Buffy Hamilton's Unquiet Commonplace "Book"

A new agreement between the Public Broadcasting Service and SAFARI Montage will make SAFARI the main provider of PBS video content streamed to schools—an arrangement that could shake up the market for school video streaming services.

"Google’s search engine is a powerful and impressive tool for locating information online. Unfortunately for many students, the simplicity of the default search interface can lead to some pretty poor search habits and results. As I wrote in a previous post about Google’s efforts to provide information literacy resources, “it’s often a challenge (in my experience) not only to get students to search using something other than Google; it’s also difficult to teach them how to use Google effectively.”

In that previous post, I pointed readers to something Google was calling their “Search Education Evangelism” site, a resource designed to make it easier for instructors to teach information literacy. This week I received notice that Google has moved that resource to a new location, given it a different name, and updated the content..."

When the pressure is off grades and performance, kids focus on learning for the sake of learning, not to show off what they know, writes Annie Murphy Paul in this interesting post about a study examining the lasting effects of summer camp.

(Video):  We take a look at the new Google Research Tool, which has been added as a sidebar in Google Docs.

The Research tool makes it easy to add information from the web to your documents. To access the tool:
Select the Research option from the Tools menu.

The good news for job seekers in metro Atlanta and Georgia in the second half of 2012 and 2013: more positions will be added than lost over the next 36 months, economists say.  The bad news: home values -- which have yet to show they have hit bottom -- will continue to struggle and that will probably lead to more layoffs in local governments whose revenue depends on property tax collections.

I recently described what remarkable bosses do. A number of people emailed and asked, "That's a great list, but flip it around: What things should I not do?" Glad you asked.

"A Tennessee school district has banned John Green's award-winning novel Looking for Alaska (Dutton, 2005) from the school curriculum.

"Our director of schools reviewed it and decided it probably shouldn't be required reading," says Jeremy Johnson, spokesperson for Sumner County Schools, where the book was pulled. "We're not using it in the curriculum, but it will still be used in the libraries.

The decision came after students in an English class at White House High School chose the YA novel for a class assignment this spring. Johnson says the district had some "inquiries from parents," and the principal went through the book himself, deciding to pull it because he "thought it had a sex scene that was a bit much for the curriculum," explains Johnson. The district followed, banning it in all classes..."

By Kyle Palmer Field trips have always been a staple – some might say the best part of -- school.

David Coleman, a lead writer of the common standards whose nonprofit is producing curriculum materials, will take over as president of the organization on Oct. 15.

ATLANTA — For the first time, the government is proposing that all baby boomers get tested for hepatitis C.