade to its dramatic spike this year: in the context of the Brexit referendum in the UK and the presidential election in the US, and becoming associated overwhelmingly with a particu lar noun, in the phrase "post-truth politics."

Back in 2005, Stephen Colbert introduced the Word truthiness, now defined by Wikipedia as a quality characterizing a "truth" that a person making an argument or assertion claims to know intuitively "from the gut" or because it "feels right" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.

While we need to reject the notion of relying solely on from-the-gut verification systems, it is important to recognize that we are not always looking at a binary situation.

Credibility decisions are complicated. Most news is not simply fake or true. News from traditional sources can be suspect as well. Professional journalists engage in rigorous fact-checking and adhere to sets of professional ethics, but they are not entirely immune to bias or agenda or the pressures of a deadline. A single story may tell a part of a larger story at the moment of its publishing. Of course, traditional newspapers feature writing of all sorts-straight reporting, editorials, features, columns, advertisements and comments in their digital versions. Several traditional news sources are to various degrees either right or left leaning. While some admit their bias, others do not.

It is impossible to dismiss the complication that our political news consumption habits have shifted. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit and Tumblr played huge roles in disseminating political information during the past election season. A May 2016 Pew Research Center study found that a majority of U.S. adults - 62% - get news on social media, and 18% do so often. In terms of the total population, this translates to social media news reaching 67% of U.S. adults. The two-thirds of Facebook users who get news there, then, amount to 44% of the general population. Consider this results of this report in the context of with the decline of the newspaper industry also documented by recent Pew Research Center data.

Some Rules of thumb:

Check About and About me pages: Clicking on or investigate authors names to consider their credentials in context should be a regular part of the research journey. (See other tricks below.)

Interrogate urls: We see quite a bit of domain manipulation these days. For instance, what looks like an .edu domain, followed by .co or "lo" is likely a fake or deceptive site. If you are you seeing a slightly variant version of a well-known URL, do a little investigating.

Suspect the sensational: When we see something posted that looks sensational, it is even more important to be skeptical. Exaggerated and provocative headlines with excessive use of capital letters or emotional language are serious red flags.

Go back to the source: When an article mentions a study, if you can, go directly to the source and check its bona fides as well.

Go back to the story again (and again): When was the story written? What is its context? Breaking news will continue to break. Early reports are built from limited information so you'll want to watch a story grow into a fuller picture.

Think outside the reliability box: The old checklist-type tools we used to evaluate websites do not necessarily work. ACRL's Framework reminds us that the notion of reliability can be fluid. Experts know how to seek authoritative voices but also recognize that unlikely voices can be authoritative, depending on need. On Twitter's 10th birthday this year, Poynter, the respected journalism portal, listed 10 Twitter How Tos -guides for using Twitter for journalism from its own archive. Students can benefit from these tips too.

Triangulate: Try to verify or corroborate the information in multiple sources, including traditional media and library databases. You can begin to rule out the hoaxes by checking out sites like the nonprofit, nonpartisan FactCheck.org, or popular sites like Snopes or Hoax-Slayer.

What exactly are you reading?: Even when you find yourself in a traditional news site, identify what type of writing you are reading. Is it news reporting, or a feature story, or an editorial, or work by a guest blogger, or a review, or an op-ed or a disguised ad, or a comment?

Check your own search attitude and biases: Is your search language biased in any way? Are you paying more attention to the information that confirms your own beliefs and ignoring evidence that does not?

Use a little energy: Have you simply satisficed or have you done your due diligence in seeking and validating the best possible sources across media sources?

Stop before you forward (or use): When you see a widely shared or forwarded link, be suspicious of a hoax or a fake story. Can you verify the information outside of the social media platform on which you discovered it?

Be suspicious of pictures!: Not all photographs tell truth or unfiltered truth. Images are normally edited or process, but sometimes they are digitally manipulated. Some are born digital. A Google reverse image search can help discover the source of an image and its possible variations.

Remember Time Magazine's darkening of the OJ mugshot?

Remember Sandy?

Infographics are carefully constructed visual media messages. The data, the evidence, the sources, and the arguments they present beg careful deconstruction, scrutiny and analysis. (See my post.)
Some news literacy vocabulary to introduce in talking about credibility:

cloaked sites appear unbiased and professional but actually advocate on behalf of an organization or cause while concealing their true sources of funding and purpose.

confirmation bias: the tendency to believe information is credible if it conforms to the reader's/viewer's existing belief system, or not credible if it does not conform

container collapse: my own term for our trouble discerning the original information container, format or information type-blog, book, pamphlet, government document, chapter, magazine, newspaper, journal, or section of the newspaper or magazine or journal-once publishing cues are removed and every source looks like a digital page or a printout.

content farm or content mill: a company that employs a staff of freelance writers to create content designed to satisfy search engine retrieval algorithms with the goal of attracting views and advertising revenue.

In news media an echo chamber is a metaphorical description of a situation in which information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by transmission and repetition inside an "enclosed" system, where different or competing views are censored, disallowed, or otherwise underrepresentedecho chamber: "." (Wikipedia)

fact checking: the act of verifying assertions either prior to publication or after dissemination of the content

filter bubble: When search tools present with the stories we are likely to click on or share based on our past activity, potentially affirming our biases, we need may be experiencing what Eli Pariser calls a filter bubble,

herding phenomenon: as more journalists begin to cover a story, even more journalists are likely to join the herd, imitating the angle the story initially took rather than developing alternate or original approaches or angles.

native advertising: paid, sponsored content designed to look like the legitimate content produced by the media outlet

satisficing: a portmanteau of the words satisfy and suffice introduced by Herbert Simon in 1956 to refer to the tendency of people, bounded by time limitations, to select good enough information over optimal information

sockpuppet: an online identify created to pose as a party unaffiliated with the media puppeteer in order to deceive.

triangulation or cross verification: Researchers establish validity by using several research methods and by analyzing and examining multiple perspectives and sources in the hope that diverse viewpoints will can shed greater light on a topic.

virality: the rapid circulation of media from one user to another. When we forward sensational stories, often from social media without checking their credibility in other sources, we increase their virality.

Resources for a post truth teaching toolkit:

ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education: Authority Is Constructed and Contextual: Though aimed at university students, this important document reframes the way we consider authority and is well worth examining with high school students and faculty. The Framework recommends the following student dispositions:Learners who are developing their information literate abilities

develop and maintain an open mind when encountering varied and sometimes conflicting perspectives;

motivate themselves to find authoritative sources, recognizing that authority may be conferred or manifested in unexpected ways;

develop awareness of the importance of assessing content with a skeptical stance and with a self-awareness of their own biases and worldview;

question traditional notions of granting authority and recognize the value of diverse ideas and worldviews;

are conscious that maintaining these attitudes and actions requires frequent self-evaluation.

False, Misleading, Clickbait-y, and Satirical "News" Sources: a dynamic Google Doc filled with tips from Melissa Zimdars, Assistant Professor of Communication and Media at Merrimack College.

The Center for News Literacy from Stony Brook University's School of Journalism, offers an impressive Digital Resources Center that includes

Ripped from the Headlines: Fresh news literacy lessons, based on the latest news, ready to use in class

Course Pack: organized around eight major concepts, the 14-module curriculum takes students from the first information revolution of Johannes Gutenberg's printing press to the Digital Age of Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook. Each lesson stands alone or can easily be integrated into your program. Don't miss the very useful new Glossary.

Get a Global View: Instructional resources from the Center's international partners

DIY News Literacy Lessons: Inspiration and lessons templates for creating your own instruction around news literacy concepts.

News Literacy Project: Begun by an LA Times investigative reporter and supported by several newspapers and news organizations, the NLP is an innovative national education program that equips middle school and high school students with the tools to be smart, active consumers of news and information and engaged, informed citizens. Don't miss the four modules, lessons and Check Tool in the Checkology Virtual Classroom.

NewseumED: Learning tools on media literacy. Don't miss the Resources for Promoting Dialogue Post Election and Today's Front Pages

Center for Media Literacy: Dedicated to leadership, education and professional development, the pioneering CML offers a free Global OnRamp (in multiple languages) built around its research-based framework and five key questions for deconstructing and constructing media.

Media Education Lab: Teaching Resources: The University of Rhode Island's Harrington School of Communication and Media offers a wealth of resources. Don't miss Mind Over Media, a crowdsourced website that contains diverse examples of contemporary propaganda on a wide range of social, political, economic and environmental topics, as well as the six-lesson CCSS-aligned high school curriculum unit on contemporary propaganda.

Frank Baker's Media Literacy Clearinghouse: Don't miss the Media's Role in Politics

Verification Handbook for Investigative Reporting: Aimed at professional journalists, but very useful for high school, this companion to the Verification Handbook for Emergency Coverage, which addresses breaking news, provides the fundamentals of online search and research techniques for investigations and takes a deeper into techniques for user generated content investigations

Time For Kids shares a video News Matters in which 6th graders discuss what they are learning about critical thinking and the news. critically about the information they come across.

Project CORA: Community of Online Research Assignments an open access resource for faculty and librarians

Fake News vs. Real News: Determining the Reliability of Sources NYTimes Learning Network

SchoolJournalism.org: News, Journalism and Media Literacy: This rich portal, administered by the Reynolds High School Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri, contains a wealth of resources and suggested tools for teachers of journalism and the rest of us. Check out the interdisciplinary News Literacy Model Curriculum and Lesson Plans as well as the Six Principles of News Literacy

Teaching Information Literacy Now, from SLJ Librarian of the Year finalist, Laura Gardner

Fake 'News' in a 'Post-truth' World from reflection from Professor Judi Moreillon who shares: Fake "news" and a "post-truth" world call all school librarians to step up and lead

Resources for building a news literacy toolkit

FactCheck.org: Annenberg Public Policy Center's nonpartisan, nonprofit "consumer advocate" for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. Check out the post That Chain E-Mail Your Friend Sent to You is (Likely) Bogus. Seriously, for its Key Characteristics of Bogusness and the Viral Spiral page for claims previously checked

Washington Post's Fact Checker: The purpose of this Web site, and an accompanying column in the Sunday print edition of The Washington Post, is to "truth squad" the statements of political figures regarding issues of great importance, be they national, international or local.

PolitiFact.com: a fact-checking website that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others who speak up in American politics, run by editors and reporters from the Tampa Bay Times. (Note: I discovered their truth-o-meter after I created the little image for this post.)

Snopes: Since way back in the 90s, Snopes has been dispelling urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation.

Hoax-Slayer: Australian Brett Christensen has been debunking email and social media hoaxes and spam since 2003

Craig Silverman's BuzzFeed blog: The founding editor for BuzzFeed, Canada has been writing for many years for a variety of publications on media accuracy and verification issues.

Whois Lookup: This tool allows you to investigate the domain behind a website

CRAAP Test: Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose posted by the Meriam Library, California State University, Chico.

Kathy Schrock's 5W's of Website Evaluation

Does This Website Smell Funny to You? Amy Gillespie's FART test posted in Knowledge Quest will grab middle schoolers' attention

Evaluating Sources Using the RADAR Framework: RADAR stands for relevance, authority, date, relevance, rationale. Mandalios, J. (2013). RADAR: An approach for helping students evaluate Internet sources. Journal of Information Science, 39(4), 470-478.

Previous NeverEnding Search posts: Other favorite resources:

Abilock, Debbie. (2012). True-or not?. Educational Leadership, 69(6), 70-74. Debbie shares her quick and dirty rules of thumb-digital reading strategies, in fact-that will intrigue students, spark their curiosity, and serve as sensible entry points to more sophisticated analyses of ideas. Don't miss the section on Weighing Truths in Wikipedia.

Stanford History Education Group. (2016). Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Literacy.

Stebbins, Leslie F. (2015). Finding Reliable Information Online: Adventures of an Information Sleuth. Rowman & Littlefield.

Stevenson, Sara. (2016). Information Literacy Lessons Crucial in a Post Truth World. Knowledge Quest.
And finally . . .
Nurturing information literate, responsible, active citizens is what librarians do. There are no guarantees of truth from any source. We teach students to be discerning consumers of information. We teach them to deconstruct media messages and construct their own messages. We teach them to interrogate their sources. As the landscape continues to shift, librarians must update our own skill sets and toolkits to guide students in navigating a growingly nuanced universe of news. We must also examine and recognize our own biases so that we are open to contrary and conflicting ideas. This is our banner to wave, our curriculum to co-teach.

Of course, following the paths I've described for critical vetting of the news is work!

This is a new landscape from the one we taught in even five years ago. We need new compasses for navigation.

I do not believe we can stem the tide of fake news and truthiness and political memes and viral rumors and quick rushes to judgment. I do believe that together we can build a few arks.

Welcome to the brave new world of truth.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Truth, truthiness, triangulation: A news literacy toolkit for a "post-truth" world - NeverEndingSearch

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We were guaranteed a free press, We were not guaranteed a neutral or a true press. We can celebrate the journalistic freedom to publish without interference from the state. We can also celebrate our freedom to share multiple stories through multiple lenses. But it has always been up to the reader or viewer to make [...]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
One of my favorite things about the last month is that I shared my favorite game...

Bloxels during presentations at FETC...

...and at TCEA this last week.

My friend from Bloxels Amber Schey and I had such a wonderful time with a great group of teacher librarians at the Librarian Academy Thursday afternoon in Austin.

After Amber and I told them all about Bloxels,

and tell stories by creating a video game with Bloxels too.

You will find our presentation slides here...feel free to use them too.

You will find all that you need to get started on the Bloxels site, with your Bloxels game and...

with the Bloxel's Educator Handbook that comes with the Classroom Packages here.

I love this new handbook and all of the ideas, support and creativity it contains.

One of my favorite Bloxels Classroom Activities is Digital Citizenship Superhero Challenge.

These activities will be perfect for using when tying in Bloxels to your library and classrooms too.

I also find these graphics useful that you can find on the home page of the Bloxels site here and...

on the Bloxels Edu page too.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Bloxels Brings Creativity, Collaboration, Storytelling and Fun To All!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
One of my favorite things about the last month is that I shared my favorite game... Bloxels during presentations at FETC... ...and at TCEA this last week. My friend from Bloxels Amber Schey and I had such a wonderful time with a great group of teacher librarians at the Librarian Academy Thursday afternoon in Austin.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
4.5 million+ Stunning Free Images to Use Anywhere - Pixabay - Pixabay

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Find your perfect royalty-free image or video to download and use. ✓ Royalty-free ✓ No attribution required ✓ High quality images.

# data[].attributes.body
lesson plans - pick up to 3 themes for one club

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Teach Computer Science & Coding to Kids - CS First

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Teach computer programming and coding to your kids with the free CS First curriculum. Students can create fun, interactive projects. Sign up and get started today!

