I have seen many changes in the industry since entering educational publishing in 1979. After teaching elementary school for five years—I was the big guy with the long hair and curly beard towering over the first and second graders—I moved to educational publishing, a typical career change for many teachers. I’ve worked for major publishers, including Scott Foresman (now Pearson), Zaner-Bloser/Highlights for Children [...]
Picture a dimly lit room with music playing. A chair pulses with the beat. A swing hangs from the ceiling. A lava lamp bubbles in the corner. Images of leaves, balloons and fireworks are projected on the wall. Everything in this room waits to be interacted with and morphed. This is one of the many sensory rooms being installed in schools across the [...]
A Common Core–aligned website has taken on the uniquely twofold endeavor of getting students interested about current events while using a text-leveling process to ensure they’re meeting grade-specific reading standards. Newsela, founded by Matthew Gross, was launched in June 2013, and it publishes dozens of popular news articles daily. Topics include health, science, arts, sports and law. With the help of staff editors, current [...]
From old school VCRs to DVD players, HDTV, Blu-ray players and Netflix, closed captioning is all around us. But whether we use captions for foreign film translations or to understand TV dialogue, its variety of uses begs the question: What exactly is closed captioning? Closed captions display spoken dialogue as printed words on a screen. Captions are often used by those with hearing loss so that [...]
As someone who has only been out of high school for three years, I can attest to the fact that students get distracted by their smartphones. I remember all the old tricks: texting while your phone was in your bag, sending covert Snapchat pictures from under your desk, asking to go to the bathroom so you could use your phone. Now, some schools [...]
L0057722 Artificial left leg, Europe, 1901-1940Credit: Science Museum, London. Wellcome Imagesimages@wellcome.ac.ukhttp://wellcomeimages.orgThis artificial left leg was made for someone who had their leg amputated above the knee. It is made from willow and leather. It follows the basic design established by the so-called Anglesey leg. This was named after the Marquis of Anglesey. He wore a leg made to this design after he [...]
There’s a new show out there bringing some logical calm to the chaotic frenzy that is often children’s programming. The show is called Moochie Kalala Detectives Club. And its name, purposely silly, certainly isn’t the only unique thing about it. The show is live action, set in Chicago and aims to bring STEM to elementary school students. Centered on the characters of Grandpa, his [...]
by Annemarie Tompsen As a writing center associate, I’ve tutored college students from all walks of life. Socioeconomic status (SES) can vary greatly from student to student, and no student shares the same academic needs with another. Tutoring needs depend on their writing and reading level. Students can experience huge differences in reading and writing skill levels, and this gap starts when they [...]
When you think back to your grade school days, what comes to mind as one of your favorite activities? Many of us might say, “Recess!” Children look forward to this time of day during which they can break from academic studies and socialize. But what if play was integrated into academic studies, rather than set at a designated time? When it comes to paving the [...]
As a child of the mid-nineties, I have had the joy of experiencing both the “old” and “new” sides of technology. In elementary school, I would store school assignments on floppy disks; in middle school, I made the transition to flash drives; and in high school, I started using cloud storage. I have lived the experience of wandering around my school’s library searching, [...]