Teaching and Learning Spring 2018
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Volume 1, Issue 5 Spring 2018
Access to Technology, Intellectual Freedom, and 21st-century education
Writing Research Reading
For Webb Faculty: Celebrate the freedom and opportunity that comes with the ability to design and carry out a robust, rich, “independent” curriculum.
Library Stats
Students completed 4,237 research sessions this school-year in the LibGuides platform.
With 1,263 sessions on an iPhone, this is still the top access vehicle for LibGuides.
We currently have 53 LibGuides with 6,521 views between August 2017 and May 2018.
Here are just a few:
- The Senior Capstone Project had 939 views
- Harper Lee had 247 views
- The Biome Project had 179 views
- Mark Twain 87 views
- Muscles Project 64 views
- Democracy Research Project 48 views
- Spanish Articles 29 views
Education Best Practices
Common Sense Media recommends several Device-Free Zones.
Guess what, the classroom is not one of them!
Ed-Tech Reviews and Resources from Common Sense Media
- 44 Smart Ways to Use Smartphones in ClassUse Smartphones to Collaborate, Communicate, Create, Coordinate/Curate
- Computers of the Future May Be Minuscule Molecular MachinesZeroes and 1s are so last century.
- How Your Smartphone Camera Is Affecting Your LifeJONAH LEHRER "those who took pictures showed higher levels of enjoyment ... Interestingly, these people also showed significantly higher levels of engagement. Because they were immersed in the act of picture-making, they were more attentive to the details of the scene; the mundane experience became an aesthetic event."
- Using Smartphones in the ClassroomTired of telling students to put away their phones? A veteran teacher shares tips for using mobile devices as learning tools.
- Your smartphone is millions of times more powerful than all of NASA’s combined computing in 1969Put simply, the iPhone 6’s clock is 32,600 times faster than the best Apollo era computers and could perform instructions 120,000,000 times faster. You wouldn’t be wrong in saying an iPhone could be used to guide 120,000,000 Apollo era spacecraft to the moon, all at the same time.
The Library Survey
If we want to prepare students for college, career, and life we must begin inserting more technology into our classrooms not less. Our students need to use tech for more than recreation.
When asked -
Where do you hear or read about Webb School news? We found that students are not using online resources, instead, they are relying on Chapel Announcements and Word of Mouth. The results for Local and World news were not surprisingly the opposite. In fact, 17.6% of our students get their Local and World news from Snapchat. You might think getting your news from Snapchat is horrific, however, the Snapchat Discover section offers articles from Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, and National Geographic just to name a few.
Where do you hear or read about Webb School news?
An overwhelming majority of students completed the Library Survey on their phone.
For the full Library Survey Report contact the Librarian
Summer Break
We invite faculty to read for pleasure over the Summer break. Here are just a few of the newly released books on our shelves. Ask Hannah for a recommendation.
Also, don't hesitate to make a request. This is a community library!
Sneak peek ...
Summer programming in the library "Libraries Rock™" July 11, 18 & 25 - Read alouds about Louis Armstrong, Elvis Presley, and The Beatles! #libfeet #librariesrock
YA Books - What the kids are reading
The Hate U Give by
Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.
ISBN: 0062498533Publication Date: 2017-02-28
Turtles All the Way Down by
"A wrenching and revelatory novel." - The New York Times A New York Times Notable Book * A New York Times Critics' Top Book of the Year * An NPR Best Book of the Year * A TIME Best Book of the Year * A Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year * A Boston Globe Best Book of the Year * A Seventeen Best Book of the Year * A Southern Living Best Book of the Year * A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year * An SLJ Best Book of the Year * An A.V. Club Best Book of the Year * A Bustle Best Book of the Year * A Pop Sugar Best Book of the Year #1 New York Times Bestseller * #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller * #1 International Bestseller Sixteen-year-old Aza never intended to pursue the mystery of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there's a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Russell Pickett's son, Davis. Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts. In his long-awaited return, John Green, the acclaimed, award-winning author of Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars, shares Aza's story with shattering, unflinching clarity in this brilliant novel of love, resilience, and the power of lifelong friendship.
ISBN: 0525555366Publication Date: 2017-10-10
Non-Fiction Adult Bestsellers
- The 5 books Bill Gates thinks everyone should read this summerBill Gates has made it a tradition to share his favorite reads on his blog, Gates Notes. Every year, he rounds up a selection of titles you may enjoy over the summer.