# data[].attributes.body
Variety of lessons on Ozobots

# data[].attributes.body
article from SLJ

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By Jennifer Hanson on

Whoa! This robot is small! That was my reaction when I opened the package containing my Ozobot Bit and Ozobot Starter Pack. The device fit easily in the palm of my hand.

So what is this mini marvel? A fun new tool designed to draw kids into learning programming. How it accomplishes that is pretty innovative. Using sensors, Ozobot traces patterns and designs. Different color combinations signal it to go faster, slower, left, right, and so on. Rather than Bluetooth, Ozobot uses optics to calibrate its sensors and load programs via phone, tablet, or laptop. Ozobot is for all ages and abilities, able to work with paper and markers as well as block programming.

TWO PRODUCT OPTIONS For learning the basics, the Ozobot Starter Pack ($49.95) is ideal. It includes an Ozobot; red, green, blue, and black markers (though any thick, washable marker will work); activity sheets; two skins; stickers; and a USB charger. The activity sheets have predrawn patterns that will clearly demonstrate to first-time users how Ozobot moves based on color combinations and shapes. If you run out of sheets, you can print more at the Ozobot website or experiment with your own patterns using ordinary white paper.

Your other choice is the Ozobot Bit ($59.95; $114.95 for two). It works the same way as the Ozobot in the starter pack, but it can also be programmed at Ozoblockly.com, providing more options for educational use. Bit comes with a skin and USB cable.

Both the starter pack and Bit can be purchased at Shop.Ozobot.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and Amazon.com.

HOW TO DECIDE BETWEEN THEM The OzoBlockly website (OzoBlockly.com) has games and coding tools designed primarily for use with the pricier Bit. Built with Google's Blockly, a visual programming platform, OzoBlockly.com offers five different experience levels to help students with a wide range of abilities learn visual programming. Similar to other block programming tools such as Scratch and Tickle, OzoBlockly.com has users drag-and-drop commands into a work space to come up with games, patterns, and/or paths. Students can create their own games or patterns or use existing challenges and examples to explore programming movement, light effects, loops, and logic. You can load the program directly from a browser by holding your Bit up to the screen.

If, after buying the starter pack, you start to wish you had access to the programming website, you can purchase an upgrade. For $9.99, an account is set up for your specific starter pack. You'll need to log into that account before you'll be able to use OzoBlockly.com.

THE APPS ASPECT Two free apps can make the user experience even more fun. OzoGroove (iOS 6.0 or higher and Android) features dance and choreography games. Load Ozobot with demo dances like the OzoChaCha or OzoCountry, or create your own choreography using the dance editor time line. Add music from your personal device or select songs from the OzoGroove Library.

The Ozobot app (iOs 6.0 or higher and Android) allows users to play games directly on the surface of a tablet. Three games are included: OzoDraw, OzoPath, and OzoLuck. Draw, navigate mazes, and solve logic exercises, alone or in a group.

VERDICT Affordable and easy to use, Ozobot is a great addition to library maker spaces and classrooms. Students can use the tiny robots to create games and better understand coding and logic. After I showed my students Ozobot, they instantly wanted paper and markers. They soon discovered that lines too thin or too close together make the robot stop. After a few tries, they had created a multicolored pattern on several pieces of paper and delighted at seeing Ozobot trace it.

Visit the Education section of Ozobot.com to access the Lesson Library for ideas for kindergarten through 12th grade written by educators and Ozobot staff. Introductory lessons demonstrate the basics of how Ozobot and OzoCode work. For deeper connections using Ozobot for STEM and ELA curricula, the Lesson Library offers 25 options, from multiplication table practice to Ozobot theater. Introduce Ozobot to your students and see what they create! Ozobot welcomes teachers and librarians to submit their own lesson plans.

Jennifer Hanson is director of library services at Worcester Academy in Massachusetts.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Tiny Ozobot Gets Kids into Block-based Programming | Test Drive

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By Jennifer Hanson on Whoa! This robot is small! That was my reaction when I opened the package containing my Ozobot Bit and Ozobot Starter Pack. The device fit easily in the palm of my hand. So what is this mini marvel? A fun new tool designed to draw kids into learning programming.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By Marilyn Pryle
Everyone knows Wordles. These colorful word clouds are everywhere - on posters, playbills, T-shirts, and even take-out menus. We enjoy the color and pattern, and the way new words keep jumping out at us the longer we look. But Wordle can be a powerful teaching tool, too, with the right directions and questions.

The premise of Wordle, or its shape-forming counterpart, Tagxedo, is simple: The more frequently a word appears in a text, the larger it appears in the picture. Unless they've been told this, students rarely realize this formula-they just think Wordles are neat-looking word collages. But with this one rule, we can help them more deeply explore texts.

There is a caveat, however: You must be able to copy and paste (or type) your text into the wordle.net or tagxedo.com site. Older works (like Frost's poems) are in the public domain and are easily found online. Google the text you want to use and see what you can find.

Usually, I like to use just one slice-a chapter or section-of a longer text so we can examine it closely, but sometimes it's interesting to paste a complete book into Wordle, to notice overall trends of the work. Once you've created a Wordle or Tagxedo, you can save it and print it to use in class.

[ Editor's note: If you have problems using Java (which Wordle requires) on your computer, Tagxedo may be your better choice for making word clouds. For more info on printing Wordles, see this.]

10 ways I use word clouds with my students

After reading, have students examine the bigger vs. the smaller words. Ask questions like:

Which three words are the biggest? Why, do you think? What does this tell us about the story? (Common answers include main character identification, the main setting, or verbs like "said" if there's a lot of dialogue.)

Find three medium words. Why are they medium-sized, do you think?

Find three small words that surprise you. Maybe you don't remember them from the text, or maybe you think they don't belong.

Here is the first poem from Karen Hesse's Out of the Dust in a Tagxedo image of a baby's footprint, since the poem is about Billie Jo's birth and her mother's new pregnancy. Think of the questions above as you study the picture.
A note about Tagxego: There are several shapes to choose from. Some of the words may appear quite small, but the site is interactive-if you use Tagxego online instead of as a photocopy, all students have to do is hover over a word to see it enlarge for easy reading. Also, with Tagxedo, you can add another layer to your questions, by asking students to relate the shape to the reading.

After reading, ask students questions about literary elements. For example:

Find three words that relate to character traits. Which character do they pertain to, and why?

Find three words that relate to a setting. Which setting do they describe, and how?

Find three words that relate to a theme. What theme does each word point to? Why do you think this is a theme?

What is the mood of this chapter (or poem)? Find 3-5 words that contribute to the mood.

(For first person point-of-view): Who is telling this story? Is his/her name in the Wordle? If so, what is the size? (The goal here is to heighten the awareness and parameters of first-person point-of-view. In a first person narration, the narrator usually wouldn't call herself by her name, so it wouldn't be in the Wordle, unless she is called or talked about by the other characters. Knowing this, I sometimes ask the question backwards to students. For example, I would say, "Why isn't the name Ponyboy in the Wordle? Isn't he the main character?")

Here is another Tagxedo image of the first chapter of George Orwell's Animal Farm. Notice words that pertain to the above topics about character, setting, and theme.

Use a Wordle as a pre-reading activity. Before you read, create a Wordle out of the story's first chapter, or the entire story or poem. Give students time to really peruse it as they wonder about the text. Here are some possible questions:

Who do you think the main characters will be?

Where and when do you think this story will take place?

What do you think this story will be about?

What might a theme of this story be? What could be a deeper meaning?

Can you find a new word that you don't know? How about two or three?

Do you think a young person is telling this story? Why or why not?

Here's a Wordle of the entire text of Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. Students can make interesting predictions and generate curiosity about the book as a whole by studying it.

Before reading something brief, give it to students as a Wordle and have them try to reconstruct it.

I like to give Johnny's letter to Ponyboy as a Wordle before we read it in the text, and have students try to reconstruct it before we look at the "answer." (I encourage them to add any articles, prepositions, or other connecting words they think might be missing in the Wordle.)

At this point in the text, Chapter 12, students have enough prior knowledge about the characters and plot to give this exercise a worthwhile shot. They won't rewrite it exactly like S.E. Hinton's version, but they'll be close. And regardless of the end product, they work with the words in a meaningful way, incorporating what they know about the story. Here's what the letter looks like as a Wordle:

Have students create an original piece of writing from the Wordle.

After examining a Wordle, it's fun to have students write haikus or other short "found poems" from the words. These can be about the text or not, and I encourage them to add any necessary connecting words. For example, I'll set a requirement such as: "Write a haiku from the Wordle using at least five words." That way, the students must use the Wordle (or Tagxedo), but the resulting poem won't become too forced.

Another writing assignment I like to give is to have students write a paragraph about their own lives, using at least ten words from the Wordle. This requires students to connect the author's words, and, subtly, elements of the text, to their own lives.

Use Wordles with non-fiction. Depending on the non-fiction text, you can ask questions like:

Which words support the author's claim?

Which words function as transition words in the text?

Which words are part of the facts? Which are more opinion words?

Which words contribute to the author's tone?

Formulate three questions for the author, using words from the Wordle.

Pasting a scene, act, or whole play into Wordle can be especially interesting. Not only will students see elements of the plot, themes, characterization, and possibly setting; a drama Wordle will also show who speaks most frequently, and who or what is spoken about the most. If the play is formatted to indicate speakers in all caps, those names will remain capitalized in the Wordle.

Look at Act I, Scene ii from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. We can see that Quince speaks the most lines, followed by Bottom. The main topics of discussion are the play, Pyramus, Thisbe, a beard, the roar, and Quince himself:

Use Wordles as a pre-reading activity to explore vocabulary, rhyme, syllables, or onomatopoeia.

For vocabulary, have students make a chart from the Wordle:

For rhyme (this works well with poetry word clouds especially), have students find any rhyming pairs or triplets. For syllable practice, have students create a chart like the one above for 2-syllable, 3-syllable, and 4-syllable words. For onomatopoeia, have students list any onomatopoeic words and form sentences with them. Any attention you can draw to the words themselves before reading will prime students to go deeper into the text when they read. Look at the Tagxedo of Frost's "Acquainted with the Night" below. Students could pick out rhyming words and words of different syllable counts, to attune themselves to sound and meter before even reading the poem:

Use Wordles to highlight parts of speech.

Create a chart with the headings "Nouns" (or even "Common Nouns" and "Proper Nouns"), "Verbs," "Adjectives," and "Adverbs." Students can list words as a pre-reading or post-reading activity.

Note that in both Wordle and Tagxedo, smaller, more common words are automatically filtered out. However, you can change this option in the settings on each site, if you want to have students focus on prepositions, articles, conjunctions, pronouns or helping verbs.

Below is a Tagxedo of the "How I Came to Life" section in Chapter 1 of R. J. Palacio's Wonder, with the common words left in (a bonus question for the students could be about why it is shaped as a speech bubble):

Students can be taught to paste short texts into Wordle and create their own questions for the class - the ultimate demonstration of understanding! Or, students could be given a pre-made Wordle and asked to generate questions from it. Another effective use, especially for older students who might be writing full essays, is to have students copy and paste their own writing into Wordle. The most frequently used words in the students' writing can then be analyzed.

A few more ideas and tips

When we work with Wordles in my class, I usually give students a mix of all the methods suggested here. A question sheet might ask about characters, setting, theme, predictions, grammar and vocabulary all at once, and then end with a short writing assignment.

Whatever inquiry we do with a Wordle or Tagxedo, students always are excited to see them. And I always let them work in partners - the group discussion over a Wordle is usually energetic and fruitful. Without fail, students notice ideas about the text that I had not yet focused on. I learn just as much as the students with this exercise.

One final, important point is that word clouds themselves are informational texts: They are, in fact, infographics. They give data about a text, and from that data students can draw thoughtful conclusions or make meaningful predictions.

Wordles are not just a fun review or recap; they are a new text to be interpreted. And in our increasingly visual, infographed world, any practice that we can give students in the critical consumption of images will help them.

_________

Marilyn Pryle (@MPryle) is a National Board Certified teacher and the author of five books with Scholastic, including 50 Common Core Reading Response Activities (reviewed here) and Writing Workshop in Middle Schoo l (reviewed here). She has taught both middle and high school language arts and currently teaches 10th grade English at Abington Heights HS in Clarks Summit, PA, and speaks often at conferences and institutes. She can be reached at http://marilynpryle.com/.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By Marilyn Pryle Everyone knows Wordles. These colorful word clouds are everywhere - on posters, playbills, T-shirts, and even take-out menus. We enjoy the color and pattern, and the way new words keep jumping out at us the longer we look. But Wordle can be a powerful teaching tool, too, with the right directions and questions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Looking for a read-aloud that will entertain, enthrall, intrigue, and elucidate? Join me in this new column as I highlight books guaranteed to captive and delight kids. Each post will focus on a title Use the plot description below as the basis of a booktalk or read aloud the first chapter to students during a library visit and pass the book on to the teacher to continue. These stories will also make terrific book club, literature circle, and guided reading selections.
The Penderwicks in Spring. Birdsall, Jeanne. (Knopf, 2015; Gr 4-7). RL: 5.7 published during the past year that offers a great reading and listening experience. Included for each are classroom extension ideas and a short read-alike booklist to share.
Five years have passed since we last spent time with the Penderwicks, and plenty has changed in their household since the first book, The Penderwicks, won the National Book Award in 2005. You don't need to have read the other titles in the series to revel in this one, however, as it is a stand-alone story of the ever-tumultuous and now larger-than-ever Penderwick family. The limited omniscient narrator, so perceptive and understanding, alternates her gaze this time between Batty, almost 11, and her stepbrother Ben, eight. Oldest sister Rosalind is now a freshman, away at college, and Skye, a senior in high school, will be going off next year, followed by Jane, a junior. The newest addition to the family is irrepressible two-year-old Lydia, whom everyone adores.

Hound Penderwick, "the best dog the world had ever known," died six months ago, and Batty, who was closest to him, is still grieving for him, and even considers herself responsible for his death. Her dad and stepmother, Iantha, have promised not to get a new dog until Batty is ready, but she doesn't think she can ever trust herself with another dog.

At school, there's a new music teacher, Mrs. Grunfeld, who, when she hears Batty sing, tells her she has a "rare and beautiful voice" and recommends voice lessons. Batty thinks of her newfound talent as a singing sprite lurking in her mouth. Her motto, in Latin, is " Musica anima mea est," or "Music is my life." (Your kids can come up with their own mottos and discuss the most important talents in their lives.) Here are some of the songs Batty can't help but sing: "Swinging on a Star," "Here Comes the Sun," "Brush Up Your Shakespeare," "High Hopes," Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, and, most important in the final chapter, "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows." You can find the lyrics online to reprint along with YouTube versions of the songs so your kids can listen and/or sing along.

