Children from low-income families don’t perform as well on IQ and achievement tests and have more behavioral problems than children from middle- and higher-income families, says a new study by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The kids, however, don’t differ when it comes to other basic cognitive functions like memory and verbal fluency, or when it comes to social skills. More
Batter up! Baseball Goes Online By Staff - 05/01/2008
Just in time for baseball season, the Library of Congress (LOC) has assembled a Web clearinghouse devoted to America’s pastime. The simply named “Historic Baseball Resources” (www.loc.gov/topics/baseball) features multimedia offerings from the library’s vast trove, including rare images of early games and the original sheet music to “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.
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Videoconferencing to Go By Jeff Hastings - 05/01/2008
As a child of the space age, I’ve got to say that, despite all the recent technological innovation, the 21st century really isn’t turning out to be quite as Buck Rogers whizbang as I imagined back when I was a kid. Contrary to what I was always led to believe from browsing Popular Science, here it is, the spring of 2008, and I still do not own a flying car.
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IXL Math By Kathy Ishizuka - 05/01/2008
www.ixl.com/math For members of the right-brain camp—like me—math can be a particular challenge. So it’s especially important for young learners to get a firm handle on the basics. And you know what that means—practice. The online resource IXL Math is a welcome alternative to dreary worksheets, presenting math quizzes for students in Pre-K to grade 3 in a visual way.
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Start Your Search Engines Part 2 By Anna Adam and Helen Mowers - 05/01/2008
Are your students struggling to come up with kid-appropriate pictures? Have you ever scrambled to find that perfect image for a presentation? Well, there’s no shortage of search engines that’ll help you do the job, and we’re here to share some of our favorites. There’s no doubt that Google is great for finding images.
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TikaTok Turns Kids into Authors Lauren Barack - 04/28/2008
There's nothing like letting a child choose their bedtime story—and having one of those titles be their own.
Through the new site TikaTok, children can compose the mysteries, adventures, and fantasies bursting from their imaginations, post them online for friends and others to read, and even print the tale for their bookshelf at home.
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Surface Computing Coming to your Library? By Christopher Harris - 04/01/2008
A student walks into your media center, heads over to the reference desk and places his palm on the surface to access his network pass. The system, recognizing the student, then displays an assignment from his teacher, along with the pathfinder you created for the project. Another student lays her handheld on the desk and seeing her assignment appear, reaches out and drags it onto her device.
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ASUS Eee PC 701 (4G) Subnotebook By Jeffrey Hastings - 04/01/2008
Warning: Do not even consider purchasing an ASUS Eee PC unless you’re 100 percent comfortable with the term cute. Buy one, and you’re going to hear the dreaded c-word. Often. After listening to just about everyone that spied the so-called “subnotebook” on my desk squeal with delight over its endearingly diminutive dimensions, I have to admit that my male apprehensions a...
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Podcasts are a great way to expand learning beyond the classroom or library. Here are more recommendations from Tech Chicks Anna Adam and Helen Mowers, following up their Dec. 2007 article Listen Up!
K-Gr 7–Children’s music doesn’t get much better than these 16 songs by Pomes in a Pail. What began at a writer’s workshop resulted in an amazing collaboration that combined the clever words of Alexander Jenny and the music of Karena Mendoza and Stephanie Snow.
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