Book Bits – May 5, 2014

It’s graduation month, so we’re going to get all serious this week. Watch for gift recommendations and college prep resources, and if college isn’t in the future for you or your high school grad, education goes on. Or how about learning a trade? Mike Rowe says there’s a career–and money–to be made in helping to fill the “skills gap.”

Last month, Betsy linked to this Washington Post article on new research about the effects of online reading on how people read everywhere and everything else. That’s a drum I’ve been beating for a while; Scientific American explains it all, and even Time magazine is warning parents about “What You Need to Know before Letting Your Kids Read E-books.” I believe the writer is confusing e-books with book apps to some extent, but there are some worthwhile cautions and tips.

And if that’s not bad news enough, students aren’t learning to do proper research. If your kids are still in high school or getting there, now is the time to begin teaching or encouraging slow, cross- and double-checked, painstaking research of the kind that Wikipedia is not.

But after graduation comes summer! Planning a road trip? Here (speaking of online research) is a handy site for learning How the 50 States Got Their Names.  Be warned that some are lost in the shifting sands of obscurity.