Recognizing that her parents, who already pay for her piano lessons, are worried about family finances these days, Batty decides the thing to do is to find a way to earn money to pay for a voice teacher. With Ben's help, she makes business cards that say PWTW (Penderwick Willing to Work), thinking she can perhaps do light dusting or be an older person's companion. Instead, she lands an unexpected job walking an obese dachshund named Duchess. Your kids can brainstorm some ways a kid might make money and track how Batty's new business changes her life.

Batty is supposed to write ten book reports for her teacher before the end of the year, and though it is now April, she hasn't written a single one of the dreaded things yet. She has certainly read many wonderful books, however, including Masterpiece by Elise Broach, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, The Dragonfly Pool by Eva Ibbotson, and Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce, all of which you can introduce to your own readers. Have them come up with a list of books they think Batty should read next, with a one-sentence reason as to why she (and others) should read it.

And then there's Ben. Aside from his stepfather, Ben is the only male in the Penderwick household. He digs up rocks; fends off precocious Lydia who loves him madly and follows him everywhere; and talks in alphabetic name code (AKA the military alphabet or the NATO Phonetic Alphabet) with his best friend, Rafael. Nick is waiting eagerly for his idol, the Penderwick family's honorary big brother and neighbor, Lieutenant Nick Geiger, soon to have three weeks leave from the U.S. Army where he's been stationed overseas.

Rosalind comes home from college with her new, know-it-all boyfriend, Oliver, a self-proclaimed film expert who is very handsome but insufferably pompous and obnoxious. In short order, he manages to rankle or offend every single member of the family, though no one wants to upset Rosalind by telling her what they think of him. Then Nick arrives and soon has all of the Penderwick siblings working out. He tells Batty, who considers herself helpless at sports, "Sports build character" and wants her to find one she loves. (Ask your listeners what sports they love and why, and which one they think Batty would enjoy and why.)

When Batty eavesdrops on her sister Skye's conversation, she overhears a family secret that is so personally devastating, it turns her life upside down. Readers and listeners will ache for Batty as she tries to cope with her anguish. Ask them what they think Batty should do. Perhaps they can write her a letter with advice and/or support, sympathy, and understanding to help Batty (and themselves) rally.
OTHER FAMILY STORIES (likely to be on most library shelves):

As always, the narrative is rich with dialogue, humor, and the oversize personality of every member of this dynamical family, plus their friends and boyfriends. With the delicious chaos of everyone talking at once, following the characters' colloquies is like watching a free-form tennis match. Kids can turn some of the dialogues into brief Reader's Theater scripts to act out.

My favorite of the series so far, this volume will also send kids rushing to read the others on their own. Will baby sister Lydia, who is such a stellar presence in the book, get her own story in a couple of years? One can only hope we get to hang out with all the Penderwicks again before long.

If you're interested, there's an Educator's Guide to all four of the Penderwick books.
This article was featured in our free Curriculum Connections enewsletter.
Subscribe today to have more articles like this delivered to you every month.
Birdsall, Jeanne. The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy. Knopf, 2005; The Penderwicks on Gardam Street. Knopf, 2008; The Penderwicks at Point Mouette. Knopf, 2011.
Draper, Sharon M. Stella by Starlight. Atheneum, 2015.
Enright, Elizabeth. The Saturdays. Henry Holt, 2002.
Levy, Dana Alison. The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher. Delacorte, 2014.
McKay, Hilary. The Casson Family series: Saffy's Angel, 2002; Indigo's Star, 2004; Permanent Rose, 2005; Caddie Ever After, 2006; Forever Rose, 2007; Caddy's World, 2012, all McElderry.
Marshalll III, James. In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse. Abrams, 2015
Telgemeier, Raina. Sisters. Scholastic/Graphix, 2014.
Tolan, Stephanie. Surviving the Applewhites. HarperCollins, 2002.
Williams-Garcia, Rita. One Crazy Summer, 2010; P.S. Be Eleven, 2013; Gone Crazy in Alabama, 2015; all HarperCollins/Amistad.

JUDY FREEMAN ( www.JudyReadsBooks.com) is a consultant, writer, and speaker on children's literature, and the author of Books Kids Will Sit Still For 3 (Libraries Unlimited, 2006); Once Upon a Time!: Using Storytelling, Creative Drama, and Reader's Theater with Children in Grades K-6 (Libraries Unlimited, 2007), winner of the 2009 Anne Izard Storytellers' Choice Award; and her latest, The Handbook for Storytellers and The Handbook for Storytime Programs (both American Library Association, 2015). Judy is a visiting lecturer at Pratt Institute's School of Information, and Library Science in New York City, teaching graduate courses in storytelling and children's literature.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Looking for a read-aloud that will entertain, enthrall, intrigue, and elucidate? Join me in this new column as I highlight books guaranteed to captive and delight kids. Each post will focus on a title Use the plot description below as the basis of a booktalk or read aloud the first chapter to students during a library visit and pass the book on to the teacher to continue.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Teacher to Teacher Ideas in the Top Teaching Blog | Scholastic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Exciting lesson ideas, classroom strategies, teaching tips, book lists, videos, and reproducibles in a daily blog by teachers from the classrooms of extraordinary mentor

# data[].attributes.body
Lesson plans

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Students learn that the information they put online leaves a digital footprint or "trail." This trail can be big or small, helpful or hurtful, depending on how they manage it. Students follow the digital information trails of two fictional animals.

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.schoollibraryadvocacy.org/

# data[].attributes.body
info on setting up & getting started

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I didn't think 2015 would be the year I created a teen maker space, but it was-and it turned out to be an exciting, challenging, and rewarding experience. After six months of planning, our maker space at the Public Library of Mount Vernon and Knox County, Ohio, where I am the YA services coordinator, opened last month.

How did it come together? Organically. It began during our teen summer reading program seven months ago, when I hosted a few extremely popular Maker Mondays. Our children's librarian, Debbie Baker, and I created a collection of circulating maker-related titles. We also assembled 20 small circulating maker kits with Snap Circuits (kits for creating objects with electronic circuitry), stop-motion animation materials, and LEGO. These were such a hit that a dedicated maker space seemed ideal for us. Ideal-until we considered our budget and space restraints.

We started planning anyway. Our process began with a lot of research, online and in person, visiting libraries and maker faires. There was heavy-duty continuing ed: online workshops and webinars, many hosted by School Library Journal. We knew that a maker space would benefit our community, but we couldn't see how to make it happen. With time and goal adjustments, we reached the finish line and launched in January.

Start small

Our first challenge was space. Many maker areas we visited were comparatively vast. The one at the Cincinnati Public Library, for example, is half a floor in a big facility with sewing stations, a large vinyl printer, and a laser cutter. Others had separate recording studios or digital media centers-not realistic for us.

Our budget was smaller, too. In addition to buying the basic tech, we had to consider consumables that would need replenishing and furniture, and we wanted dedicated staff. In the end, we put together a budget of around $6,000 for materials during 2015 and 2016. Some of our teen programming budget got folded in. We created a new position, maker space assistant, when other staff moved on to new opportunities.

After putting together a wish list and breaking it down into topics and objects, we broke the budgeting into three phases. Phase 1 included anything we absolutely needed to begin; we already owned some of those items from Maker Mondays. Many components were laptop- or tablet-based, so a lot was spent on this, and we added inexpensive programs and apps later. We repurposed things in-house-furniture and circulating laptops that weren't getting much use. Phase 2 involved purchasing additional tech components, such as robots. Phase 3, kicked off in 2016, looked at what we needed to be fully operational.

Looking at the success of Maker Mondays and the circulating kits, we decided to focus on small-scale tech with specific patron education goals in mind: photo creation and manipulation, video creation with a focus on stop-motion animation, small robotics, small-scale 3-D creation, and electronics.

With those goals, we decided that our teen area, an enclosed space of 18½ feet by 21½ feet across from the circulation and reference desks, would be the best spot. We spent the summer evaluating our collections, weeding, and moving teen fiction out and maker components in. The bookshelves now house our maker books, kits, and other items such as robots and button-making tools. Two walls have café-style counters, where we made stations for stop-motion animation, button making, and LEGO creation; plus a bank of PC and iPad stations to use with the robots, digital media creation, and more.

One of our goals for 2016 is to add more circulating kits. Plus, because a lot of our tech is small, we plan to rotate items to keep things fresh. For example, we've hosted successful sewing programs and could rotate in a sewing machine.

Now for the nitty gritty. Here's what we learned over the last six months about small-scale tech and why we bought what we did.

Digital photography

I knew this would be a hit in our maker space, since I've run successful digital photography sessions. Several programs and apps can create photo memes and artful pictures. Patrons can add borders, texts, frames, and filters to create original works of art. Those can be printed onto photo transfer paper to make art canvases, book bags, and T-shirts. This uses hands-on tech learning to create personalized, take-home items.

One of our first steps was to downloaded GIMP, free photo manipulation software for Windows, on the two PCs we already had. Our four new iPad workstations also feature photo apps for creating digital photography.

As for printing: Low-cost printers ($250-$300) can generate larger photos wirelessly and are good options for a small space or budget. We now have an older printer that meets our basic needs but can't print as large as we want. I hope to buy a Canon PIXMA iP8720 wireless color printer, which can print borderless photos up to 13″ x 19″.

Stop-motion animation

I've been doing stop-motion with teens for a few years, and the stop-motion animation kit is the most popular of our circulating kits, so we knew we wanted a station dedicated to this activity. The station is small, while still allowing teens to deeply engage in video creation and editing. We set up a green screen using a green, tri-fold project board, the kind you might use for a science fair project. We added narrative props such as flexible figurines, LEGO and LEGO minifigs, instruction and idea sheets, and some books for reference.

The app, a six-second social media platform popular with teens, has bolstered stop-motion's popularity. Vine videos dominate the online world, from nail art tutorials to LEGO movies, and its built-in tools helps you create your own stop-motion clips.

Many other stop-motion apps can be used with tablets or other mobile devices. is one of the easiest and allows you to quickly upload a series of pictures; adjust elements, such as time between frames; and add filters and text. For a more advanced app, we use Stop Motion Studio, which has a green screen feature.

We initially bought the Stikbots animation studio (about $10-$30), which comes with two Stikbots-colorful, movable mannequin figures-and a tripod to hold a mobile device while shooting movies. Users download an app to make the software studio work. You can also buy Stikbots individually and use them with different stop-motion software. Stikbots have suction cups at the end of all of their arms and legs so you can make a small movement and stick them in place while photographing.

We later bought the HUE Animation Studio package (about $100). It comes with a flexible camera, software, and a handbook for creating stop-motion movies. The best part is the camera-hands-down the most versatile out there-with a long, flexible neck you adjust to get your best shot. The software doesn't have some advanced features, like filters, but it's easy to use. You can also buy the camera alone-I recommend it-to use with other stop-motion software.

Picture-Perfect Photo Apps

Lets users add "stickers," i.e., sayings and embellishments. A great app to turn
photos into cards and announcements.

Fused Blends two pictures together-for example, a starry night sky with a silhouette.

Features a variety of great filters, stickers,
and texts.

PhotoShake! Makes grid photo collages of up to
30 images.

BeFunky An editing tool allowing for touch-ups and offering a variety of overlays and filters.

An easy-to-use app for creating
fun memes.

Creates artistic photo manipulations,
such as a picture appearing in a snowflake.

Turns a photo into a silhouette outline
that can combine with another graphic using apps
such as Fused.

Visual Poetry Creates visual text collages from words.

Enlights Providing multiple editing features, this comprehensive app has a steeper learning curve.

Coding, robotics, and micro-computers

I'm not too familiar with coding, but I knew I wanted to offer instruction in this fundamental 21st- century skill. Coding can be used to create video games, apps, websites, robots and more; it can happen on traditional desktops, laptops, and tablets. Many add some small-scale robots and microcomputers to further teach coding. Code Academy and Code.org are two of many free resources to help teach kids.

At my previous library, we used Raspberry Pis to help teach coding. Raspberry Pi is a microcomputer that can be used in several ways. Hook it up to a monitor, and it can be used for basic instruction. Add it to a LEGO robot body, and it can be the foundation of robotics. Basic Raspberry Pi kits cost about $75, but the new Raspberry Pi Zero has a base cost of just $5. We hope to add Raspberry Pis this year.

Arduino is another open-source computer software program that's relatively inexpensive. A kit begins at around $80 and can be used in developing robots and motion detectors.

Robotics is a huge part of the contemporary maker movement. Done correctly, it combines many elements to teach several skills. If you have teens build their own robots using things like LEGO and littleBits, you tap into engineering. Combine LEGO and Raspberry Pi, and you have engineering and coding.

After creating an extensive tech comparison chart using the fabulous Robot Test Kitchen website, we decided the Sphero robot (about $100) was a fun and age-appropriate model for our teen-focused maker space. The award-winning Dash and Dot robot set ($150-$230) received favorable reviews, and, after playing with it, we liked how easy it was to learn the basics. Both can be used with other tech such as an iPad to teach basic coding and robotics. Other robots on the market include Ozobot and Finch, which I have not used.

Circuitry and electronics

Basic circuitry and electronics can be a fun, more affordable activity. At a simple level, you can purchase a variety of Snap Circuits, popular items in our circulating kits, for about $25. Advanced sets, with more projects, can cost around $100. They come with easy-to-follow project instructions and work especially well with younger kids or as an introduction.

I saw a demonstration of Makey Makey ($50) and Squishy Circuits (about $25) at the Akron (OH) Maker Faire, and both are fun introductions to circuitry and electronics. Makey Makey is a circuit-based product for creating inventions and comes with circuit cables, alligator clips, and a USB cable. As with Squishy Circuits, you can use creative elements-a banana piano, for starters-to make fantastic projects, as long as they conduct electricity to complete a circuit. I hope to purchase them soon for the library.

Several tech tools and toys are designed to interact well with other popular tech on the market. LittleBits, perhaps the best such product on the market now, continues to develop partnerships with Arduino and LEGO. This means that patrons can do more things by using the various bits and pieces with others, which increases creativity, encourages problem solving, and give libraries more bang for their buck.

LittleBits are electronic components that you assemble to build and rebuild unlimited, open-ended projects. A popular Maker Monday activity, littleBits features pieces that are color coded to indicate the function of each one. Orange parts, for example, are wires, and pink ones provide power. You can buy a variety of packs and individual pieces to create your own littleBits library. I've used the rotating motor function to make a LEGO figurine spin. During our summer reading challenge, we created a video using LEGO superhero figures to tell stories.

All of these electronic components can be easily stored-and just as easily damaged or stolen. Many of ours, such as the robots and the electronics, are only available when the maker space is staffed. Meanwhile, the PCs and iPad station are available whenever the library is open.

Vinyl cutters and 3-D printer pens

Many libraries we visited had large vinyl cutters or printers that can render amazing signage or decals, though these proved not to be an option for us due to space and budget. However, there are smaller-scale models that achieve basic vinyl printing and cutting, such as the Cricut or Silhouette machines. Both can cut shapes and letters out of thin vinyl adhesive sheets. Scrapbookers, for example, use the Cricut machine to create page embellishments.

