Technology

STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) is part of a new trend that integrates hands-on learning with STEM. It taps into children’s natural interests while also facilitating informal learning. Show Me Librarian Amy Koester shares how school and public librarians can incorporate STEAM into their programs.

Children's librarian Amy Koester shares some of her go-to STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, math) programs, for all ages.

A recent, voluntary survey of 3,000 high school students by EasyBib, the online citation and research platform, shows that kids are wary of Wikipedia’s accuracy—but still turn to it as a primary research tool—and they condemn plagiarism, though it remains an issue for high schools. The survey also finds that students are increasingly seeing libraries as providers of tech resources.

In a quick reversal of its position on Kindle lending, Penguin on September 26 loosened the terms of its renewed agreement with OverDrive, announced only the day before. The publisher has agreed to allow library patrons to download ebook titles wirelessly via OverDrive’s “Get for Kindle” function instead of, as initially announced, first downloading titles to a computer, and then side-loading those titles to their Kindle classic or Paperwhite using a USB cord.

The Education Library Networks Coalition—which includes the American Library Association and the International Society for Technology in Education—is calling on the Federal Communications Commission to double the funding for E-rate, according to EdLiNC’s co-chair Jon Bernstein. The coalition also asks that the E-rate program offer more “scalable” goals for local entities, with limited national mandates.

“Penguin will resume doing business with OverDrive as of this morning,” Penguin spokesperson Erica Glass told LJ on September 25. According to a blog post by Karen Estrovich, collection development manager for OverDrive, 17,000 Penguin ebooks are already “live and available for purchase in OverDrive Marketplace.” Although Estrovich refers to the transaction as a purchase, the books are being offered for a one year term on a one copy/one user lending model.

YALSA and Dollar General Literacy Foundation are offering two $1,000 grants for Summer Reading programs: one for employing a teen intern and another for purchasing resources. The Library of Congress has launched a new Twitter feed for K–12 educators which can be found @TeachingLC. ALSC members are encouraged to send suggestions for the 2013 Theodor Geisel Award to the committee chair, Penny Peck. Capstone Interactive ebooks are now compatible with the Amazon Kindle Fire HD.

Late last spring, our district distributed the Danielson Framework for Teaching rubric listing the components of instruction–divided into 22 components and 76 smaller elements, and clustered into four domains. Danielson’s Framework, is designed to serve as the the foundation of a school or district’s mentoring, coaching, professional development, and teacher evaluation processes, thus linking all those activities together [...]

Early in the school year is a good time to help kids get into the swing of things and get to know one another and these apps can help.