This year is the 20th anniversary of the American publication of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and to mark the occasion, Scholastic has tapped children’s book author/illustrator Brian Selznick (The Invention of Hugo Cabret) to design new jackets for J.K. Rowling's blockbuster series.

Via Dennis T OConnor

Via John Evans

If you have a Google Doc that requires a Table of Contents, fear not, the process of adding one is quite simple. Jack Wallen shows you how.

Via Linda Dougherty

Math deserves its own day, don’t you think? Join the fun of Pi Day, celebrated on March 14 (3.14, get it?) by more and more schools every year. Here are 14 Pi Day activities that will encourage your students to see the joy and whimsy in math.

Via John Evans

You want to make a podcast? Well Anchor might just be your answer.

Via paul rayner

"Here are some of the best ways to manage digital distraction in the classroom."

Via EDTECH@UTRGV, Miloš Bajčetić, Jim Lerman, Dean J. Fusto

When it comes to producing clear explanations of tricky topics, no one is better than Lee and Sachi LeFever at Common Craft . Thei

Via Tom D'Amico (@TDOttawa)

Growing up, I liked to imagine what it would be like to work in a library. What little I knew about them was what I’d gleaned from movies and TV because my conservative parents never took us to any and only let me read books they purchased from the Bible Book Store. I didn’t know any librarians in real life—outside of the elderly woman who ran our tiny school media center—but I understood librarians were smart and savvy. Cool and collected. They were everything my rowdy, boundary-busting, literature-hating family was not. I envisioned a sweet future for myself sitting behind an elaborately carved wooden desk, surrounded by towering stacks of leather-bound books. I’d read for hours in total silence, vanilla and almond perfuming the air. Pages wafting in a gentle breeze. Nobody around to bother me. With librarianship, I’d finally have solitude.

Via Elizabeth E Charles, Dennis T OConnor

I seem to spend a lot of time curating resources for students and teachers, and I'll bet you do, too! I've used Diigo, Scoop.it and Symbaloo, but am growing very fond of elink. Some of the advantages I love:

• It's visually appealing. Elink pulls an image from the website you're sharing, and if it doesn't, it's easy to quickly upload one.
• Unlike Symbaloo, Elink will pull a snippet of text from the website. You can edit, delete, add explanatory text, etc. I can guide students to specific parts of a website after they've explore the home page.
• It's FAST! Choose your template (there are a few free ones and several pro options,) start adding your links, rearrange the order, give your elink a name, and publish!
• I just heard from Raj at elink, and learned you can share Google Sheets, Forms, Docs, and YouTube videos without ads (they open on a black background and look beautiful, so I'll use it, even though some people like my daughter make their travel income from YouTube ads!)

 

I've used it in a variety of ways:

• To share research links or examples with students.
• To quickly curate links for collaborative projects
• To have students create a version of an annotated works cited page. We've asked students to create them to demonstrate their understanding of website evaluation criteria.
• To create book lists for our summer reading bingo.

 

The downsides:

• Elink is a 13 and up site.
• There's currently no way to sign up with Google, which would be great for our students. Right now, they have to use another Gmail account, since our school accounts do not allow them to receive email from outside the district.
• They're touting their new product with a banner ad at the bottom of the elink page. It's large enough to be a distraction--at least to me, if not to students!

 

 

Via Mary Reilley Clark, Linda Dougherty

In this guest post, Ross Cooper highlights the potential problem with Prepackaged STEM products.

Via paul rayner

Santa Fe Public Schools, like other districts in the country, has gradually cut down on the number of certified librarians on staff (just five in a district with 30 school

Via Elizabeth Hutchinson

Via paul rayner