Train-loving children get a coding primer as they play.
Using technology to forge literary and artistic connections with today's preteens.
MERGE is on a mission to make virtual reality "easy, safe, and fun for everyone” and offers an array of experiences to kids 10 and up.
Famed actor and activist George Takei will kick off School Library Journal’s annual Summit. This year’s theme: Making “good trouble.”
Educators can play a key role in helping these students move forward with resilience.
Here are some ideas to bring your Teen Read Week programs up a notch.
SLJ's reviewer called Florence, an intriguing app for teens, "A realistic and emotional portrayal of how relationships and dreams can flourish, wither, and rise from the ashes."
It's OED's 90th birthday, and it is bringing the gift—a year free online access for non-subscribing public schools.
These new applications transport students through primary sources to some of the most dramatic turning points in U.S. history and immerse them in the related debates.
For these authors, visits to school libraries are all about the interaction with students.
The search tool allows you to locate datasets stored across thousands of repositories in the context of their hosted sites in a single interface.
SLJ test drives Tour Creator, a free tool that enables anyone with access to a 360-degree camera or Google Street View to create professional-level VR experiences.
How can educators incorporate materials that explore empathy and encourage social and emotional development? An educator has some suggestions.
Common Sense Media finds that when it comes to social media and teens, there are no easy or definitive answers.
A screen-free coding robot that had to be tried to be believed.
Teen-tested projects from the Public Library of Mount Vernon and Knox County.
Makey Makey, Hummingbird Duo, and Scratch can turn an ordinary poster or diorama into a talking, moving educational presentation.
SLJ reviews 3Doodler's new line of 3-D printing pen products designed for classroom use.
Try these projects and games with your students on Banned Websites Awareness Day (September 26), which seeks to raise awareness of overly restrictive filtering of educational websites and to explore the impact on intellectual freedom.
Michelle Carton builds a global education at the Tudor Elementary School in Anchorage, Alaska.
News and announcements from the annual International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference.
Nosy Crow, known for its rollicking fairy tale retellings has announced it will no longer be producing apps. Hansel and Gretel is its penultimate production.
Public libraries and middle and high schools can apply for the grants. But hurry, the deadline is July 9.
Free lesson plans combine digital fabrication with an exploration of cultural symbols inspired by the hit Marvel film.
This game, which offers opportunities for cooperative play and team problem solving, will be appreciated for its design and deceptively simple, thought-provoking puzzles.
A hands-on STEM learning center at Colonial High School (CHS) in Grindstone, PA, provides needed skills, an emotional outlet, and a lifeline to many teens.
This learn-to-code robot with a passing resemblance to Mr. Potato Head can be built and re-built.
Imagine the possibilities. of immersive virtual field trips–a walk through the solar system, the experience of a tornado, a tour around a refugee camp of a science lab with the opportunity to fully explore, rotate and dissect a 3D model of the human body. of your students designing their own 360-degree, interactive, immersive stories with augmented […]
Appealing graphics and a series of solid foundational skill-building exercises make this app a winner.
Get out the pliers and roll up your sleeves: All you need to know to lead a toy-take apart session with students.
The recently released sequel to the popularAlto's Adventure will keep viewers intrigued and challenged for long stretches of play.
Photoshop and Adobe Premiere for $5? Starting May 15, Adobe will offer its full suite of Creative Cloud applications to K–12 schools at $4.99 per license, per year.
This curriculum-based database pushes elementary and middle school students to think about STEM and problem-solving in new ways.
A new entrée in a popular series will delight fans.
A selection of apps highlighting plants, animals, and ecosystems to share with your students as Earth Day approaches.
Educators look at coding in a new context, with computational thinking and basic computer literacy as the goal.
19 sites, apps, and more for Poetry Month.
A STEM app for young learners that encourages discussion and exploration.
Roll aside, Dash, Cue is in the house. Wonder Workshop’s new robot, Cue, is a follow-up to the popular Dash and Dot and the company's first product designed for middle school students.
This engaging game will intrigue mystery buffs and entertain fans of the "Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries" television series.
The 10th entry in Tinybop Inc.'s "Explorer’s Library" is now available.
The purposefully unstructured nature of Cubetto will make it a wonderful addition to pre-K and early elementary classrooms.
An interactive adventure in which children help the protagonist move through a story while they exercise their fine-motor skills.
A new app from Ahoiii Entertainment offers children an opportunity to exercise their fine-motor and visual discrimination skills.
With a variety of backgrounds, characters, and special effects to incorporate, Movie Creator will spark creativity and imaginative play.
Introducing interactive experiments on the iPad that demonstrate principles of electricity.
This is the first of a series of post on productivity and organizational tools that I’m finding useful in my library work. I’ve been using Trello off and on, for professional and personal projects, since 2014. It’s visually appealing, simple to use, and dovetails nicely with Google apps.
Bowling, Skee-Ball, ramp parks, and more, Alisha Wilson, SLJ's 2017 Maker Hero, provides activity suggestions for Sphero and Ollie in the library.
Gaming apps reign this year—incorporating logic, spatial awareness, and strategy skills into the mix.
Four tech experts recommend a selection of websites and applications.
SLJ reviews the micro:bit, a codable computer you can put in your pocket.
A new app from Touch Press puts students inside a cell on a mission.
"Constructing a Piper Computer Kit is a memorable STEM learning experience that builds in problem-solving and technical skills," writes Addie Matteson in SLJ's review.
Delightful animations and lively music will make this holiday and concept app a favorite all year round.
The playful, skill-building "Fiete" apps from Ahoiii Entertainment are ever popular with children. The latest just picked up an award at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
A new app injects logic and physics into an engaging game filled with more than a touch of fantasy.
