Year: 2025

National Library Week–Resources, Links, Ideas

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National Library Week is an annual celebration highlighting the valuable role libraries, librarians, and library workers play in transforming lives and strengthening our communities.

In the mid-1950s, research showed that Americans were spending less on books and more on radios, televisions and musical instruments. Concerned that Americans were reading less, the ALA and the American Book Publishers formed a nonprofit citizens organization called the National Book Committee in 1954. The committee’s goals were ambitious. They ranged from “encouraging people to read in their increasing leisure time” to “improving incomes and health” and “developing strong and happy family life.”

In 1957, the committee developed a plan for National Library Week based on the idea that once people were motivated to read, they would support and use libraries. With the cooperation of ALA and with help from the Advertising Council, the first National Library Week was observed in 1958 with the theme “Wake Up and Read!” The 2023 celebration marks the 65th anniversary of the first event.

Subscriber Special: Discounted Curricula School License

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Every month, subscribers to our newsletter get a free/discounted resource to help their tech teaching. Not a subscriber? Click the button below.

20% discount on school curricula

Code: KZJ8MBNV

4-2-23 through 4-7-23

What’s a School License?

A School License is a multi-user PDF of any curriculum student workbook. It can be used on every digital device in your school–iPads, laptops, netbooks, smartphones, Chromebooks. All of them, no matter whether they’re in a classroom, the library, the tech labs. As many as the school wants.

Purchase a School License for:

Who needs this

It is well-suited to schools with an LMS like Google Classroom, a 1:1 program, who wish to place the curricula on a server, or are teaching remotely and need to provide access to PDFs at home and school, where there may or may not be WiFi or Internet.

Benefits of a School License for Teachers:

Access to full text PDF from every recognized desktop, 24 hours a day
Student workbooks are available in the computer lab, the library, the classroom, the laptop carts, the student’s home, and the District server for the same low fee
Because they’re PDFs, they require no internet, no WiFi (once downloaded)
License includes a digital copy of the teacher manual for each grade level selected

Benefits of School License for Students:

Easy access to monthly lessons, how-tos, rubrics, project samples, practice quizzes, grade-level expectations, homework, check lists (like Ready to Move On)
Convenient place to take notes
Because they’re PDFs, they require no internet, no WiFi (once downloaded)
Encourages students to be independent and self-directed, work at their own pace. This is great both for students who need more time on a topic and for those who ‘get it’ fast and want to move on
Quick way to spiral up to the next grade level for quick learners or back to earlier resources for student needing to fill holes in their learning

How to get started

Select whether you want one grade or all, whether you are interested in the technology or keyboarding curriculum.
If necessary, in “Special Instructions”, tell us which grade you want
apply the coupon code when you check out (KZJ8MBNV)

Here’s the sign-up link if the image above doesn’t work:

https://forms.aweber.com/form/07/1910174607.htm

“The content presented in this blog are the result of creative imagination and not intended for use, reproduction, or incorporation into any artificial intelligence training or machine learning systems without prior written consent from the author.”

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

March 31st is World Backup Day

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World Backup Day–March 31st Every Year

March 31st is called World Backup Day. At least once a year, I remind you to backup your data files to an external drive (like a flash drive). This is one that isn’t connected to your local computer so can’t be compromised if you get a virus. Cloud drives are good, but once a year, do the entire collection of data files to what is called an ‘air gap’ drive–one separated from any internet connection.

How to do this

You can back up data to an external device or a cloud-based backup service, or both. You might make more than one backup to external storage devices and keep the two copies in different places.

PC/Windows” Use Windows Backup:

Click the start button.
Go to Control Panel
Select ‘Backup and Restore’
Select ‘Backup Now’

From there, select a drive with sufficient space and start. Be forewarned: If you have a lot of data, it takes a while. You can work on your computer while it’s backing up; it’ll just be slower.

Mac: Use the Time Machine tool.

Chromebook: No need. Everything is saved to the cloud. Now if you want to backup your cloud, use a service like Backupify.