A Cricut machine begins at around $250, and a main drawback is that you must buy additional cartridges or software packages to get new shapes or fonts. We use the Silhouette Cameo ($350-$550), which connects to a computer software program. Users input their data and can cut a variety of surfaces, including regular paper and vinyl, to create silhouette shapes, images and letters. There's a consumables cost involved, because it uses special cutting surfaces loaded into the machine that must be replaced fairly regularly if you use the machine frequently.

3-D printers are getting smaller and cheaper, but they are still out of reach for some maker spaces. But several types of 3-D pens ($150-$300) can create small-scale three-dimensional items such as small buildings and figurines. We bought a Scribbler 3D Pen for around $100 and recently used it to create a pair of glasses (without lenses) that makes a fun photo prop. We found that it can help to print out a stencil (available online) to guide your project. These pens require filament, which has to be refilled.

With my six months of research fresh in mind, I wrote a maker space manual that introduces our philosophy, outlines our stations, and has a table of contents for the circulating kits.

Looking back, the hardest part of creating a vision for our maker space was setting realistic goals for our library system. The second hardest? Educating ourselves about our tech options and how they would or wouldn't help us meet those goals. As with libraries, it's important to remember that a maker space will change and adapt as new tech become available, prices go down, and libraries learn what does and doesn't work. We're up and running now, and I love the excitement our maker space generates. In fact, our young patrons often teach us just as much as we are teaching them.

Karen Jensen founded the blog " Teen Librarian Toolbox."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Small Tech, Big Impact: Designing My Maker Space

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I didn't think 2015 would be the year I created a teen maker space, but it was-and it turned out to be an exciting, challenging, and rewarding experience. After six months of planning, our maker space at the Public Library of Mount Vernon and Knox County, Ohio, where I am the YA services coordinator, opened last month.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This activity guide is the cat's meow! Celebrate Pete and all kinds of cats as you motivate readers. Read in the Kitty Corner, play games with buttons and shoes and have everyone draw their own cat!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Upstart Activity Guides - Ideas & Inspiration from Demco

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This activity guide is the cat's meow! Celebrate Pete and all kinds of cats as you motivate readers. Read in the Kitty Corner, play games with buttons and shoes and have everyone draw their own cat!

# data[].attributes.body
includes idea of virtual open house

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As a new teacher, I remember being nervous for Parent Open House because I did not know what to say to parents. Not to mention, I had been teaching all day, preparing all week, and skipped supper to be there -- I was tired. Therefore I understand the desire to just get by for Open House preparation, but I hope some teachers will have the energy to go above and beyond what has always been done to make this experience interesting and meaningful.

As a parent, I don't feel much better. With my children in high school, I still attend and stand in lines for each room, waiting behind some parent publicly sharing way too much personal information, so that I can talk for an awkward minute with a teacher who asks if I have any questions. I usually ask about homework and tell them to email me if they need anything. Then I wait in another line to sign in as we all try to cram an email address on a line that's too small for the teacher to ever interpret my writing.

Now, as I reflect on 18 years in the public school system and, with four children, 58 combined years of Open Houses at many different schools, I offer this advice for educators to reinvent your Parent Open House and share some of your ideas.

QR Codes

Most parents have smart phones. If they don't, they may love that handout with your contact information, but I always wind up losing it or leaving it in the car until it gets a drink spilled on it and then gets thrown away. I have seen some teachers who have a QR code with their contact information and a link to their website. This works best for parents like me, so maybe have both. I've seen QR codes to student projects and scavenger hunts for extra credit, which have made the nights much more interesting. When my son created a video, his teacher had a QR code leading to his project, so I watched it on my phone and then sent the link to his grandparents. I loved it! The scavenger hunts kept my children busy while I signed in and gave them something to discuss with me about their classroom.

Virtual Open House

If parents cannot make Open House, I think a virtual tour of the empty classroom may be nice to post or send them. To be honest, I have not seen this idea, but I would like schools to have alternatives for parents like my husband who works nights. Students could help create this video and record their own narration for an added touch. If parents do arrive, place QR codes in different parts of the room, such as the reading center, with a student's voice explaining the purpose of that area. Apps that let students annotate video can work well with this project. This same concept can be created for the teacher's website.

Sign Up Night

One teacher that we visited created a Google form where we signed in electronically with our email addresses. I loved that the four classroom computers were set up for this, and that a QR code was in place to let me sign in on my phone. If a teacher uses software such as Edmodo, Remind, ClassDojo, or anything else where parents need logins, this would be a great time to have stations set up where student helpers can assist them to create these accounts. This may give the parents and teacher some more conversation starters as well.

Augmented Reality

This is becoming more popular than QR codes, but parents are more likely to have a QR reader on their phones than an augmented reality app downloaded for Open House. If you are going to use anything that needs a certain app, such as Aurasma, send the note home ahead of time so that parents will know to download the app and bring appropriate devices. If a teacher uses AR in the classroom, such as for a vocabulary word wall, showing the parents this new technology makes an Open House experience much more interesting and gives them something to do as they wait in that inevitable line to talk to the teacher.

Technology Interaction

How do your students interact with technology? Allow parents that opportunity as well to give them a feel for their children's daily experience. If students are expected to use mobile devices to answer questions, have the parents answer questions using this tool also.

No Escape Key

The other day, when I mentioned the fact that we are almost done with Open Houses, my husband grinned -- right before one of my children asked if I would go to Open House as a grandmother one day. I put on a brave smile and nodded that of course I would go. Then I sat down to write this blog in hopes that a new, more interesting model for Open House will take hold by then.

How do you change things up for Parent Open Houses?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
This Ain't Your Momma's Open House | Edutopia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As a new teacher, I remember being nervous for Parent Open House because I did not know what to say to parents. Not to mention, I had been teaching all day, preparing all week, and skipped supper to be there -- I was tired.

# data[].attributes.body
activities, videos

# data[].attributes.body
link from Dr. Plummer

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The power switched into the students' hands when they chose an offer, and all of their classmates erupted in cheers. They were participating in a two-week Shark Tank project -- based on the show of the same name -- where entrepreneurs pitch investors to fund their company.

What began as a classwide math project to learn about the profit function equation and quadratic functions culminated into a grade-level presentation to imitate the show Shark Tank.

Each student was tasked with joining a group to create a fictitious business, which included developing a product and marketing plan, choosing a location and work space, and identifying how much money they would need for startup costs and what the return would be for investors.

"One of the things you hear all the time as a math teacher is, 'When am I ever going to use this?'" says Derick Richardson, a Nashville Big Picture math teacher. "I try to bridge that. And so through this project, the kids were able to see, 'Oh, man, we're talking about stuff that I hear on the news and that I see on this TV show that I like, and it actually makes sense.' Everybody got involved, even the kids that are not good at math. I've never seen these kids get this excited about a math project."

"When you're able make learning relevant to a student," adds Chaerea Snorten, Nashville Big Picture's principal, "it helps them want to do it and not just because that's what's expected. The whole focus of personalized learning is that students see the relevance of what it is that they're doing. The outcome is students are engaged, and they're enjoying the learning process."

If you want to engage your students in personalized learning projects, here are six tips from Nashville Big Picture High School for how you can get started.

How It's Done

1. Make Your Projects Simple

Not every project has to be a grade-level collaboration like the Shark Tank project. Instead of the traditional paper or PowerPoint presentation, give your students choices in how they show their learning. They may choose to make a video, act out a skit, or create a painting.

Kristin, a Nashville Big Picture junior, was asked to depict slavery in any way that she wanted for her history class. She chose art. Her painting depicted Harriet Tubman and a slave girl against a backdrop of words.

These words -- ranging from "kidnapping" to "hope" -- depicted a slave's journey from slavery to emancipation. She appreciated not only being able to choose how she would express her learning, but also the public display of her art -- alongside other students' work -- in the school hallways. "My art is a part of me," shared Kristin, "and so for people to walk by and see a part of me, it feels great."

When Harley, an alumnus, entered Nashville Big Picture in ninth grade, he was given the choice in how he could approach his first project. "I made a video documentary about myself," Harley recalls, "and from that assignment, I realized that I loved making movies." From that moment forward -- from his exhibitions to his senior capstone project -- Harley expressed his learning through video. "I wouldn't have put in as much time and effort if I had to write a lot of papers, but by making a bunch of videos, I was able to do awesome work because it was something I cared about," he says.

Watch Harley's short video for Edutopia about student voice and choice (and read his four tips on how teachers can engage students).

2. Let Your Students Choose What They Learn (It's Not as Scary as it Sounds)

In place of a quarterly test, Big Picture history teacher Gary Hook assigned his students a mini-project to research, investigate, and present on a topic within modern U.S. history. He gave them a list of topics from the '80s to the present -- ranging from movements (like gay rights and Black Lives Matter) to the impact of social media on modern-day society. If there wasn't a topic on the list that his students wanted to research, he let them choose their own topic as long as it fit within modern U.S. history.

Give your students a list of options from which they can choose, whether it's a book to read in language arts, a topic to research in history, or a business to create in math. "With project work, I try to give them a menu of options that they can choose from to show their learning," explains Hook, "as well as a menu of options that they can choose to research. This allows them to operate in a space where they are comfortable."

3. Give Your Students a Project Framework

Giving your students choice in what they learn and in how they express their learning doesn't mean that content or standards get thrown out the window. Hook was able to give his students choice while still meeting his content objectives. Nor does giving your students choice mean that your assignments lack structure or planning. "When it comes to personalizing our learning, we have to look at what our content and standards are. We start there," says Snorten.

"The essence of personalized learning is understanding where the student is and where they want to go, as well as where you need them to go," adds Hook. Give your students a project brief to make sure that they cover the content and skills you need them to learn. Hook gave his students a project brief outlining the objective, topic options for research, guidance on how they'll carry out their project (such as working in groups and presenting their topic), and details on what needed to be included in their process.

4. Use Temperature Checks to Assess Your Students' Work

When assessing personalized learning projects, do one-on-one or group temperature checks with your students. Are they hot or cold? Are they way off or close to grasping what they need to understand? When Richardson's students were working on the Shark Tank project, he would go from group to group, checking in on their profit functions.

Richardson also checked in on their progress with their product, their marketing campaign, and the elements of their project that were less tied to math. "Sometimes you have a project, but you don't follow up," he explains. "You hand out a sheet of paper, they go do it, and that's it. I really wanted them to get excited about this, be passionate about it, and create something that they really might be able to use outside of the classroom." Student choice about their project brings relevance to their learning. By showing interest in the whole project, you show interest in their passions and in your students themselves. They'll become more engaged in their work if they believe that you're excited and engaged in what they're doing and in who they are.

5. Get to Know Your Students

"We need to understand who our students are and how they learn," stresses Richardson. Once you understand your students' needs, you won't waste time delivering content in a way that they won't comprehend. "It saves you a lot of time and effort," he says.

"Like adults," adds Courtney Ivy Davis, Big Picture's school counselor and internship coordinator, "their passion is what drives them. It's what gives them excitement, and we want them to be excited about their passion and tie that to their education so that they can be successful lifelong learners." Students don't walk into your classroom with their passions and interests written on their forehead. You have to uncover these things while giving your students the opportunity to explore and discover their interests for themselves. By offering them choice in what and how they learn, you allow them to figure out how they learn best. Building intentional relationships with your students will allow you to guide them in this discovery. Here are 22 ways that Nashville Big Picture builds intentional relationships with their students. (Note that these strategies are applicable even if you're at a bigger school.)

6. Ask Your Students What They Want and Need

"Student voice is number one," emphasizes Snorten. "Hear it, learn it, ask for it. 'What is it that will help you do better? How can we help you improve? What do you need from us?'" Building personal relationships with each of your students is important, but it also takes time.

If you have a class of 40 students, and want to know their needs and interests now, ask them.

See Related Resources: When We Listen to Students and Student Surveys: Using Student Voice to Improve Teaching and Learning

Help Your Students Figure Out How They Learn Best

Rather than opening a textbook, memorizing steps to an equation, or learning the teacher's method on how to understand something, personalized learning allows your students to figure out how they learn best. They also get to see how their peers learn best, showing them that there are many ways to problem solve and reach the same solution. "At other schools, they might know one specific way to do things," explains Richardson, "but our students are prepared to be more creative in how they figure out the solution. They learn how to learn on their own, and they take that into college."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Driving Engagement Through Voice and Choice | Edutopia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The power switched into the students' hands when they chose an offer, and all of their classmates erupted in cheers. They were participating in a two-week Shark Tank project -- based on the show of the same name -- where entrepreneurs pitch investors to fund their company.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In order to play baseball you should probably become familiar with the terms "ball," "bat," and "base." On a similar note, in order for you to grasp hand lettering, there's a variety of terms you should also understand. Most of these terms actually describe the physical parts of specific letters. Did you know there was a name for the bar across a capital A? The dot on the letter i? The circle in a lowercase e? You will now! Acknowledging the different parts of each letter and appreciating how they relate to each other will allow you to become more deliberate as you create letters of your own.
PS: We know this glossary is kinda lengthy. Feel free to skip this section and head straight to "Understanding Hand-Drawn Letters" below (promise we won't mind).
Serif

Most people first become familiar with this word in high school - scrolling through all the different Microsoft Word fonts in order to snazz up your lackluster history paper (though we all secretly knew Wingdings was the MVP). Quite simply, a serif is the tiny line attached at the end of a stroke of a letter. A typeface that has serifed letters is called a Serif Font.

Sans-Serif

On the other hand, sans-serif fonts are typefaces without (you guessed it) serifs. The letters on sans-serif fonts don't have little tails. Most important application of this tidbit? Now you know that the widely beloved/intensely hated font "Comic Sans" is actually short for something like "Comic Booky Sans Serif Font."

Apex

The apex is the point at the top of a letter where two different strokes meet. For instance, the apex is the point of the capital A. You can make your apexes sharp, rounded, or blunt depending on the vibe you'd like you letters to have.

Cross Bar

The crossbar is the horizontal lettering stroke that crosses across the uppercase A and H. The stroke that goes across the lowercase e is also called a crossbar. Experiment with your crossbar by making it thicker, lighter, or uniquely angled.

Script

Though you probably learned about writing script in middle school (and then never used it again besides signing your name), it doesn't hurt to go over the concepts behind this style again. Script is a fluid type of lettering that mimics cursive handwriting. Most of the letters connect with each other in an elegant, flowing style.

Bow

The bow is the rounded bottom section of the capital letter B.

Open Bow

While the bow of the capital letter B usually connects with the main vertical stroke, the Open Bow is an example of a bow that doesn't connect and instead stops halfway.