At my library we have a few Ollie robots and the SpheroEdu app which controls the robots installed on our programming iPads. I purchased the Ollie robots for a few reasons: Special tires so robots can also be used for fun, outdoor programming Move up to 14 mph, much more impressive to most teens these […]
These educators are embracing virtual reality as a new tool for student engagement, collaboration, and content creation.
A set of pre-literacy concept apps that has much to offer adults seeking entertaining ways to engage young learners.
A creative, pint-size maker comes up with an ingenious solution when he misses his dad.
Some apps delight users from the moment they begin, through to the very last click.
Part noir spy caper, part puzzle game, part animated graphic novel, this app defies easy categorization.
Cross-media branding? It's not unusual, but is it successful in this app?
A classic American game receives a winning digital update.
Amidst a fury of #FlipGridFever, our friends at Flipgrid recently announced major enhancements in a product I loved at first sight. (See just a couple of my posts from Let’s test drive FlipGrid to Announcing Flipgrid One (now free to all teachers). One thing you’ll notice if you go back and watch the live-streamed launch event that […]
SLJ reviews the littleBits Code Kit, a suite of hardware, software, and resources that enable kids to apply computer code to their inventions.
Gear up for a cosmic experience on August 21 with these easy-to-access, digital resources.
If you’ve been reluctant to attempt podcasting for yourself or for your students, Anchor, just might be your solution. Available free at either the App Store or Google Play or at Anchor.fm, Anchor makes podcasting from your phone or iPad or Chromebook a breeze. It also makes podcasting a social media event. And there’s virtually no learning curve […]
A lively retelling of a Slavic folktale about a king who keeps firing barbers because he’s ashamed of the secret they discover while cutting his hair: he has goat ears.
Over the course of the past couple of years, I’ve become particularly fond of a few Chrome tools that I consider too good to miss. These would be handy across the board, but especially in Google Classroom and Chromebook environments. Here’s a rundown of nine of my favorite discoveries in no particular order: 1. Google Keep is […]
SLJ reviews the Starling, a word-tracking device for babies. Our "First Steps" columnist Lisa Kropp considers its potential use in libraries.
While the premise of the game is simple, two aspects of the app elevate it into an amazing experience: the Oscar-worthy animation and the hauntingly beautiful soundtrack.
I’ve been working on gathering resources on for our new Emerging Literacies course and wanted to share some of the resources/app lists I’ve gathered for learners with special needs. Among the tools I am discovering are a few free resources for supporting text-to-speech. These resources are so handy for struggling readers, for ESL students, for […]
Is it magic? Or is it geometry? Monument Valley llis a game to be savored.
Wondering where to find the next fantastic beasts? With the engaging and intuitive Creature Garden app children can now create their own.
Gorgeous design and a complex narrative create an addictive game that will appeal to a range of ages.
Bill Martin Jr's beloved Brown Bear turned 50, and to celebrate, a tap-and-touch encounter with the book's characters illustrated by Eric Carle has been released.
On Saturday, AASL committee members announced the 2017 Best Websites and 2017 Best Apps for Teaching & Learning at ALA Annual Conference in Chicago. In case you missed those big reveals, no worries! Actually, worry–big time. You are in for a serious summer rabbit hole adventure. Now in its ninth year, The 2017 Best Websites for Teaching and […]
Amplify and Touch Press have joined forces to issue educational, skill-building games, one per month, on a subscription basis.
A host of maker apps await you and your library patrons, including one of our favorites that's free on iTunes this week.
Bloxels pairs an app with a physical board to give students the tools they need to create their own arcade-style video games.
Two whimsical story apps by Bo Zaunders were created using OCG's "Develop-Your-Own" framework, designed by the studio for artists and writers.
Teachers and librarians can use the activities to design in-depth lessons on how sound is created, magnets work, and frequency and vibration affect pitch.
The 80-plus engineering challenges on the Curiosity Machine site are inspired by man-made and natural structures.
Students at Utica Community Schools are exploring interactive 3-D models using zSpace, which blends augmented and virtual reality technology. With a model of a functioning heart, for example, they can move it around and look inside.
A new tool to engage kids in the sciences that's informative, interactive, and easy to navigate.
Students have until 11:59 p.m. EDT on April 21 to post an idea for an invention to clean and/or protect planet Earth.
For months now I have been wanting to talk to you about a photo app called Enlight, the only problem is – I can’t figure out how to use it very well. This may sound like a dig at the app but it’s not, it’s an admission of my own lack of skills. The truth […]
A 400-year-old mystery involving one of the greatest artists of all time is explored in "Buried Alive: The Secret Michelangelo Took to His Grave," a thrilling, free app from Time Traveler Tours.
In this interactive story, young viewers decide which path will lead to a missing dog.
Billed as an all-in-one STEM lab, the handheld Labdisc Gensci by Globisens is a useful tool to measure and record data for a wide range of experiments.
I recently discovered an incredibly versatile participation tool. Spiral is a free suite of four powerful apps that promote classroom engagement and collaboration. It makes so much of what we already do so much easier and it is a must-have tool for 1:1 settings. Students may login to lessons using Google, Facebook, Clever or Edmodo. […]
Axel Scheffler and a flip book all in one? What could be more fun?
The littleBits Code Kit leverages the hands-on building of a game to make coding accessible.
Today, I came face to face with an elephant, accompanied Iraqi forces as they fought to retake Falluja, and I rode along with police officers in Flint, and I tended bar for Don Cheadle. Storytelling is evolving and thrilling and sometimes dizzying. National Geographic has been growing a very cool YouTube playlist of 360° Videos. […]
If distance or lack of ticket availability has kept you from visiting the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the museum's free app allows a look inside.
Tinybop's latest app, "Me," offers an excellent opportunity for self-exploration.
A digital story imbued with activities and a message about tolerance.
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