Deep Work by
An Amazon Best Book of 2016 Pick in Business & Leadership Wall Street Journal Business Bestseller A Business Book of the Week at 800-CEO-READ One of the most valuable skills in our economy is becoming increasingly rare. If you master this skill, you'll achieve extraordinary results. Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way. In DEEP WORK, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite. Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. He then presents a rigorous training regimen, presented as a series of four "rules," for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill. A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, DEEP WORK takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories-from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air-and no-nonsense advice, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored. DEEP WORK is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.
ISBN: 1455586692Publication Date: 2016-01-05
Rest by
"Rest is such a valuable book. If work is our national religion, Pang is the philosopher reintegrating our bifurcated selves." ---Arianna Huffington,New York Times Book Review Overwork is the new normal. Rest is something to do when the important things are done-but they are never done. Looking at different forms of rest, from sleep to vacation, Silicon Valley futurist and business consultant Alex Soojung-Kim Pang dispels the myth that the harder we work the better the outcome. He combines rigorous scientific research with a rich array of examples of writers, painters, and thinkers---from Darwin to Stephen King---to challenge our tendency to see work and relaxation as antithetical. "Deliberate rest," as Pang calls it, is the true key to productivity, and will give us more energy, sharper ideas, and a better life.Restoffers a roadmap to rediscovering the importance of rest in our lives, and a convincing argument that we need to relax more if we actually want to get more done.
ISBN: 0465074871Publication Date: 2016-12-06
Book Clubs and Beach Reads
Little Fires Everywhere by
From the bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You a riveting novel that traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives. In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned - from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules. Enter Mia Warren - an enigmatic artist and single mother - who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community. When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town--and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs. Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood - and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster. Perfect for book clubs! Visit celesteng.com for discussion guides and more.
ISBN: 0735224293Publication Date: 2017-09-12
The Shape of Water by
It is 1962, and Elisa Esposito-mute her whole life, orphaned as a child-is struggling with her humdrum existence as a janitor working the graveyard shift at Baltimore's Occam Aerospace Research Center. Were it not for Zelda, a protective coworker, and Giles, her loving neighbor, she doesn't know how she'd make it through the day.Then, one fateful night, she sees something she was never meant to see, the Center's most sensitive asset ever: an amphibious man, captured in the Amazon, to be studied for Cold War advancements. The creature is terrifying but also magnificent, capable of language and of understanding emotions... and Elisa can't keep away. Using sign language, the two learn to communicate. Soon, affection turns into love, and the creature becomes Elisa's sole reason to live. But outside forces are pressing in. Richard Strickland, the obsessed soldier who tracked the asset through the Amazon, wants nothing more than to dissect it before the Russians get a chance to steal it. Elisa has no choice but to risk everything to save her beloved. With the help of Zelda and Giles, Elisa hatches a plan to break out the creature. But Strickland is on to them. And the Russians are, indeed, coming. Developed from the ground up as a bold two-tiered release-one story interpreted by two artists in the independent mediums of literature and film-The Shape of Water is unlike anything you've ever read or seen.
ISBN: 1250165342Publication Date: 2018-03-06
Thrillers
The Wild Inside by
promising talent makes her electrifying debut with this unforgettable novel, set in the Alaskan wilderness, that is a fusion of psychological thriller and coming-of-age tale in the vein of Jennifer McMahon, Chris Bohjalian, and Mary Kubica. A natural born trapper and hunter raised in the Alaskan wilderness, Tracy Petrikoff spends her days tracking animals and running with her dogs in the remote forests surrounding her family's home. Though she feels safe in this untamed land, Tracy still follows her late mother's rules: Never Lose Sight of the House. Never Come Home with Dirty Hands. And, above all else, Never Make a Person Bleed. But these precautions aren't enough to protect Tracy when a stranger attacks her in the woods and knocks her unconscious. The next day, she glimpses an eerily familiar man emerge from the tree line, gravely injured from a vicious knife wound--a wound from a hunting knife similar to the one she carries in her pocket. Was this the man who attacked her and did she almost kill him? With her memories of the events jumbled, Tracy can't be sure. Helping her father cope with her mother's death and prepare for the approaching Iditarod, she doesn't have time to think about what she may have done. Then a mysterious wanderer appears, looking for a job. Tracy senses that Jesse Goodwin is hiding something, but she can't warn her father without explaining about the attack--or why she's kept it to herself. It soon becomes clear that something dangerous is going on . . . the way Jesse has wormed his way into the family . . . the threatening face of the stranger in a crowd . . . the boot-prints she finds at the forest's edge. Her family is in trouble. Will uncovering the truth protect them--or is the threat closer than Tracy suspects?
