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Weekly News Digest
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November 21, 2017 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today.
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Library of Congress Rolls Out Free Civics Apps
The Library of Congress partnered with education institutions to launch three free web- and mobile-based apps that help K–12 students learn about Congress, civic participation, and other government-related topics. According to the press release, the apps are as follows:- Eagle Eye Citizen, developed by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. Eagle Eye Citizen engages middle and high school students in solving and creating interactive challenges on American history, civics and government with Library of Congress primary sources in order to develop their civic understanding and historical thinking skills.
- Engaging Congress, developed by Indiana University Center on Representative Government. Engaging Congress is a series of game-based learning activities that explores the basic tenets of representative government and the challenges it faces in contemporary society. Primary-source documents are used to examine the history and evolution of issues that confront Congress today.
- KidCitizen, developed by Muzzy Lane Software. KidCitizen introduces a new way for young students (K-5) to engage with history through primary sources. In KidCitizen’s nine interactive episodes, children explore civics and government concepts by investigating primary-source photographs from the Library of Congress. They also connect what they find with their daily lives. KidCitizen includes cloud software tools that let educators create their own episodes and share them with students.
For more information, read the article.
FCC Will Vote on Net Neutrality in December
According to an article by Todd Shields in Bloomberg Politics, in December 2017, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) “is planning a vote to kill Obama-era rules demanding fair treatment of web traffic and may decide to vacate the regulations altogether. … The move would reignite a years-long debate that has seen Republicans and broadband providers seeking to eliminate the rules, while Democrats and technology companies support them. The regulations passed in 2015 bar broadband providers such as AT&T Inc. and Comcast Corp. from interfering with web traffic sent by Google, Facebook Inc. and others.”An unnamed source told Shields that FCC chairman Ajit Pai “may call for vacating the rules except for portions that mandate internet service providers inform customers about their practices—one of the more severe options that would please broadband providers. They argue the FCC’s rules aren’t needed and discourage investment, in part because they subject companies to complex and unpredictable regulations.” For more information, read the article.
Accessible Archives Completes American Military Camp Newspapers Collection
Accessible Archives, Inc. finished digitizing all images in the American Military Camp Newspapers component of the America and World War I series. The XML-tagged text will be available in early 2018. “While in-depth perspectives of actual combat are plentiful, information about the soldiers themselves prior to deployment is not so well known,” according to Accessible Archives’ blog post. “A vast number of troops received their initial combat training in military camps, and camp newspapers chronicle their experiences.” The military camp newspapers covered reports by recruits and draftees on leaving home, training, camp life, attitudes toward peers and officers, and enemy news, as well as poetry, short stories, jokes, cartoons, sketches, and more.For more information, read the blog post.
Apple Introduces New Visitor Center With Views of Its Campus
Apple debuted its new Apple Park Visitor Center in Cupertino, Calif., as an “architectural extension” of its existing campus. According to the press release, “The Visitor Center’s cantilevered carbon fiber roof appears to float and is only supported by stone clad cores and no other extraneous columns for support.” Guests can use augmented reality to view a 3D model of the campus: “Visitors can learn about the world’s largest naturally ventilated building and view one of the largest on-site solar energy installations in the world. Visitors can also choose to lift the entire roof off the building to peek inside to the collaborative office pod layout.” Apple’s grounds also feature 9,000 native and drought-resistant trees.For more information and some pretty stunning photos, read the press release.
Springer Nature and PaperHive Make Reading More Collaborative
Springer Nature and PaperHive joined forces to develop a 1-year pilot program for giving students collaborative reading options—including PaperHive’s in-document group discussion, sharing, and rich-media annotation options—on Springer and Springer Spektrum books and textbooks. They aim to increase reader engagement in fields such as biomedicine, mathematics, physics, and chemistry.For more information, read the press release.
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Brandi Scardilli
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