E-reading and e-books are slowly conquering the world. Compared to traditional paper books, e-books in some schools and universities attract more interest because the information flow seems much easier to manage and comes in a greatly higher quantity.

    Japan is known for the reform-minded attitude towards the gadget(精巧装置)world and for the fact that it is one of the first countries that encouraged in the educational system the emailing of homework.

    The digital textbook looks like the logical step in the world of learning. It is natural but it is also completely untraditional.

    The plan of the largest publishing companies to get in line with the trend is to save a large quantity of paper and make the kids become interested in learning using a cool gadget. Many USA universities and colleges have made students be used to the procedure of downloading the courses and of course the procedure involves interactive software and also the chance of using the computer.

    The traditional education system is still unwilling when it comes to giving up books. The standard approach of information taught out of a book and Shakespeare read out of an old school novel makes studying English as traditional as it can be.

    In a world where kids would rather see the movie than read a book, the digital age has brought along a completely different flavor to reading. Bringing that flavor in school will make teaching a greener and also a completely different matter.

    Glacier Bay is one of the most famous parks in America, located in the state of Alaska. This park in the southeastern part of the state covers more than 1 million hectares of Alaskan wilderness. It includes mountains, glaciers (冰川), bays, and even rainforests. Glacier Bay supports hundreds of kinds of animals, including many species of birds, fish, bears, whales and sea lions.

    As its name suggests, much of Glacier Bay National Park is covered by glaciers. A glacier is a large area of ice that moves slowly down a slope (斜坡) or valley, or over a wide area of land. Glaciers cover more than 5,000 square kilometers of the park.

    Glacial ice has shaped the land over the last seven million years. The glaciers found in the park today are what remains from an ice advance known as the Little Ice Age. That period began about 4,000 years ago.

    During the Little Ice Age, the cold weather caused the ice to grow and advance. That situation continued until about 1,700s, when the climate began to warm. The higher temperatures caused the ice to start melting. That melting led the huge glacier to separate into more than 1,000 different glaciers.

    The extremely tall and jagged (参差不齐的) mountains seen in Glacier Bay National Park were formed by the ice advancing and then melting over time. The melting of the ice also created water that filled in and created the many fjords (峡湾) within the park. Fjords are narrow parts of the ocean that sit between cliffs or mountains.

    The huge amount of water from the melted ice killed off many kinds of plants. Vegetation returned to the area over the next 200 years. The regrowth in plants also brought back many animals to the land. This return of life to Glacier Bay is why it is sometimes called “a land reborn” by people.

    Chicago is becoming one of the country's most wonderful cities to film television. When this wonderful place is properly represented in a film, I cannot help but love it! Here are some movies that feature this great city.

    Southside With You

    Neighborhood: The whole South Side

    Director: Richard Tanne

    Starring: Tika Sumpter and Parker Sawyers

    Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

    Released: 2016

    Genre（类型）: Biography, Drama, History and Romance

    High Fidelity

    Neighborhood: Wicker Park

    Director: Stephen Frears

    Starring: John Cusack, Jack Black and Todd Louiso

    Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%

    Released: 2000

    Genre（类型）: Comedy, Drama, Music and Romance

    Mean Girls

    Neighborhood: This one is famous since it takes place in Evanston and some other parts of the North Shore.

    Director: Mark Waters

    Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams and Amanda Seyfried

    Rotten Tomatoes Score: 83%

    Released: 2004

    Genre: Comedy

    Hoop Dreams

    Neighborhood: Cabrini-Green, West Garfield Park and Westchester, IL

    Director: Steve James

    Starring: William Gates and Arthur Agee

    Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%

    Released: 1994

    Genre: Documentary, Drama and Sports

    A month before my first marathon, one of my ankles was injured and this meant not running for two weeks, leaving me only two weeks to train. Yet, I was determined to go ahead.

    I remember back to my 7th year in school. In my first P.E. class, the teacher required us to run laps and then hit a softball. I didn't do either well. He later informed me that I was "not athletic".

    The idea that I was "not athletic" stuck with me for years. When I started running in my 30s, I realized running was a battle against myself, not about competition or whether or not I was athletic. It was all about the battle against my own body and mind. A test of wills!