ISBN: 0062741993Publication Date: 2018-03-20
My Absolute Darling by
A brilliant and immersive, all-consuming read about one fourteen-year-old girl's heart-stopping fight for her own soul. Turtle Alveston is a survivor. At fourteen, she roams the woods along the northern California coast. The creeks, tide pools, and rocky islands are her haunts and her hiding grounds, and she is known to wander for miles. But while her physical world is expansive, her personal one is small and treacherous: Turtle has grown up isolated since the death of her mother, in the thrall of her tortured and charismatic father, Martin. Her social existence is confined to the middle school (where she fends off the interest of anyone, student or teacher, who might penetrate her shell) and to her life with her father. Then Turtle meets Jacob, a high-school boy who tells jokes, lives in a big clean house, and looks at Turtle as if she is the sunrise. And for the first time, the larger world begins to come into focus: her life with Martin is neither safe nor sustainable. Motivated by her first experience with real friendship and a teenage crush, Turtle starts to imagine escape, using the very survival skills her father devoted himself to teaching her. What follows is a harrowing story of bravery and redemption. With Turtle's escalating acts of physical and emotional courage, the reader watches, heart in throat, as this teenage girl struggles to become her own hero--and in the process, becomes ours as well. Shot through with striking language in a fierce natural setting, My Absolute Darling is an urgently told, profoundly moving read that marks the debut of an extraordinary new writer.
ISBN: 0735211175Publication Date: 2017-08-29
Ranger Games by
Alex Blum was a good kid, a popular high school hockey star from a tight-knit Colorado family. He had one goal in life: endure a brutally difficult selection program, become a U.S. Army Ranger, and fight terrorists for his country. He poured everything into achieving his dream. In the first hours of his final leave before deployment to Iraq, Alex was supposed to fly home to see his family and beloved girlfriend. Instead, he got into his car with two fellow soldiers and two strangers, drove to a local bank in Tacoma, and committed armed robbery... The question that haunted the entire Blum family was: Why? Why would he ruin his life in such a spectacularly foolish way? At first, Alex insisted he thought the robbery was just another exercise in the famously daunting Ranger program. His attorney presented a case based on the theory that the Ranger indoctrination mirrored that of a cult. In the midst of his own personal crisis, and in the hopes of helping both Alex and his splintering family cope, Ben Blum, Alex's first cousin, delved into these mysteries, growing closer to Alex in the process. As he probed further, Ben began to question not only Alex, but the influence of his superior, Luke Elliot Sommer, the man who planned the robbery. A charismatic combat veteran, Sommer's manipulative tendencies combined with a magnetic personality pulled Ben into a relationship that put his loyalties to the test.
ISBN: 038553843XPublication Date: 2017-09-12
The Readymade Thief by
Lee Cuddy is seventeen years old and on the run. Betrayed by her family after taking the fall for a friend, Lee finds refuge in a cooperative of runaways holed up in an abandoned building they call the Crystal Castle. But the façade of the Castle conceals a far more sinister agenda, one hatched by a society of fanatical men set on decoding a series of powerful secrets hidden in plain sight. And they believe Lee holds the key to it all. Aided by Tomi, a young hacker and artist with whom she has struck a wary alliance, Lee escapes into the unmapped corners of the city--empty aquariums, deserted motels, patrolled museums, and even the homes of vacationing families. But the deeper she goes underground, the more tightly she finds herself bound in the strange web she's trying to elude. Desperate and out of options, Lee steps from the shadows to face who is after her--and why. A novel of puzzles, conspiracies, secret societies, urban exploration, art history, and a singular, indomitable heroine, The Readymade Thief heralds the arrival of a spellbinding and original new talent in fiction.
ISBN: 0735221839Publication Date: 2017-08-01