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Websites that add sparkle (and learning) to Spring

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A few spring websites, lesson plans, printables, activities:

7 Science Experiments that Teach About Spring
Books from Scholastic about Spring
Spring Puzzle
Spring Garden–click to find flowers
Spring Games
Spring Vocabulary (video)
Spring Word Scramble
Spring Word Search
What Happens in Spring (video)
What Happens in Spring–PS (video)

Life Cycles

Click for ideas from TeacherVision:

Printables

Lesson Plans

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The Intersection of Physics and Everyday Objects

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The Intersection of Physics and Everyday Objects

Physics might sound like something confined to textbooks and whiteboard scribbles, but it’s at play in our daily routines. It’s the force behind flying planes, the sparkle in our smartphone screens, and the whispers in our wireless headphones. Yet, most of us barely give it a second thought—a silent magician bringing everyday objects to life.

The Mysterious Maglev: Hovering Trains

Picture trains levitating on tracks without a single touch. Introducing magnetic levitation trains, or maglevs. With magnets defying gravity, these trains speed commuters from A to B in record time. They float, frictionless, offering a surreal ride atop a powerful physics trick. Maglevs also reflect the elegance with which physics turns weight into weightlessness, claiming new limits in transportation. By manipulating magnetic fields, maglev technology reduces almost all physical resistance, demonstrating the pure potential of movement unbound by conventional constraints.

Maglev technology isn’t just a scientific curiosity—it’s a path to environmental sustainability. With reduced friction losses and increased energy efficiency, maglev systems could significantly lower carbon emissions compared to traditional rail systems. As the demand for greener transportation solutions grows, innovations like maglev promise a future where fast, reliable transportation doesn’t have to come at an environmental cost. Moreover, with fewer moving parts, maglev trains face less wear and tear, potentially reducing maintenance costs and extending lifespans, further contributing to cost-effectiveness and sustainability.

Gyroscopes: Spinning Wonders of Balance

From the wheel in your bicycle to your smartphone’s compass, gyroscopes are hidden heroes. This rapid-spinning gizmo stabilizes and guides, keeping you oriented whether you’re navigating a trail or piloting an aircraft. The secret? Angular momentum holds its ground, a scientist’s magic trick ensuring balance. On a more grand scale, these devices play a vital role in stabilizing large marine vessels and space stations, proving that, no matter the size, balancing forces play an important part in maintaining harmony against the forces of motion.

Gyroscopes have permeated sports and gaming sectors, adding depth to user experiences. Controllers and smartphones equipped with this technology allow for intuitive controls, making virtual environments more immersive. Detecting subtle tilts and movements, gyroscopes bring tactile realism to digital adventures, bridging the gap between the physical and digital realms. As entertainment industries continue embracing these dynamics, users experience a newfound synergy between movement and on-screen action, illustrating the evolving capabilities of gyroscopic innovation.

In the vein of precision measurement, smartphone sensors also facilitate groundbreaking tools such as smartphone-based goniometers, allowing accurate angle measurements in an accessible form. Such innovations highlight how even the most intricate movements can be captured and analyzed with everyday tech, further illustrating the seamless union between physics and present-day conveniences.

Thermal Imaging: Seeing Warmth

Engineering a vision into the unseen, thermal imaging devices capture heat. At night or behind walls, they reveal the world in reds and blues, turning warm bodies, even cool machinery, into vivid portraits. Heat detection isn’t just for spies; it informs safety checks and saves lives. Beyond safety, thermal imaging has also found purpose in medicine, offering non-invasive diagnostics by revealing underlying inflammation or circulation issues, truly extending the line between vision and intuition.

Thermal imaging has ventured into new territories, discovering uses in agriculture and environmental monitoring. In farming, thermal cameras help assess plant and soil health by spotting areas of water stress. Environmentalists use these devices to monitor wildlife habitats and detect abnormalities, contributing to conservation efforts. Such applications showcase how thermal imaging can penetrate fields far removed from its origins, yielding insights with far-reaching implications both on micro and macro levels.

Smart Lightbulbs: Playing with Light

Flipping a switch to light up a room feels mundane. Yet, beneath the glow, physics dances! Smart lightbulbs manipulate photons to brighten or dim your space. Through concepts like lumens and wavelengths, light transforms into an orchestrated show at your fingertips. Interestingly, smart bulbs can also adjust to your mood or time of day, elevating your home’s ambiance effortlessly. This simple act channels complex concepts of color temperatures and energy efficiency, enhancing our lives in subtle yet remarkable ways.