    The night before my marathon, I dreamt that I couldn't even find the finish line. I woke up sweating and nervous, but ready to prove something to myself.

    Shortly after crossing the start line, my shoe laces(鞋带) became untied. So I stopped to readjust. Not the start I wanted!

    At mile 3, I passed a sign: "GO FOR IT, RUNNERS!"

    By mile 17, I became out of breath and the once injured ankle hurt badly. Despite the pain, I stayed the course walking a bit and then running again.

    By mile 21, I was starving!

    As I approached mile 23, I could see my wife waving a sign. She is my biggest fan. She never minded the alarm clock sounding at 4 a.m. or questioned my expenses on running.

    I was one of the final runners to finish. But I finished! And I got a medal. In fact, I got the same medal as the one that the guy who came in first place had.

    Determined to be myself, move forward, free of shame and worldly labels(世俗标签), I can now call myself a "marathon winner".

    How does a sunset work? We love to look at one, but Jolanda Blackwell wanted her eighth-graders to really think about it and question.

    So Blackwell had her students watch a video of a sunset as part of a physics lesson on motion. "I asked them: ' So what's moving And why' " Blackwell says. Some thought the sun was moving; others knew that a sunset is the result of the Earth spinning around on its axis. "Usually, my biggest challenge is trying to keep them patient," she says. "They just have so many burning questions."

    "Every day, we meet new information," says Charan Ranganath, a psychologist. Ranganath was curious to know why we keep some information and forget other things. So he got 19 volunteers and asked them to review more than 100 questions. When the participants' curiosity was aroused, the parts of' their brains that regulate pleasure and reward lit up. Curious minds also showed increased activity in the brain, which is involved in greater memories.

    "Curious brains are better at learning not only about the subject at hand but also dull information. This is a phenomenon teachers can use in the classroom," says Evie Malaia, a professor. "Say a kid wants to be an astronaut," she says. NL Well, how do you link that goal with learning multiplication tables(乘法表)" "A teacher may choose to ask her class an interesting word problem that involves space exploration," Malaia says. Students may remember the answer to the word problem, but they'll also remember how they found the answer through multiplication.

    What Ranganath wants to know most is why some people seem naturally more curious than others. Lots of factors, including stress, aging and certain drugs  affect dopamine(多巴胺) processing in the brain. "If we could figure these things out, we could help those who may just seem bored," Ranganath says.

    Blackwell says she doesn't have to deal with that problem too often. She says her students love exploring the mysterious unknowns in science: What happens when a car crashes. How do rainbows work "I tell my kids there's no dumb questions," Blackwell says. "That's science: asking questions and seeking answers."

Recess (课间休息) time has been dropping for many children in America. This drop began the same year the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was passed. The law aimed to make American education system more internationally competitive by introducing achievement goals for schools. And the goals are gauged (评定) by standardized tests in reading and math. If schools missed their achievement goals, they could be in trouble, including loss of funding.

It's no surprise that teachers have felt the pressure to make sure students perform well on standardized tests. When educators are facing pay cuts, loss of funding to their school and perhaps even the loss of their jobs, it's no wonder that they started questioning if recess was a waste of time. This pressure to bring even more learning into the school day is especially felt by underperforming, low-income schools that are already short of funding.

It may seem strange to send kids out to play when they're falling below state standards, but getting outside for unstructured (散乱的) play may be more helpful than keeping kids in the classroom all day.

"Moving, running and playing outdoors freely have great influence on children. These activities play a role in children's abilities to focus and control themselves throughout the day," Marie Conti says, a famous educator of early childhood education. The mind cannot be educated without using the body. Learning is a whole of thinking and moving," she added.

Recess time makes it possible for children to learn something they can't get in class. Asking other kids to play, explaining the rules of a complex game and ending arguments are all important life lessons that children can only learn if they're given time to play. When something unhappy happens, children can find a way to get back to having fun themselves.

The physical activities kids take part in during recess can also reduce stress levels and allow children to feel more relaxed. In an education system that. Continues to place higher expectations on children to perform to a certain standard, less stress is just what the doctor ordered.