Stem

The stem is the name for the main vertical stroke of a letter. All the other strokes branch out from the main letter stem.

Arm

The vertical or horizontal stroke of a letter that doesn't connect to a stem on one or both sides of the letter.

Counter

The counter is the enclosed space of a letter. For instance the circular part of an uppercase Q or the empty space surrounded by a lowercase o would be called the counter.

Eye

The eye is basically the counter for the lowercase e.

Void

Contrary to popular belief, not all voids are meant to be filled. The void in letter anatomy is the open (often pointed) space between two strokes -- most prominently featured in the lowercase v and w.

Vertex

The vertex is a concept in letter anatomy that sort of sounds like the word vortex, and that's where the similarities end. Instead, the vertex is the point at the bottom of a letter where two different strokes meet. The W, for instances, has two different vertexes at its base.

Tittle

Ever wonder what you call the dot on top of an i or j? It's a tittle! Fun fact: the phrase "to the t" is short for "to the tittle" -- for whatever reason we eventually dropped the ittle part.

Bowl

The bowl is the fully enclosed, round part of a letter. The curvy part of the lowercase b and d is the bowl. Playing with the size and shape of the bowl is a great way to experiment as you take on more lettering projects.

Ear

The ear is the tiny flourish extending off the bowl of the lowercase g or the curved flourish on some lowercase r's.

Swash

A swash is basically an exaggerated serif. It's a flourish that extends one of the strokes of an uppercase letter.

Foot

The foot refers to the very bottom of a letter with a straight stroke. You'd refer to the bottom of the lowercase p as the foot of the p.

Tail

The tail is basically another word for the descending (or downward) stroke on a variety of letters. The main lowercase letters that have tails are the g, j, p, q, and y. The tail is the part of the letter that extends to the descender line.

Spine

The spine is the central curved stroke of a lowercase or uppercase S.

Spur

The spur is a small offshoot of a main stroke, not necessarily at the end of the stroke.

Cross Stroke

The cross stroke is the horizontal line that intersects the main stroke of the lowercase t or f. Although the cross stroke is confused for the cross bar, the two are actually pretty different. Cross bars connect two different strokes whereas cross strokes intersect main strokes.

Ball Terminal

The terminal is another name for the end of a letter that doesn't have a serif attached to it. The ball terminal is an extended and often rounded terminal with a tiny protruding ball extending from it.

Ligature

A ligature is the connecting of two different letters through a line, curve, or loop. Certain letters lend themselves to ligatures more easily. For instance, hand lettering artists can combine the two cross strokes of a pair of t's to create a ligature.

Dropline

The dropline is an outline artists add to their letters to give them depth.

Dropshadow

A dropshadow is basically a dropline that gives the letter depth plus the additional effect of shading. Drawing a drop shadow isn't difficult, but it requires you to plan which way you'd imagine light would fall on the letters.

40,000 students can't be wrong. Learn hand lettering from the best!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In order to play baseball you should probably become familiar with the terms "ball," "bat," and "base." On a similar note, in order for you to grasp hand lettering, there's a variety of terms you should also understand. Most of these terms actually describe the physical parts of specific letters.

# data[].attributes.body
article from Flipboard

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The trendy concept is in high demand among educators, but its specifics are vague.

Amy Sussman / AP Images for LEGO Systems

At a recent teaching conference in Richmond, Virginia, a session on "design thinking" in education drew a capacity crowd. Two middle-school teachers demonstrated how they had used the concept to plan and execute an urban-design project in which students were asked to develop a hypothetical city or town given factors such as population, geography, the environment, and financial resources.

The teachers in the audience were enchanted by the details of the project; and if the photographs in the presentation were any indication, the students who participated in the lesson enjoyed it, too. The presenting teachers were bubbling over with enthusiasm for what they saw as the potential inherent in teaching design thinking.

Many of the teachers in attendance were flummoxed, however. As we filed out of the room and headed toward our next sessions, I overheard one woman remark to another that while the urban-design project looked like something she'd like to try in her own classroom, "I think I missed something. I still don't understand what design thinking is. Do you?" The other teacher shook her head and said, "I think it's a curriculum, but I'm not really sure."

Confusion around the precise definition of design thinking is understandable, said Neil Stevenson, the executive portfolio director at IDEO Chicago, one of the best-known purveyors of design thinking. "Design thinking isn't one thing," he told me in a phone interview, "but a bundle of mindsets and philosophies all wrapped up in one term, which obviously has the potential to lead to ambiguity and misunderstanding."

While Stevenson spent plenty of time talking around a definition-explaining mindsets, the nature of creativity, and the evolution of design-even convincing him to offer a brief definition proved difficult. Finally, Stevenson outlined what he sees as the foundational aspects of design thinking as it relates to educators:

First, he emphasized, design thinking starts with empathy. When designing anything meant to be used by another person-whether that's a lesson, curriculum, classroom layout, or an imaginary city-the designer must understand what that person (an "end-user," in design lingo) needs. In the case of the urban-design project, for example, the students can't just design a pretty building; they must think about the needs of the people who will live there, as well as the available resources, the budget, and the impact that building will have on the surrounding landscape. "The design-thinking philosophy requires the designer to put his or her ego to the side and seek to meet the unmet needs, both rational and emotional, of the user," Stevenson explained.

Once the student designers have gathered all their research together, they must organize and make sense of it all. Again, in the case of the urban-planning project, after the students have gathered interviews and research about the needs of their city's future residents, students must figure out what to do with all that information. If, for example, the future residents' top priorities include affordability and opulence, the student designer is going to have to find a way to integrate the residents' conflicting needs.

Finally, design thinking requires designers to generate ideas-lots of ideas-and prototype them. In order for this part of the process to work, students and teachers must be comfortable with failure. For many students, particularly those who want to look smart, this phase can be frustrating. "People tend to come up with an idea early on, and know that this idea is it, the perfect idea, and get emotionally invested in that one thing. Then, when their perfect idea fails, they fall apart," Stevenson said. Design thinking forces students to keep their minds open, to try out lots of ideas early in the process before they let their egos or emotions get too invested in just one.

There will be a time to put spitballing aside, of course. Once ideas have been prototyped and tested, students begin to work toward one effective, final solution-an end product that can be assessed, presented, displayed, or put to work in their classroom or community. The beauty of the design process, proponents say, is that the value of the experience does not lie solely in the end product. Learning happens throughout the process, from the early research phase to the final presentation. This allows students and teachers to focus on what's most important in learning: the process, rather than the product.

One scene from the film Apollo 13 provides a great illustration of the design-thinking process. After Apollo 13 is crippled by an explosion, the astronauts are stranded in the lunar module. The air filters in the lunar module are failing, so the engineers at NASA must find a way to make a square filter fit into a round hole using only the materials available to the astronauts. The engineers find a solution through design thinking: by understanding the needs and resources of the astronauts, organizing the resources available on the lunar module, then working together to develop and prototype many ideas. The ultimate solution may not have been pretty, but it was creative and it was effective. Their design saved the lives of the Apollo 13 astronauts.

This sort of step-by-step, formulaic approach to creative problem-solving was revolutionary and counterintuitive when it was first developed in reaction to the launch of Sputnik in 1957. When Russia leapfrogged ahead of the rest of the world in the space race, the U.S. needed to respond with a rapid and radical acceleration in technological innovation. The process of design thinking emerged as an effort to encourage all scientists-even the least creative, most inflexible thinkers-to be novel, brave, and innovative in their problem-solving.

Historically, creativity has been portrayed as a mysterious, elusive force-a gift from the gods or the muses. Creativity can't be summoned, the thinking goes, let alone taught to the mentally inflexible, unimaginative, muse-less masses. Design thinking upends that perception and assumes that anyone can be a creative problem-solver.

At its best, design thinking incorporates proven-effective teaching techniques such as self-directed inquiry and collaborative problem-solving, and dovetails nicely with social-emotional learning curricula that emphasize interpersonal skills such as collaboration and empathy. And the end result of a design-thinking project is often a tangible product, such as a model city, a robot, or a better mousetrap. It's no surprise, then, that many educators are eager to adopt design thinking as a way to plan their own teaching and as a strategy for helping their students learn through solving real-world problems.

The popularity of design thinking, however, might be precisely what's contributing to the confusion I witnessed in Virginia, says Stevenson:

It's been extremely gratifying for all of us practicing design to see the ideas taken on by so many people. There's a downside, though, which is that when something becomes popular, now suddenly everyone wants to learn it and lots and lots of people will spring up and teach it. For the sake of communication, we tend to define design thinking as A followed by B followed by C, but in doing this, we are guilty of oversimplifying.

As teachers seek to learn more about design thinking and its application in their classrooms, conference sessions and certificate programs have emerged to accommodate demand. Stanford's D-School and IDEO offer two popular courses, but there are many flavors, colors, and brands of design thinking for educators to choose from.

In other words, the lack of a clear definition makes explaining, evaluating, and studying design thinking a challenge. And some teachers at that conference in Virginia-myself included-were skeptical, and attended the design-thinking session to better understand whether the concept is actually an effective learning strategy or simply another education trend gone viral despite scant objective data regarding its effectiveness for learning.

When executed with a clear understanding of its purpose as a method for fostering empathy, creativity, and innovation, design thinking can be a powerful tool for learning and change. If it is hastily and inexpertly implemented by educators with a weak or incomplete understanding of its principles, however, it is likely to be a waste of energy and precious classroom time.

Design thinking, like Carol Dweck's work on fixed and growth mindsets and Angela Duckworth's research on grit, are best understood in context, as a complex and nuanced approach to learning rather than a checklist of executable tasks. Dweck was so alarmed by the rampant oversimplification of fixed and growth mindsets that she wrote an article for Edutopia to clear up common misconceptions about her work. Just as Dweck's work can't be conveyed adequately in a Life Hack infographic, and Duckworth's research is apt to be misunderstood when reduced to a listicle, design thinking seems likely to fail as an educational tool when communicated in terms of " Five Simple Steps."

Mindsets, grit, and design thinking are all victims of their own massive popularity, and in the rush to incorporate these concepts into existing lesson plans, have sometimes been reduced to checklist items on teachers' overcrowded to-do lists. When treated as a classroom culture, however, rather than an action, design thinking (as well as mindset and grit) may revolutionize the way teachers and students think about failure, creative problem-solving, and teamwork.

Ultimately, design thinking is not a curriculum, advocates like Stevenson say, but a process for problem-solving, a strategy to elicit creativity rooted in empathy and comfort with failure. Teachers can use design thinking to create a classroom layout that conforms to the needs of their students, they say, or to plan lessons that will work best for the students in a given school or classroom. Entire school districts are embracing design thinking to create spaces and curricula around the intellectual and emotional needs of their students. Teachers are also helping students use design thinking to apply what they've learned to real-world problems, such as the urban-design project described by those middle-school teachers in Virginia.

While there is not a lot of data to support any particular brand of design thinking as an effective teaching or learning strategy, the key elements of design thinking will be familiar to any teacher well-versed in the basics of effective teaching: start with empathy, move ego to the side, and support students in the process of failing often and early on their way to learning.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Design Thinking Became a Buzzword at School

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The trendy concept is in high demand among educators, but its specifics are vague. At a recent teaching conference in Richmond, Virginia, a session on "design thinking" in education drew a capacity crowd.

# data[].attributes.body
Teachers Pay Teachers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I am so excited to tell you all about a new adventure in my classroom! After careful research and much contemplation, I decided to incorporate Flexible Seating into my 1st grade classroom. While I have always had a variety of seating options in my classroom (bean bag chairs, small rugs, and special children's chairs), this idea of flexible seating is very different from what I had implemented in my classroom before.

I follow Mrs. Delzer, an innovative teacher from North Dakota, on Instagram. She posted pictures of her classroom and she wrote a great article titled Why the 21st Century Classroom May Remind You of Starbucks. I was very inspired by this article and realized that many of the students in my classroom could benefit from this type of seating and classroom layout.

I then set out to find out what I needed to make flexible seating happen in my classroom. I searched the internet to find more teachers using this innovative setup. I found great pictures of classrooms on Pinterest and found a wonderful blog post with flexible seating FAQ's by Angie from Lucky Little Learners. Her FAQ's helped me to gain the courage to try it out...

My principal was very encouraging and fully supported my plans. I wrote nice emails to the head custodian explaining that I needed some desks lowered and some raised. He kindly obliged and jokingly told me that this might not be the end of these kinds of requests, now that I had taken the plunge (and he was right!).

Next was the fun part... Shopping!! I found six exercise balls with legs for children, 10 stability disks, containers for shared supplies, and kneeling mats. I already had some fun chairs, bean bags, clip boards, and rugs.

I rolled the seating plan out little-by-little and the students, of course, were super excited for the change in our classroom. I started with low tables with the stability disks. We took turns working in this space and the students were loving it. We used the disks on the rug and I had students take turns working on the disks.

I then raised four desks to standing height and had the students experiment with working while standing. I added some fidget bands to the legs of the standing desks and some chairs to incorporate more opportunities for movement. I then slowly introduced the exercise balls. We talked about how to use the balls appropriately. We talked about small bounces and how to safely sit on the ball without rolling out of the door! They know that these items are tools, but when the tools become toys, they will be taken away. Surprisingly, I have had very few problems with our new set-up!

The next step was to have the students clean out their desks. Folders and journals were placed in bins, reading books were stacked in easily accessible crates, and the only personal supplies my students need were kept in their pencil boxes and placed in their classroom mailboxes. I removed their name tags, and students were then told that we were sharing all of the spaces in the classroom. Some of them were a little taken aback at first, since they had gotten used to their own space, but it didn't take long for them to take some chances and find workspaces that were better suited to their needs. Plus, it so nice to have clean and organized work areas, not desks stuffed with papers and toys/items brought from home.

Most of my direct instruction is taught at the carpet, with some students seated on stability disks. When it is time for independent work or group work, the students are dismissed by rows to make their choices. Some of the areas to choose from include: standing desks with fidget bands, laying or sitting on the floor with clipboards, Sitting on exercise balls at desks, sitting in chairs with fidget bands, sitting or kneeling at low tables, sitting in bean bag chairs, or sitting at a traditional desk with a traditional chair.

A few weeks ago, one of the district's occupational therapists came in to see the set-up. She was so excited to see what we were trying (she was the one who gave us the fidget bands to wrap around some of the chair legs). My students were immediately drawn to the seating where they could manipulate the band with their feet while they worked.

I am truly amazed at how flexible seating has transformed my classroom. This group of energetic and enthusiastic 6-and 7-year-olds is more focused and their energy now can be channeled in a productive way. This movement is allowing them to truly focus on the content and tasks necessary in our classroom. I don't know many adults who would want to work at a desk for six hours each day, so why should our students have to learn in this rigid way?