Beyond aesthetics, smart lightbulbs offer a gateway to energy conservation. By allowing users to customize brightness and color temperature, they can optimize lighting to suit different activities and moods while significantly reducing energy consumption. Integrating these bulbs with home automation systems also means they can respond automatically to natural daylight, further reducing unnecessary power usage and lowering electricity bills.

Wireless Waves: Invisible Highways

Every time you stream a song or text a friend, electromagnetic waves are hard at work. Wireless communication can’t exist without them. These waves traverse invisible highways, bringing data to your device in a blink. It’s the very foundation of our connected reality. At its core, wireless technology enables seamless interaction by allowing waves to jump between frequencies. These waves skip effortlessly through urban landscapes, ensuring reliable communication even in the most unexpected corners of our bustling environments.

Quantum Tunneling: Microscopic Magic

In the microscopic realm, quantum tunneling champions the bizarre. Electrons defy boundaries, traversing barriers with inexplicable ease. Essential for devices in medicine and computers, this mind-bending phenomenon rewrites the rules we take for granted in the macroscopic world. Such behavior allows for innovations in semiconductors that power our everyday devices and fuels breakthroughs in computing power, highlighting how minute dynamics hold colossal potential for technological progress.

Conclusion

Physics isn’t confined to labs or lectures—it’s intertwined with everything around us. With every step forward, every gadget grasped, we engage in a dance with forces those familiar formulas attempt to explain. The intersection of physics and everyday objects is where the ordinary transforms into the extraordinary.

–image credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/gray-newton-s-cradle-in-close-up-photogaphy-60582/

Here’s the sign-up link if the image above doesn’t work:

https://forms.aweber.com/form/07/1910174607.htm

How to Change the Dynamics of Peer-to-peer Learning

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Here’s what most educators and parents innately know as a truism of education:

“If you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” –Albert Einstein

Peer-to-peer learning–acquiring knowledge from a peer group–has become a popular strategy as teachers move from a “teacher-lecturer” education model to “teacher-guide”. Often, it is a less stressful way to develop lifelong learners. As a pedagogical strategy, it can be effective in reinforcing critical thinking, cooperation, creativity, and problem solving–traits that are difficult to teach but essential for students who want to become productive, happy adults.

What is Peer-to-peer Learning

Peer-to-peer learning is where individuals learn from and with each other rather than relying on a traditional teacher or instructor. It involves collaboration, knowledge sharing, and mutual support among peers—typically people at a similar level of expertise or experience—working together to achieve a common learning goal. Participants exchange ideas, explain concepts, ask questions, and provide feedback. The process fosters critical thinking, communication skills, and a deeper understanding of the subject matter, as teaching others reinforces one’s own knowledge. Examples include study groups, coding boot camps where participants critique each other’s work, or online communities where users share expertise. It’s built on the idea that collective learning can be just as effective, if not more so, than top-down instruction, leveraging diverse perspectives and real-world problem-solving.

How is it implemented

The Roman philosopher Seneca declared: “docendo discimus” (“by teaching, we learn”). So how is it done?

Implementing peer-to-peer learning effectively requires planning and structure to maximize benefits while minimizing potential drawbacks. Here are practical steps to set it up:

Define Clear Objectives
Identify Participants
Establish Ground Rules
Pick a structure that fits the group’s needs:
- Study Groups: Divide topics and teach each other.
- Workshops: Rotate leadership for hands-on practice.
- Discussion Circles: Analyze material together.
- Project-Based: Collaborate on a tangible outcome (e.g., coding a program).

Monitor Progress
Encourage Feedback
Evaluate and Adapt

Advantages

Enhanced Understanding: Explaining concepts to peers reinforces your own grasp of the material. Teaching forces you to clarify your thoughts, often revealing gaps in your knowledge.
Collaboration Skills: Working with others builds teamwork, communication, and interpersonal skills, which are valuable beyond academics.
Diverse Perspectives: Peers bring different viewpoints, experiences, and problem-solving approaches, enriching the learning process.
Increased Engagement: Learning feels more interactive and less hierarchical, boosting motivation and participation.
Flexibility: It can happen anywhere—classrooms, online platforms, or casual meetups—and adapt to learners’ schedules and needs.

