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Over the last decade, increased attention has been paid to the social and emotional learning (SEL) needs of children. This area of learning is necessary and essential to address -- for children and adults.

It's time that schools take responsibility for meeting the entire range of learning needs that educators have -- the need to use new technologies, to understand and implement new standards, to use new assessment strategies, and their needs to attend to their own social and emotional learning.

We all know what a picture's worth. These websites use graphics to display everything from Twitter traffic to births and deaths, in ways that truly drive home what words alone cannot.

Learn more:

- http://gustmees.wordpress.com/2013/12/21/privacy-in-the-digital-world-shouldnt-we-talk-about-it/

This is downright spooky. It's an interactive infographic all about why your brain craves infographics. Food for thought!

Paul Salopek and Ahmed Kabil Writing will always be important, but weaving text, images, sound, and presentation together can give students more and diff

How The Activity Learning Theory Works 

Vygotsky’s earlier concept of mediation, which encompassed learning alongside others (Zone of Proximal Development) and through interaction with artifacts, was the basis for Engeström’s version of Activity Theory (known as Scandinavian Activity Theory). Engeström’s approach was to explain human thought processes not simply on the basis of the individual, but in the wider context of the individual’s interactions within the social world through artifacts, and specifically in situations where activities were being produced.

In Activity Theory people (actors) use external tools (e.g. hammer, computer, car) and internal tools (e.g. plans, cognitive maps) to achieve their goals. In the social world there are many artifacts, which are seen not only as objects, but also as things that are embedded within culture, with the result that every object has cultural and/or social significance.

Tools (which can limit or enable) can also be brought to bear on the mediation of social interaction, and they influence both the behavior of the actors (those who use the tools) and also the social structure within which the actors exist (the environment, tools, artifacts). For further reading, here is Engeström’s own overview of 3 Generations of Activity Theory development. The first figure shows Second Generation AT as it is usually presented in the literature.

You can actually use Twitter in the classroom with Bloom's Taxonomy thanks to this awesome table that details nearly two dozen different ways to integrate the pair!

A List of The Best Free Digital Storytelling Tools for Teachers.

Here some of the pluses of digital storytelling in education :

- It develops creativity and critical thinking Students who are shy or afraid to talk in class get a chance to speak out their minds 

- It empowers students voice to deliver rich, deep message that is capable of conveying a powerful message. 

- It helps students explore  the meaning of their own experience, give value to it, and communicate that experience with others.

- It promotes the notions of life long learning and independent learning 

- It develops students communicative skills It is a reflective process that helps students reflect upon their learning and find deep connections with the subject matter of a course or with an out-of-class experience. 

- It fosters students sense of individuality It also gives students an opportunity to experiment with self-representation and establish their identityStudents creating digital stories develop proficiency with multimedia applications

The folks at Boundless who last brought us the EdTech Buzzwords Infographic are back with The History of Education. The graphic takes a look at how formal education began, changes along the way, current day and predictions for the next twenty years.

Here at Educon yesterday, I had the chance to learn a bit more about design thinking from David Jakes. David's central point was that schools and teachers often get stuck in a "Yeah, but..." mindset when thinking about change.

Of course, we'd have to work to take active steps to redefine almost everything about our schools if a culture of "Do" is really going to be possible. 

===> Grading will need to change -- from a focus on content mastery to a focus on demonstration of an ability to apply content in novel situations <===