After six weeks of implementation, I will confidently say that flexible seating has been a success for my class. I can't imagine ever going back to traditional seating. I even bought myself a yoga ball for small group instruction! Do you have flexible seating in your classroom? How is it working for you?

Check out my Flexible Seating Freebie in my TpT store. In the pack, you'll find a poster of flexible seating expectations, a student contract, and a flexible seating mini activity book to help your students understand the expectations.

Check out the follow-up post: Flexible Seating 5 Months Later.
Check out flexible seating in action by visiting my classroom website.

Happy teaching!

***

Meghan Snable is a 1st grade teacher, TpT Teacher-Author, and Teacher Blogger from California. She holds a Master's Degree in Reading Instruction as well as a Reading Specialist Credential. Meghan believes learning should be engaging, interactive, and fun. She creates lessons and resources that stretch students' understanding while allowing them to tap into their creativity. In her free time, Meghan enjoys reading, cooking, exercising, and playing with her dog Max. You can find her resources in her TpT store and on her blog The Creative Colorful Classroom. Connect with Meghan on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Flexible Seating Transformed My Classroom | The TpT Blog

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I am so excited to tell you all about a new adventure in my classroom! After careful research and much contemplation, I decided to incorporate Flexible Seating into my 1st grade classroom.

# data[].attributes.body
mentions Parkway

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Last spring at the #GoOpen Exchange, I had the opportunity to facilitate a discussion with district leaders on approaches to curating openly licensed educational resources. Leaders from #GoOpen districts shared innovative ideas for how they were tackling the challenge of curating and creating OER - but the conversation really shifted during the small group discussions when we invited librarian leaders to share their expertise with discovering, evaluating, and curating digital content.

Four months later, I ran into one of the district superintendents who attended the curation discussion. After leaving the #GoOpen Exchange, he'd returned to his district and invited his district librarians to play a leading role in their transition to using openly licensed educational resources. The librarians helped organize a #GoOpen Regional Summit and have supported professional learning for educators across the district (and in neighboring districts) on issues of copyright, fair use, and open licensing.

This experience made one thing clear - in order to change the conversation, you have to be a part of the conversation.

Over the past year, the Office of Educational Technology has worked with library leaders across the country to change the conversation among district and school leaders about the role librarians can play in leading, teaching, and supporting districts as they transition to digital learning. This work is informed by a convening we hosted in February 2016 at San Francisco Public Library that brought together a group of library and education leaders including the Alliance for Excellent Education, thought leaders from leading library organizations, and district-level library coordinators. In San Francisco these thought partners identified how the expertise and skills of librarians align with the goals many districts are setting as they leverage technology to transform learning, laying the foundation for the Future Ready Librarians framework.

Librarian leadership looks different in every school, in every district. Over the past year, we've met librarians who are leading district-wide pilots to reimagine learning spaces, shaping the conversation about digital citizenship in their districts and states, creating makerspaces that empower students as creators, and building instructional partnerships with teachers that explore how to use new technologies to support student learning.

Finding and sharing these stories is one way to change the conversation. We are excited to highlight a few stories below that are featured in the 2017 update to the National Education Technology Plan.

Parkway Mobile Makerspaces: Empowering Librarians as Technology Leaders

In 2015, Parkway School District in Chesterfield, MO, launched its Mobile Makerspace project to jumpstart the maker movement. For Parkway, the goals of the project are twofold - empowering the district's librarians as instructional partners and technology leaders while providing opportunities for students to actively use technology in service of their mission to develop students that are capable, curious, caring and confident learners.

As part of its effort to reimagine the role of its school librarians, the district has focused on providing just-in-time training for their librarians on the technologies in each Mobile Makerspace kit and positioning them as technology leaders and instructional partners working with teachers to design curricular connections for each kit.

The project gives schools an opportunity to experiment with new technologies and prototype their own spaces before making investments in tools or space redesign. Increasingly, schools that have checked out Mobile Makerspace kits are investing in these innovative spaces to provide students the opportunity to develop and enhance their mindsets to learn, collaborate, and innovate in a community setting where curiosity is embraced. Learn more about the Mobile Makerspace project at tinyurl.com/mobilemakerspaces.

Changing the Conversation: School Leaders Reimagine Role of A Librarian

Library leaders from Indian Prairie School District in Aurora, IL are using the Future Ready Librarians Framework to facilitate purposeful conversations about the changing role of the school librarian with fellow teachers, building administrators, support staff, parents and students. The framework draws a direct connection between the skills and expertise of librarians and the strategic goals schools and districts are setting as they transition to personalized digital learning.

After using the Future Ready Librarians Framework as a tool for personal reflection, the district's 32 certified librarians set individual and district team goals aligned to the framework, which building and district administrators have used to inform the professional development and supports offered throughout the year. To share their learning, the district's librarians started a Future Ready Librarians blog featuring stories aligned to the components of the framework, written to help others see how Future Ready ideas translate into action. These stories also help parents, community members, and school board members understand the continued relevancy of the school library.

Align, Design, Pilot: Rethinking Learning Spaces in Eanes Independent School District (ISD)

In 2015, Eanes ISD's Westlake High School in Austin, Texas, embarked on a project to reimagine their learning spaces. Before purchasing furniture, their first step was to start with their district mission statement and goals for student learning. "As a school, our mission was not just to change classroom furniture, but to impact teaching and learning in our classrooms," says district and high school librarian Carolyn Foote. "We wanted these changes to coincide with the reboot of our 1:1 iPad initiative, so we could amplify the benefits of mobile technology by making classroom environments more mobile as well. In order to do that, we had to be focused on our goals for learning."

In the fall of 2015, teachers applied to be part of the classroom remodel pilot, and attend required professional development. Students and teachers were invited to share input, ultimately resulting in four prototype classroom types. Designs included mobile teacher stations, mobile student chairs, personal whiteboards, soft seating and more. Teachers and students alike reported that their classrooms were more agile, that they were more willing to try something new curricularly, and that collaboration increased in the new classroom design. With the knowledge gained from teachers and students, the district is expanding the pilot to include model classrooms on all campuses and then expanding the high school pilot as well.

We believe that if properly prepared and supported, librarians are well-placed to lead in schools and districts as they transition to the effective use of technology to support teaching and learning - and we're excited to continue the conversation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
School Librarians: [Un]Quiet Leaders of Digital Change

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Last spring at the #GoOpen Exchange, I had the opportunity to facilitate a discussion with district leaders on approaches to curating openly licensed educational resources. Leaders from #GoOpen districts shared innovative ideas for how they were tackling the challenge of curating and creating OER - but the conversation really shifted during the small group discussions when we invited librarian leaders to share their expertise with discovering, evaluating, and curating digital content.

# data[].attributes.body
from Flipboard

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The free K12 Online Conference (@k12online) is continuing this year with short "mini-conferences." Last week John Spencer's (@spencerideas) keynote for the "Design Thinking" strand was published. The video is just over 30 minutes long, and provides a practical introduction to both design thinking and how it can be used to transform learning in your classroom. I invite you to not only watch it, but consider sharing your own reflection about it using a blog post, audio recording, or video. Tweet the link to your reflection to John (@spencerideas) and use the #k12onlineconf Twitter hashtag to share it with others.

This Friday, January 20, 2017, at 5 pm Eastern / 4 pm Central / 3 pm Mountain / 2 pm Pacific, I'll be facilitating a 60 minute panel discussion about design thinking on YouTube Live / Google Hangouts for K12 Online. The panel includes an amazing international group of educators who are well versed and experienced applying design thinking concepts in schools. Panelists will include:

Please read the post "International Panel Discussion On Design Thinking: January 20th!" on the K12 Online Conference blog for full details. Click here to view the start time in your local time zone. Visit k12onlineconference.org/live/ to view the live video stream on YouTube (Google Hangout) as well as the backchannel chat room to interact with presenters and other participants.

The panel discussion video will be archived for later viewing, but if your schedule permits I hope you'll join us LIVE for this discussion about design thinking!

Also, if you have not already, check out the fantastic keynotes on "Global Collaboration" by Julie Lindsey (@julielindsay) and on "Learning Spaces" by David Jakes (@djakes) posted in October and November of 2016. These videos and the panel discussion Google Hangouts which followed both are all linked on the K12Online Conference 2016-17 Schedule page. If you teach graduate education courses or undergraduate education courses to pre-service teachers, please consider sharing these videos with your students. These keynote presenters for K12Online 2017 have shared fantastic ideas which can help promote creative, innovative, and engaging learning experiences for students in all grade levels and content areas. And, this content is both completely FREE and Creative-Commons licensed for re-use with attribution!

I hope you'll make the K12 Online Conference a part of your professional learning "media menu" in 2017! Follow @k12online on Twitter to stay updated on upcoming events!

Did you know Wes has published several eBooks and "eBook singles?" 1 of them is available free! Check them out!

Do you use a smartphone or tablet? Subscribe to Wes' free magazine "iReading" on Flipboard! If you're trying to listen to a podcast episode and it's not working, check this status page. (Wes is migrating his podcasts to Amazon S3 for hosting.) Remember to follow Wesley Fryer on Twitter (@wfryer), Facebook and Google+. Also "like" Wesley's Facebook pages for " Speed of Creativity Learning" and his eBook, " Playing with Media." Don't miss Wesley's latest technology integration project, " Mapping Media to the Curriculum."

On this day..

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
2 Great (and free) Ways to Learn About Design Thinking

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The free K12 Online Conference (@k12online) is continuing this year with short "mini-conferences." Last week John Spencer's (@spencerideas) keynote for the "Design Thinking" strand was published. The video is just over 30 minutes long, and provides a practical introduction to both design thinking and how it can be used to transform learning in your classroom.

# data[].attributes.headline
advocating clip charts-but they look diff

# data[].attributes.subject
advocating clip charts-but they look diff

# data[].attributes.body
from TpT blo

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This post originally appeared on the blog Sarah Plumitallo.

I've read so many thought-out, well-meaning posts on clip charts - on both sides of the spectrum. I don't know what's right for you or your classroom... no one knows that but you. This post isn't about what YOU should do. It's about what I've done and will continue to do until I pack up my classroom for the final time. Should you get inspired, invigorated, and motivated to do the same? Well, that's just a bonus.

My clip chart helps to shape my classroom - and my beautiful students - into a caring community of productive citizens. Without it, I have no doubt that counselor and office referrals would rise, I'd spend a greater portion of my time on the phone telling parents negative things about their children, and the teacher-student relationship would suffer miserably.

I teach in a school of children in transition. Children that come from low socio-economic status households, many with both limited English language skills and limited educational attainment. Children that may change phone numbers, homes, and/or caregivers multiple times during the school year. We are a PBIS ( Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports) school, which means we spend a lot of time front-loading expectations and use a tiered system of interventions. For many of my students, the only constant is me and my classroom.

I'm sure many of you reading this can relate.

It can be hard. Emotionally draining. Mentally exhausting.

It has been for me. It was almost too much.

Until my clip chart saved me.

Saved my classroom. Saved my kids.

Last year I spent the first month of school tying my clip chart into each and every language arts lesson. Every read aloud. Every writing assignment. We spent hours discussing our clip chart.

Caring, Fairness, Respect, Responsibility , Trustworthiness, and Citizenship are big words for children. For any children, but especially children whose primary concern is where their next meal is coming from, whom they are going home to, and where they'll sleep that night.

They're big, important, tough words.

But my kids? My kids lived them.

I have to tell you that as a teacher, no moment will ever be as important to me as the moment last fall when one of my kiddos was having a hard time. He felt inadequate. Nervous. He felt stupid because he wasn't sure he could finish an assignment.

One of my sweet little girls leaned over to him and said, " Remember that learning is a great responsibility, like Mrs. Plum says. Part of being responsible is trying. Just try. Put your heart into it and try. You're going to do it - just believe in yourself. I believe in you and so does Mrs. Plum. "
Cue. the. tears.
As I (tried to) cry quietly in the darkness of the back of the room, I watched my sweet little boy try his hardest. And though he didn't get it all right, he did his best. He was proud of himself. And I was too.

He came up to me later and said, " She really made me feel good about myself. She made me feel cared about. Can I put her clip on the chart and give her a tag for her necklace? "
Yes. Of course you can.
That was just one of dozens upon dozens of moments last year when my kids recognized each other's character on our clip chart. There were many more moments when I did too. Small moments - helping someone up when they fell, sharing a piece of technology when their friend missed out the day before, turning their full attention to the speaker - and bigger moments, too.

Moments like the one when we had a few rough days. When we just weren't in sync. When we sat down on the carpet, talked about what we wanted to do with our lives and then figured out a plan to get there. A plan that involved six little traits hanging on our wall, put into action.

Moments like that, that seemed almost too big for an eight year old to grasp... and yet, they did.

This isn't your average clip chart, by any means. Students don't start on the chart each day - they earn their way on. Each day is a new day, and not every day will end with a student's clip on the chart. There were, of course, moments where we used our clip chart as a reference to talk about something they did that didn't meet their expectations, their classmate's expectations, or mine.
But it wasn't about clipping up or down - there wasn't any of that.
In particular, there was a time last year when one of my girls lied to me - as kids are sometimes prone to do. Instead of clipping down, or calling home, or sending her to talk to the counselor, we talked privately during recess.

She and I had a conversation - not a lecture - about why we value trustworthiness. She understood what it meant and why it's so important to our classroom family. She was sorry. She apologized to me. She apologized to herself. We hugged. She ran off to play with her friends who gave her hugs too.
And that was that.
She didn't take her clip off the chart (she had earned her way on earlier that day for demonstrating caring with our part-time inclusion students).

Taking her clip off the chart would send a message to her I didn't want to send: you're only as good as your last mistake.

Her breach of trust in lying to me did not erase her actions earlier in the day. It just showed us both that it's an area we need to work on... together.

The culture that our clip chart developed in our classroom is one that I will always look back to for the rest of my teaching career. We are a family because we have a core set of values that we think about as we interact with each other day after day. I can hold myself to those same values and reflect on whether or not I've met my obligation too.

I am immeasurably blessed to get to spend another year with my kids, this time in third grade. I'd spend the rest of their days in school with them if I could - we're that bonded.

I know I owe so much of it to our clip chart.

I'll never get rid of it.

{You can read more about the components of my clip chart alternative and purchase it here.

***

Sarah is a passionate educator currently teaching third grade in a Title I school located in Northern Virginia. In addition to teaching and creating resources for other teachers, Sarah runs an afterschool program that serves 150 students in grades K-5. She is particularly invested in character education, enriching the vocabulary of English Language Learners, and meeting the needs of diverse student populations. You can find Sarah on her blog, Facebook page, Instagram, and of course her TpT store.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Why I'll NEVER Get Rid of My Clip Chart | The TpT Blog

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This post originally appeared on the blog Sarah Plumitallo. I've read so many thought-out, well-meaning posts on clip charts - on both sides of the spectrum. I don't know what's right for you or your classroom... no one knows that but you. This post isn't about what YOU should do.

