Last week, according to the latest Fraser Institute rankings of British Columbia elementary schools, the polygamous commune school, Bountiful Elementary-Secondary School (BESS), along with twelve other mostly lower mainland top independent schools, received a perfect score of 10 on the 2011 Education Report Card.Shocked?Appalled?Completely confused?Me, too.After several years of turning a blind eye to these … Continue reading Polygamous School Ranks Perfect: The Homogeneity Factor? →

Earlier this week, United Kingdom-based, Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) released a statement, School Libraries - A Right, on the role and value of school libraries. It sets out the core entitlements that every child, school's teaching team and wider school community should expect to receive. It provides the case for a … Continue reading School Libraries: A Right →

The Summer 2010 class of interns at the Berkman Center for Internet Society at Harvard University took on a huge assignment: pick a chapter from Urs Gasser and John Palfrey's book, Born Digital, and make a short video inspired by that chapter. This video, inspired by the "Identities" chapter, was created by Denise Linn, Paul … Continue reading Born Digital Video: Identities →

What better day to celebrate school libraries than with showing the love? Join the British Columbia Teacher Librarians Association and hundreds of teacher-librarians and school libraries around British Columbia on Monday, February 14th with Love Your Library Day! Drop by your school library and check out the goings on including contests, free book giveaways, and … Continue reading BCTLA Celebrates "Love Your Library" Day →

As another February draws near, so to does another Freedom to Read Week. Freedom to Read Week is a national campaign sponsored by the Freedom of Expression Committee which is a committee of the Book and Periodical Council. L.V. Rogers will once again be participating in the event to celebrate the freedom of expression including … Continue reading Freedom to Read Week 2011 →

The good old teacher-librarian Diigo group comes through again with another gem. There are some very interesting results from a survey demonstrating perhaps how ineffectual the research skills of middle and secondary school students.Of note:half of all high school students "rarely or never" check the date of an article;2/3 "rarely or never" check the author;Worth … Continue reading Teaching the Ten Steps to Better Web Research →

Instructional designer and author, Ali Carr-Chellman, shares her thoughts on why boys are disengaged in their learning. Note: it is not due to video games.Why does Johnny need to be allowed to write about violence? Why are too many female elementary school teachers not such a good thing?Why is Kindergarten is the new Grade 2?http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf

So, Grandma's on Facebook and using social media...Can't say I'm not surprised. But what is startling is the rate of increase of use among our seniors using digital social media and closing a bit of the gap on the digital divide that exists.According to PEW Internet and American Life Project, the 74 and over age … Continue reading Why Grandma’s on Facebook →

Not CISCO.Not Intel.Not even Microsoft or Toyota.Google. Only Google gets it.The bigger picture.The future of science and technology needs this.The future generations of scientists-in-waiting need this. Google announced that they will be  sponsoring the first-ever online science fair. Check out their promotional website for registration and information.

This video has been circulating around the blogosphere for a few days now. In the video, Hans Rosling, co-founder of Gap Minder, presents 200 years of history in four minutes. The video focuses on the connections between health and wealth from 1810 through 2010.