It used to be that it was only in sci-fi films that we saw people strolling around the city with high-tech mobile libraries in their hands. But e-readers have been a reality for some years now and as technology has been moving forward faster and faster, it’s been hard to keep up with all the new resources. The educational world in particular has yet to fully explore the potential of these new devices for boosting reading and literacy in general.Continue Reading…

Let’s talk about Apple now. To be precise, the new iPad Mini. Do you get utterly confused by the fact that each time Apple releases a product that seems about that same as the one before it, only in a slightly thinner and lighter package, everyone somehow seems mesmerized by it? I see a guilty nod here, a condescending grin over there. Good, I’m not alone.Continue Reading…

What do you do when the power goes out and you have nowhere else to go? When hurricane Sandy hit the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States in October of 2012, many people found themselves stuck at home.Continue Reading…

If you were never interested in literature, you probably don’t know why Shakespeare’s “Othello” is considered a masterpiece. But even if you had zero interest in Shakespeare, you might have been motivated to study literature if you decided that you could benefit from this knowledge. When knowledge  can directly benefit us, that’s definitely something that sparks our interest. And if this knowledge (for example, knowing CSS coding) is useful and perhaps moneymaking, then we become the most dedicated, knowledge-thirsty self-motivated learners possible.Continue Reading…

Even if you avoid social media, commercials, and even reading the newspaper, it’s highly likely that by now you know that “Fifty Shades of Grey” refers to more than a set of paint samples for your house.Continue Reading…

You don’t remember your friends’ phone numbers by heart, your smartphone does it for you. It’s definitely more convenient, but do you ever wonder how harmful technology might be for your brain?Continue Reading…

Remember when your reading lists contained nothing but a school assignment, or a note to look for more books by an author you just loved reading? Well, forget all about that. This is the Internet era where reading online never seems to end – strangely, it seems like the more you read, the more links you find to still more articles. Sounds pessimistic? We’d rather call it fascinating.Continue Reading…

Don’t fall prey to the lure of procrastination. Here are some tips on ways that you can make better use of your time and energy for optimal results.Continue Reading…

Learning how to speak and read a foreign language can both be very exciting and challenging. The good news, though, is that with a good set of resources and a little work, you’ll soon be on your way to fluency. What’s more, you can also apply speed reading techniques to your study even if the language is not native to you.Continue Reading…

If you’ve been working on improving your reading speed, you’ll know about the bad habits that you need to overcome, like subvocalization and sounding words out letter by letter. These are habits that you probably learned (like many people did) when you first started reading in school. You were taught to sound out words, and to read aloud, and if you never learned any other way to read then you’d probably continue to read at that same slow speed.Continue Reading…