# data[].attributes.body
desgin

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Written by Amit Agarwal on Mar 16, 2016

Whether you are creating a website, writing your resume or designing a presentation, the fonts or typeface you choose can make a notable difference. The Google Fonts directory offers a myriad of choices but how do you pick the correct font for your digital projects? Should you go for Serif fonts or Sans Serif or a combination of serifs and sans serifs?

Typography is an art and, with thousands of fonts available, it is obviously difficult for non-designers to find that perfect font combination. Need help? Here are some useful font pairing websites where type masters have already done the hard work and all you can do is follow their recommendations to pick the most elegant and gorgeous Google fonts combination for your web and print projects.

1. Beautiful Web Type ( hellohappy.org) - Chad Mazzola has created a beautiful showcase of high-quality typefaces from the Google Fonts website. You'll discover some creative usage of fonts here though they haven't updated the site for quite some time.

2. Typ.io ( typ.io) - If the body text of my website is set in Roboto, what font should I use for headings? Typ.io offers a visual list of beautiful websites that using similar font families and helps you pick the perfect matching pair based on the typography of other websites.

3. Google Type ( femmebot.github.io) - Phoebe Espiritu's typography project uses Google Fonts to stylize tales from Aesop's Fables. This is a great reference source for finding elegant font pairs and is regularly updated as well.

4. Palet Tab ( palettab.com) - A Google Chrome extension that inspires you with a fresh font and color combination from Google Fonts each time you open a new tab in Chrome.

5. 100 Days of Fonts ( 100daysoffonts.com) - Each single day, for 100 days, designer Do-Hee Kim picked a unique and beautiful Google Fonts pair and all her work in now showcased in this single-page website. If you need inspiration for fonts, look no further.

6. Font Pair ( fontpair.co) - Another well-designed resources for finding Google Fonts that go well together. The paired fonts can be downloaded as zip files which is handy in case you want to use the fonts with your PowerPoint presentation on the local computer.

7. Font Blender ( andreasweis.com/webfontblender) - If you are wondering how a set of Google Fonts will look with your text, Font Blender can help. The web app allows you to preview Google Fonts in the browser and you have the option to experiment with the font size and line height as well.

8. Type Genius ( typegenius.com) - Choose a starter web font and Type Genius will recommend a list of other matching fonts that will make a good combination. Like Typ.io, this website too makes suggestions based on font combinations of other beautiful websites. Designed by Waveney Hudlin.

9. Type Source ( typesource.com) - A beautiful showcase of heading and text blocks stylized using Google Fonts. Tobias Ahlin, the site creator, has included the necessary HTML & CSS code making it easy for your to replicate the styles in your own web design. The text is editable as well so you can also preview the same design with your own text.

10. Font Face Ninja ( fontface.ninja) - A browser extension for Google Chrome and Safari browsers that will help you recognize the font used on any website. You even have the option to download the font files through the Ninja add-on but do check the associated license.

Also see: How to Reduce Google Fonts Size

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Best Google Font Combinations That Look Good Together

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Written by Amit Agarwal on Mar 16, 2016 Whether you are creating a website, writing your resume or designing a presentation, the fonts or typeface you choose can make a notable difference. The Google Fonts directory offers a myriad of choices but how do you pick the correct font for your digital projects?

# data[].attributes.body
Tools that pair fonts for us!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I notice fonts everywhere I go.

I love seeing the combinations put together and how different colors and sizes are used to tell the message they want to convey.

Last week as I was preparing my new keynote, Let's Take A Road Trip! Future Ready...A Library Journey, I couldn't decide which fonts I wanted to use.

In fact, I am pretty sure I spent over 3 hours trying to figure it out.

I asked Eric, Hagan, Brianna....and all of them again.

I do this every time I create a presentation.

I pick a couple fonts within Google Presentation and then switch them around over and over again.

I go to More Fonts and see if there happens to be ones I haven't seen or maybe even an awesome new one.

Since I just couldn't decide last week, I started grabbing magazines and books looking for the perfect combination. I looked around as I walked through the airport in San Francisco on our way home from vacation. And I hit the internet and did a little research.

This is when I realized there were several cool tools that could help!

The first I came across was Font Pair, which helps designers pair Google Fonts together.

I found Font Matcherator which takes an image with type and finds the fonts that match. Since I was using different maps and wanted to find a font that would be perfect for the writing on them, Font Matcherator was helpful.

Last but not least, I came across a typographic dating game site called typeconnection.

Type Connection was fun and helpful as I learned several strategies for combining and matching fonts.

As the site says, By playing Type Connection, you deepen your own connection with type.

There were so many resources that I started the Font Pairings Pinterest Board, which I know will be super helpful and interesting to all of you too.

Now I just have to ask... Are there special tools and resources that you use when picking and placing fonts?

I would love to know and add them to the Pinterest Board too.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Fonts, Fonts and More Fonts! How Do You Decide?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I notice fonts everywhere I go. I love seeing the combinations put together and how different colors and sizes are used to tell the message they want to convey. Last week as I was preparing my new keynote, Let's Take A Road Trip! Future Ready...A Library Journey, I couldn't decide which fonts I wanted to use.

# data[].attributes.body
building literacy skills in children

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Brain-Changing Power of Conversation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Interplay between parents and children ignites the brain and boosts its response to language, spurring lasting literacy skills

# data[].attributes.body
forwarded to SH 1/29/18

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
By Carli Spina on

For children with disabilities and their parents and guardians, navigating the education system can be stressful. Before anyone can focus on schoolwork, families must ensure the school facilities and curricula are accessible and meet their specific needs. Creating an appropriate Individualized Education Program is key, but the process can be difficult to understand without specialized support. With that in mind, some public libraries are stepping in to connect patrons with experts. Using their strong relationships with the community and close ties to local nonprofit organizations, these libraries become a source of information and much-needed assistance for those navigating this challenging but essential element of the education system.
What are Individualized Education Programs?
Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA), public schools must craft an Individualized Education Program (IEP) for each student with a disability who qualifies for special education. This IEP addresses the student's entire school experience, including not only academic work but also extracurricular activities. It can cover everything from ensuring that facilities and fixtures are accessible to developing any needed alternative means of assessment.

As the name suggests, each IEP should meet the needs of a specific student. To help achieve this goal, an IEP is drafted by a team that includes not only teachers, specially qualified school representatives and case managers, but also the student and the student's parents or guardians. Though this requirement is meant to ensure that the student has a clear voice in the process, for many students, parents, and guardians, the process can be intimidating and confusing.

"IEP's are lengthy documents replete with complex jargon," Evanston (IL) Community, Advocacy, Support and Education (CASE) Board President Jill Calian notes. "A parent or guardian thrust into the world of special education is not provided with help to decode this document. What is ESY? What is a FBA? What is a BIP? What is "functional performance?" What does "Other Health Impaired" mean? Parents and guardians are often unfamiliar with this terminology, and are consequently unclear as to whether and how these words are important for their child's educational plan."

Without the assistance of trained professionals, individuals face a steep learning curve.
Support for Children and Families
Recognizing the need for support in their community, several public libraries partnered with local organizations to develop programming. Laura Lay, Learning Differences Librarian at the San Francisco Public Library, has been working with local partner Support for Families for three years. They offer programming that includes two IEP workshops. Though Support for Families also offers programming in their own facilities, hosting these events at the library allows them to reach more people and Lay can connect attendees with "relevant books to check out and take home."

At Evanston Public Library, Community Engagement Librarian Jill Skwerski says the idea for an IEP program came from the special needs parent liaison at their local elementary school. The library partnered with Evanston CASE, a local nonprofit that provides services to families with children with disabilities, and have offered IEP 101 and Anatomy of an IEP. These programs teach attendees not only what an IEP is but also schools' legal obligations to students with disabilities and how to ensure that students' needs are met on an ongoing basis. At both events, attendees had an opportunity to hear from CASE staff and legal experts.

Brooklyn Public Library's Inclusive Services Department was approached by an outside partner with the idea for IEP programming. With the help of IncludeNYC, the library offers one-on-one sessions for parents and guardians. They've also connected patrons with additional services when needed to help them through the IEP process. IncludeNYC partnered with New York Public Library's Chatham Square Library to offer IEP programming in English and Mandarin.

At each of these libraries, the IEP programming is only a piece of a larger commitment to offering programming and services for individuals with disabilities and their families. The Evanston Public Library, for example, also hosted Special Needs Family Resource Fairs, "bringing together service providers, clinicians, and interested community members." But by focusing specifically on IEP programs, the libraries have built strong relationships with this segment of their community and connected them to services they may not have known about otherwise. Not only is this a way for the library to offer a new, needed and relevant service to its patrons, it helps develop stronger ties with your local disability community.
Developing an IEP Program
Advice from librarians who have developed IEP programming shares a universal theme: There is no need to do it alone. All of the libraries found success by identifying and partnering with local organizations to help develop program content and identify families who might benefit from it. These partnerships often end up extending beyond IEP programming.

It may also be possible to get outside support to help defray the costs of the programs. At NYPL Chatham Square Library, Senior Teen/Young Adult Librarian Jeff Katz secured funds for their IEP program as part of a larger effort to enhance programs, services, and resources for teens and children with special needs and their families, as well as forge stronger connections with schools, agencies, and organizations serving children with special needs in the neighborhood. This project was named one of NYPL's 2017 Innovation Projects, which is an initiative supported by the Charles H. Revson Foundation to offer funding to library staff for "creative, unique ideas that improve programs, services and processes at NYPL."

As you're planning your event, keep in mind that, as with all programming, outreach is key to a successful IEP workshop. Beyond the standard outreach networks, this programming can benefit from direct outreach to relevant community organizations. For example, Lay works with Parents Education Network and Decoding Dyslexia CA to publicize the programs and increase participation. If you have strong relationships with your local schools, they may be able to put you in touch with interested parents and guardians. Katz also emphasized the importance of creating promotional materials in all languages commonly spoken in your community.

Though providing such specialized programming may seem daunting, the successful efforts by these libraries show how meaningful it can be.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Libraries Provide IEP Information and Assistance Programs

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
By Carli Spina on For children with disabilities and their parents and guardians, navigating the education system can be stressful. Before anyone can focus on schoolwork, families must ensure the school facilities and curricula are accessible and meet their specific needs.

# data[].attributes.body
ala Marie Kondo

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Tidying Up Your Life

Last year, I read The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. I've read a lot of books on decluttering and organizing, but this was the first one that simultaneously resonated with me and annoyed the heck out of me. I don't want to go too in depth into Kondo's philosophy here. The basic idea is that you should only keep things in your home that spark joy in your heart. Everything else (and she really means everything) has to go. Once you've eliminated everything that doesn't bring you joy, you focus on treating all of your possessions with love and storing and organizing them in a way that shows them respect.

While I didn't agree with all of Kondo's advice, as I began to follow it, I started to discover a sense of peace in my home that I hadn't had in years. And naturally, I started wondering how I could apply this in my school library.

Tidying Up Your Library

Now, I don't expect you to pull out every single item in your library, hold it close to your heart, and ask whether or not it sparks joy for you. But the fact is that school libraries tend to get cluttered quickly. Books don't get weeded. Files never get thrown away (I just found a guide to laser disc players in my file cabinet the other day and an ad for diecuts from 1995). Broken furniture and technology accumulates. Maybe the librarian before you was a pack rat. Or maybe you can't bear to part with the complete set of the Hardy Boys even though it hasn't been checked out in decades. Here's some suggestions for ways that you can tidy up your library and help to give your space and your students room to breathe

The Collection

Naturally, we start with weeding. We're all familiar with best practices and procedures for weeding our collection. And yet, there's still so many libraries stuffed with books that students aren't reading. We need to take a hard look at our circulation stats. If a book hasn't been checked out in ten years, it's probably not going to. We shouldn't hold onto books for "what ifs." If the book is out of date, if the book isn't being read by students, just weed it. Even if your budget is tight (or non-existent). It's better to have a small collection of awesome books and resources that your students want than it is to have tightly packed shelves where no one can find anything. You might even be able to weed enough books to get rid of a shelving unit and create some more room to breathe.

The Files and Cabinets

As I've cleaned out files and cabinets, I've found all sorts of things. A soda that expired six years ago. An award certificate with 19_ as the date (in 2010). Old, dusty styrofoam bowls. Take some time to go through everything and gut it. Be ruthless. Have garbage bags on hand. Save only those things that you need to keep. You might find things you didn't know you had. I found an awesome stash of paint brushes and old plastic spoons for my makerspace. Just make sure that you aren't holding onto too many things "just in case."

The Furniture and Technology

That overhead projector cart with the broken wheels. Toss it. That random teacher desk that's sitting in the middle of your library. Offer it up to your teachers. That stack of transparency film in your cabinets. Toss it (or put it in your makerspace). The slide projector. Put it in a museum display case. It might sound harsh to get rid of so much stuff, but soon you'll find you have space to think again.
Have you tidied up your library? What's the strangest thing you've found?

Categories: Blog Topics, Collection Development, Professional Development

Tags: collection development, libraries

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Magic of Tidying Up Your Library | Knowledge Quest

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Last year, I read The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. I've read a lot of books on decluttering and organizing, but this was the first one that simultaneously resonated with me and annoyed the heck out of me. I don't want to go too in depth into Kondo's philosophy here.

# data[].attributes.body
simple, low cost

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Magic Maker Cubes: Building Creativity, Kindness, and Collaboration | Scholastic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Magic Maker Cube is an icebreaker activity that requires students to think fast and use their imagination to create something from nothing, then explain how that some

# data[].attributes.body
Great article w/ research

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Seating, storage, lighting, and tables-we cover what you need, where to get it, and how much it costs.

©Shutterstock.com/Mateusz Gzik

In a flexible classroom, every area can become a learning space for students. A bookshelf becomes a standing work station, a beanbag transforms into a reading corner, and whiteboard paint turns any surface into a writing opportunity. These classrooms allow students to choose, or to create, the spaces they need to succeed-helping them understand themselves better as learners while building 21st-century skills like collaboration, communication, and creativity.

"When preparing kids for the real world, we want students' learning environment to reflect the environment of the real world," said Manuel Herrera, a district tech coordinator for the Affton School District in Missouri, who reflected on the parallel shifts taking place in workplaces. "This isn't a fad. I think it will eventually evolve into the way all classrooms look."

And it's not just contrarianism. While research on flexible seating is limited, it's clear that learning environments can have a direct impact on student behavior and achievement.

A 2012 study from the University of Minnesota found that students participated 48 percent more in discussions in a classroom with collaborative group seating versus traditional lecture-style seating, and also improved their performance on standardized tests. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, a recent study of the design principles of 153 primary classrooms concluded that "differences in the physical characteristics of classrooms explain 16 percent of the variation in learning progress over a year," and that "ownership and flexibility"-the ability to adapt the surroundings to individual student preferences-accounted for a quarter of that difference.