Disadvantages

Uneven Knowledge Levels: If peers have significantly different skill levels, some may struggle to keep up while others feel held back.
Lack of Expert Guidance: Without a qualified instructor, misinformation can spread if no one catches errors.
Dependence on Participation: Success hinges on everyone contributing. If some peers slack off, the group suffers.
Time-Intensive: Collaborative learning can be slower than direct instruction, as discussions and consensus-building take effort.
Conflict Risk: Differences in personality, work ethic, or opinions can lead to friction, derailing the process.
Limited Depth: Complex topics might not be explored fully without an expert to guide deeper inquiry.

In short, peer-to-peer learning shines when participants are motivated and somewhat aligned in ability, but it can falter without structure or reliable contributors. It’s a trade-off between autonomy and accuracy.

Here’s the sign-up link if the image above doesn’t work:

https://forms.aweber.com/form/07/1910174607.htm

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

Teacher-Authors: What’s Happening on my Writer’s Blog

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A lot of teacher-authors read my WordDreams blog. In this monthly column, I share the most popular post from the past month here. If you follow WordDreams, you may have already seen this:

“Be an Author Month” is an annual event celebrated every March. It’s geared more for kids, but since most of my readers have schoolage children, this could be exactly the event that inspires them to embrace their creativity. It aligns with National Reading Month, Listening Awareness Month, and National March into Literacy Month.

Key activities include:

Student Writing Competition: A highlight of the event is the “Tell Your Story” competition. Students create and publish their own books, often using tools like Book Creator. Winners are selected based on a rubric and prizes are offered to celebrate their efforts.
Educational Resources: Organizers provide a wealth of free resources, including daily writing prompts, activity journals, remixable templates, and lesson ideas.
Webinars and Workshops: Throughout March, webinars and author Q&As are held to inspire participants.
Inclusivity and Technology: Be an Author Month emphasizes accessibility, leveraging technology to ensure all students can participate. Features like voice-to-text, audio recordings, and multimedia options (images, videos, comics) allow diverse learners— including those who may struggle with traditional writing— to share their stories.
Collaborative Projects: Initiatives like #TWIMA (“This Week in My Authorhood”) encourage collaborative storytelling, where students contribute to shared books.

How to Participate

Because it is championed by Book Creator, click their link for details or go directly to the Book Creator “Be An Author Month” site.

Invention Convention 2025 is coming

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Invention Convention Worldwide is a global K-12 curricular program mapped to national and state educational standards that teaches students problem identification, problem solving, entrepreneurship, creativity skills, and confidence. RTX Invention Convention U.S. Nationals 2025 runs June 4-6, 2025 at The Henry Ford in Dearborn, MI. (more…)

Will AI-driven Education Replace STEM? Experts think so

When I saw this ESchoolMedia article, my first response was, He** no! but I paused to ask why a reputable magazine would even ask this question. Before reading the article, I asked Grok the same question. Here’s what a generative AI has to say about that issue:

No, AI-driven education won’t “replace” STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) as a field of study or practice, but it will transform how STEM is taught and applied. STEM isn’t just a curriculum—it’s a framework for understanding and solving real-world problems. AI can enhance that, not supplant it.

Grok had a lot more detail, but let’s turn to the article. It’s about a four-minute read:

The end of STEM: Why AI-driven education must replace an outdated model

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Minecraft Builds Coding Skills

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Minecraft has been popular with kids for a long time with no sign of slowing down. It’s useful for teaching a plethora of subjects, from history to math to geology to tech skills. Just as important, it’s that rare fun lesson that teaches problem solving and critical thinking without the usual pain.

Edweek has a good article that focuses on Minecraft and coding, a quick three-minute read that is well worth your time:

How Playing Minecraft Can Help Students Learn Coding Skills

“Students can use Minecraft Education—which employs the sandbox building game—to get credentials in cybersecurity, coding, and AI. Students who participate in the coding pathway can earn citations for their fluency in Java and Python, two in-demand coding languages. (Nonprofit organizations, such as Code.org, also offer teachers and students low cost or free options to help students learn key computer science skills.)”