But simply changing your classroom design by adding comfortable chairs and color-coordinated throw rugs won't do the trick.

"We can't just change the way a classroom looks and expect that to be a part of student learning," said Herrera. "We really have to change the way we teach if we want them to change the way they learn."

To get you started, we've reviewed dozens of flexible classroom blogs, interviewed over 20 teachers with experience in flexible seating, and talked to education design consultants about the core building blocks of flexible classrooms.

To change the seating in your own classroom, teachers recommend adding rugs, yoga mats ( Walmart, $5), lounge pillows (Target, $15), and floor pillows-and especially emoji pillows at lower grade levels (Amazon, $5 to $9)-to turn any floor space into a seat. In addition to making classrooms feel more comfortable and less institutionalized, throw rugs are helpful for creating learning zones, from reading nooks to areas for the direct instruction of younger students. Carpet and design stores sometimes give away out-of-stock carpet squares, which can be moved easily and turn any floor space into a seat-some teachers even use them for makeshift outdoor seating.

Versatile, affordable beanbag chairs ( Walmart, $25) enable kids to move anywhere in the room, and when coupled with a book, lap desk ( Amazon, $15), or clipboard ( Office Supply, $1), they make great seating for low tables, say teachers. A note of caution: Beanbags flatten with use, especially with older students, and will need to be refilled. Bath rugs ( Amazon, $15), kneeling pads (Dollar Store, $1), and stability cushions ( Walmart, $20) are other favorites for low-table seating.

Cost-effective stacking stools ( Ikea, $5) are in demand due to their price and space saving capabilities-they stack on top of each other, making them easy to store, as are camp chairs ( Walmart, $10), which are portable and collapsible. Elementary school teachers are especially fond of camp chairs with animal images on them (Walmart, $40).

There are also a variety of seating options aimed at helping even your most fidgety students stay still.

Many teachers swear by Hokki stools ( Amazon, $108 to $130), or the cheaper Kore Patented Wobble Chair ( Amazon, $50 to $80). These options allow students with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, for example, to rock and twist while remaining seated. Scoop chairs ( Walmart, $49 for six)-miniature portable rocking chairs-and yoga or balance balls ( Amazon, $15), which also come with legs or as chairs, are ubiquitous in flexible environments and also provide outlets for students' restless energy.

Other hacks we saw? To help calm kids without changing your existing seating, fidget bands ( Amazon, $17) are a widely used, low-cost alternative that allow students to bounce or stretch their legs while sitting at a more traditional desk or chair. You can even make your own with TheraBands ( Amazon, $12). To convert immobile seating or table options, teachers used castors ( Amazon, $16) or added wheels to furniture.

Tables and Writing Surfaces

Although tables aren't very sexy, their height does impact learning.

"Low-level seating, chair seating, and bar-height seating all unlock different types of collaboration and thinking," says Jane Zhang, a design researcher, former educator, and co-founder of room2learn, a school design consultant company.

For low seating, most educators get coffee tables donated from friends and family, or find them at garage sales or thrift stores. A common hack: Teachers take cheap tables to their maintenance department and have them cut and lower the legs. For bar-height seating or standing stations, bar tables ( Displays2Go, $63) are popular. Some teachers repurpose existing furniture into standing work stations, clearing the tops of bookshelves, for example, or raising the height of desks and tables by adding bed risers ( Amazon, $15 for four).

Other teachers turn everything into writable surfaces: desks, tables, doors, cabinets, windows, and walls can all be written on. While that might feel like too radical a first step, multiple writing surfaces spaced throughout the classroom encourages learning and experimenting throughout the entire space, and undermines the traditional notion of the front of the class as the center of learning.

If your desks and tables have high-pressure laminate surfaces, they already may be writable. If not, you can use dry erase paint to turn any surface into a space for students to show their thinking (see how here).

To create an 8 foot x 16 foot whiteboard wall, Herrera used four 4 foot x 8 foot shower boards ( Lowes, $13 each) and industrial strength Velcro ( Home Depot, $29). Ed Campos, a former California high school math and technology teacher, used 2 foot x 3 foot dry erase sheets ( Amazon, $57 for a pack of 25), taping them to the walls with painters tape.

"It blew my mind to see how much student engagement and perseverance increased and how much less anxiety I started to see in the classroom, especially as a math classroom," Campos said.

Lighting and Ambience

While creating new spaces for sitting and working is important for any flexible classroom, small, personal touches like lighting and paint can enhance your classroom too-and even improve learning.

Research has found, for example, that students who are exposed to more daylight perform better on math and reading tests. Many teachers in flexible classrooms don't use fluorescent lights, and if they do, they cover them with light filters ( Amazon, $30), according to our findings. Instead, natural light coupled with desk, table, and floor lamps ( Amazon, $80)-as well as hanging lights-is optimal.

Fluorescent lights can interrupt learning for some students, according to Rebecca Malmquist, a high school English teacher, who says she favors LED bulbs in lamps.

"I once worked with a student who could actually hear the fluorescent lights, and it stressed him out enough to be both irritable and antisocial, so his schooling suffered," she said. "As a result, I never turn on fluorescent lights in my classroom."

Teachers have also found that painting walls-if the school allows it-or using decorations can help cordon off a space in a room and make it feel more homey. Hardware stores typically sell full gallons of paint that have been returned by customers-if it's the wrong color, for example-at half-price.

Storage and Clutter

Keeping a classroom neat can be an ongoing struggle for teachers, especially once traditional desks (and their storage) go away.

Luckily, clear, stackable drawers-like Sterilite three-drawer units ( Amazon, $41), Iris stacking drawers (Target, $41), and Iris 10-drawer rolling carts ( Target, $50)-help keep rooms tidy. Because they're stackable, teachers can add more drawers as needed. Kayla Delzer, a third-grade teacher, suggested placing the storage units throughout the classroom so students don't congregate in one area trying to get at the supplies.

Hanging door organizers-from shoe racks (Walmart, $10) to file racks ( Amazon, $25)-are also in wide use for storing class supplies and papers, and teachers even use an item called chair pockets ( The Chair Pocket Factory, $8 to $10) to manage clutter. But few options compete with simple cardboard magazine holders ( Walmart, $16) for holding student work and supplies once desks are no longer an option.

Some storage serves a dual purpose. Otto storage stools ( Gitadini, $30) and crates (Target, $4) can be turned into seats with built-in storage. And the act of organizing and storing itself can help foster student initiative and independence, according to Mikala Streeter, lead teacher, principal, and founder of The Life School, a high school in Atlanta.

"It's important that students know where to find the materials they need to pursue projects and ideas independently without waiting for an adult," she said.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Seating, storage, lighting, and tables-we cover what you need, where to get it, and how much it costs. ©Shutterstock.com/Mateusz Gzik In a flexible classroom, every area can become a learning space for students. A bookshelf becomes a standing work station, a beanbag transforms into a reading corner, and whiteboard paint turns any surface into a writing opportunity.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Want to see my STEM Bins setup up close and personal? Watch THIS VIDEO.
How many times during our teaching day do we hear these words from our students? Oftentimes, it is much too often, and students are provided a handful of the same options to keep them busy until our next transition. Sometimes students are instructed to read, sometimes to write in journals, and others are given yet another worksheet to complete. Lately, I've been considering a way to change up our game, and I've thought to myself:

For elementary students, meaningful work should be hands-on, engaging, and open ended. Why?! Because children have a natural drive to play, explore, and engineer whenever possible.
Enter STEM BINS!
STEM Bins are plastic school boxes filled with an engineering manipulative of your choice, such as Legos, pattern blocks, base ten blocks, unifix cubes, toothpicks and playdough, or popsicle sticks with velcro on the ends. The boxes also contain small sets of task cards on metal rings that picture a variety of basic engineering structures. STEM Bins can be placed on an easily accessible shelf in the classroom or inside a classroom MakerSpace area. When students' regular classwork is complete, they can take one STEM Bin at a time, either to their seat or a more quiet carpet area so as not to distract other students who are working, and get a quiet moment to engineer. They use the materials in the box to construct as many different structures on the cards as they can. And instead of being just "busy," students are engaged in creative, complex tasks and are encouraged to think like inventors. Kinesthetic learners, spatial learners, and logical learners will love exploring the different possibilities for the building materials as they try to construct more challenging structures.

Even better? The prep and management on the teacher's part is minimal! The task cards are interchangeable with any building material and include real world photos to encourage students to visualize more realistic structures.

Upper Grade teachers, STEM Bins will even work for you! So many third through fifth grade students and teachers are loving the hands-on engagement that STEM Bins provide. I've added task cards with no photo cues and written response sheets that are just right for big kids:

Most of the suggested materials for STEM Bins are math manipulatives or inexpensive crafting materials that you likely already have in your classroom or can pick up at the Dollar Store. I'm always on the hunt for anything and everything that my students can build with so I can add it to my STEM Bins!

I store my STEM Bins in standard size plastic school boxes, but any plastic container will do. Many teachers use plastic school boxes or even food storage containers.

Since every classroom has a variety of manipulatives already on hand, I've also included editable box covers and task cards so you can customize them to your needs. Some of my favorite places to find engineering materials are Target Dollar Spot and the Dollar Store.

STEM Bins aren't just ideal for early finishers! Here are some ways you can use them elsewhere during your day:

You can also take students' engineering a step further by adding a written component. The youngest students in Pre-K and Kinder can can draw pictures of their different structures. First through fifth graders can "Build, Draw, and Write" with descriptive sentences or imaginative stories about their structures. If you'd like to save copies, simply place any of the templates inside plastic page protectors and students can use dry erase markers to write and wipe drawings and responses.

Looking to keep your STEM Bins fresh and exciting throughout the year? Check out the post below:
How to Spice Up STEM Bins
Also, check out my Bundle of Seasonal Task Cards, literacy and math Quick Writes, and all new Outdoor Discovery STEM Bins below!

I hope you will consider giving your students a hands-on alternative to busy work with STEM Bins in your classroom!

This post contains an affiliate link for Amazon. By purchasing an item on the Amazon site using this link, I will receive a small commission on your purchase.

***

Brooke Brown is a Gifted and Talented teacher for Kindergarten through Second Grade in Oklahoma. Specializing in STEM and Literacy, she has a passion for creating classroom resources that enrich. motivate, and simplify. Brooke is a STEM presenter for SDE I Teach 1st and Get Your Teach On. You can find her TpT store at Brooke Brown - Teach Outside the Box and her website is Teach Outside the Box.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
STEM Bins: Hands-on Solutions for Early Finishers | The TpT Blog

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Want to see my STEM Bins setup up close and personal? Watch THIS VIDEO. How many times during our teaching day do we hear these words from our students? Oftentimes, it is much too often, and students are provided a handful of the same options to keep them busy until our next transition.

# data[].attributes.body
Demco

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Challenges

We did face a few challenges along the way, but not many.

1. Extra Furniture

Moving the desks out created a bit of a headache for our building's custodian. I also had the coatrack removed from my room. This created a HUGE amount of freed-up space that we didn't realize we had. The coatrack is now in the hallway, and we have to keep that area clean. We are deliberate with where backpacks are hung up (by size and weight now), as well as coats, boots and lunchboxes.

2. Storage Room for Cubbies

My principal purchased two movable cubby holders for my classroom. The bins are smaller than we would have liked, but they work. This space helped us to downsize our materials. We don't need so many folders and spirals, and it's easier for the students to keep track of their items. There's no more "desk diving" to find something.

I also keep one shelf of extra supplies, including pencils, sticky notes, paper and markers. Students no longer waste an entire session trying to find a pencil.

3. Arguing Over Seating

Yes, whenever a new piece of furniture appeared in the process, everyone wanted to sit on it or use it. Simple solution: draw sticks. This solved the problem.

4. Teammates' Classrooms and Other Students' Responses

I have had my teammates' students ask if I can convince their teachers to change their rooms too! I have created a wave of enthusiasm in my building, for the better. Other students will literally run to be first in the room so they can go to their choice spot. What a fun dilemma to have - to have to rush to get into the room to learn!

The Benefits of Change

To make this change, it required me to believe in it wholeheartedly. I had to change my mindset and be open to the idea of the constant movement of the students sitting where they wanted in order to be comfortable.

I used to have to schedule "brain breaks," using sites such as Go Noodle, about every hour when we were still in our seats. The brain break activity would get the kids up and out of their hard plastic chairs and desks and moving for a few minutes before we would go back to sitting again. We no longer need that resource.

The students automatically move when they need to and change positions in their seating arrangements. In fact, I notice they are so comfortable that they no longer complain of having their bottoms fall asleep or their backs hurt like they did when they were in desks.

They can stretch their legs out and not worry if their feet end up under someone else's desk or in their personal space. I often see kids working back to back in camp chairs with their feet up on the table, unaware of anyone else by them, even their best friends.

The benefits of flexible seating far outweigh any negatives. After making all these changes, I will never go back to traditional seating.

At this year's parent-teacher conferences, all of the parents stated that their child has a completely different attitude about school now. The kids love coming to school and learning, and they couldn't be happier.

I couldn't be happier either. We have noticed we have so much more room, and everyone remarks on this since the change. As I continue my classroom transformation, I've added a small popcorn machine, hot cocoa on cold days, a jar of snacks (each student can have one snack per week from the jar), and I have plans to add more greenery with live plants.

If you want to make this change in your learning environment, it's important to remember to have a positive mindset and recognize that this process takes time. To create an environment that looks like a living room or a coffee house, be deliberate with your choices and remember to color coordinate the room.

All of my boards are navy blue with red trim, and my theme is "cowboy," with western antiques on the walls. My furniture is also color coordinated. Students can handle the real thing, so when you add furniture, make it nice by painting it or covering it. Take that extra time and your students will truly appreciate it.

If you start small and seek out the advice of others who have gone through this process, it will help ensure a successful transformation. The results - a more active, engaged, enthusiastic, and relaxed room of students - are worth the effort.

For more information about my journey, visit my blog at studylikestarbucks.blogspot.com. Post your comments below, and I will happily respond to any questions you have and support you in any way I can.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Top 3 Reasons to Use Flexible Seating in Classrooms

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When this elementary teaching veteran read about the benefits of flexible seating in classrooms, she just knew she had to try it. Learn why she cleared 30 desks out of her room and replaced them with flexible seating and why she'll never go back.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Julie Smith - Media Literacy Education since 1997

# data[].attributes.body
compare to our job description!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Future Ready Librarians - Future Ready Schools

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
An essential component to becoming Future Ready, is making a digital learning plan before purchasing technology. The Interactive Planning Dashboard offers districts a five-step collaborative planning process. Upon completion, districts have a complete digital learning implementation plan, full of research-based strategies, including stakeholder input, local context, and district team leadership responsibilities.