Dr. Tony Wagner, co-director of Harvard's Change Leadership Group has identified what he calls a "global achievement gap," which is the leap between what even our best schools are teaching, and the must-have skills of the future: * Critical thinking and problem-solving * Collaboration across networks and leading by influence * Agility and adaptability * Initiative and entrepreneurialism * Effective oral and written communication * Accessing and analyzing information * Curiosity and imagination

"Tomorrow Microsoft is launching Office 365. Many of you have asked for our perspective, so we thought we'd share some thoughts to help you make an informed choice. Technology inevitably gets more complicated as it gets older. Upgrading platforms and adding features results in systems that are increasingly difficult to manage and complex to use. At times like these, it's worth considering a clean-slate: an approach based on entirely modern technologies, designed for today's world. Here are some things to think about as you compare Google Apps and Office 365:"

This report is designed to give an accessible overview of media literacy among UK children and young people aged 5-15 and their parents/ carers (-1-). The purpose of this report is to support people working in this area to develop and promote media literacy among these groups. This report is the third full report since our survey began in 2005. It is therefore able to show trends over time for many of the questions asked. Due to different survey periods and focus, some comparisons are made with 2005 and 2007 data, and others with 2007 and 2008, and change over time is highlighted against either 2007 or 2008 accordingly.

"According to a new infographic by Masters in Education, social media may actually help students get better grades. One of the most jaw-dropping figures featured in the image below is that 'heavy' social media users actually got better grades than 'light' social media users. While there is obviously more to this story than this boiled-down infographic, it is both entertaining and informative (just like all infogrpahics, no?)"

"This video highlights the growth and development of a Google Doc as an Elementary School student in Edmonton Public Schools takes us on a journey of how she collaborates with classmates and her teacher to create a finished piece of writing."

"With support from the Governor 's Productivity Investment Fund and the Virginia Department of Education, Radford University and participating schools in southwestern Virginia are exploring how the iPod Touch can be used to enhance effective teaching and learning. As school systems struggle with how best to deal with this cultural and technological shift, it is highly likely that the technology will continue to progress towards more powerful, wireless handheld computers that can deliver high quality, multimedia, computer processing power. " This site has links to games that have been developed as well as videos of iPods in use in schools.

"Last week, I read this interesting blog post from Kevin McLaughlin Entitled "Switching off the interactive whiteboard for good". It revisited the argument that IWBs have been a huge waste of taxpayers money, and should be replaced with alternative technologies. The post generated a large number of comments, and even caused Kevin to go over his bandwidth allocation, reminding me of an earlier IWB-related post to this blog, which remains to this day my most commented upon blog post ever! Matthew Pearson then posted a robust defence of IWBs, which again provoked debate in the comments and on Twitter - including the (rather amusing) retitling of Matt's post as "Interactive Whiteboards Are Awesome, It's Just People That Suck"."

"Slideshow Maker, Free Online Slideshows, Edit Photos Easily Create personalized Slideshows Add Music and Text to your slideshows Choose from thousands of Special Effects Burn slideshows to DVD Share by Email or post to Facebook Post slideshows on Websites and Blogs Store and Organize photos online Edit and Crop photos"

"....as you look to the future of personal computing, it may not be about how many terabytes a drive can hold, or how many cores your processor has, but how connected you are to the web."

"Terry Moore found out he'd been tying his shoes the wrong way his whole life. In the spirit of TED, he takes the stage to share a better way. (Historical note: This was the very first 3-minute audience talk given from the TED stage, in 2005.)"

From ACMA Cybersmart this very catchy video has stats on what students are doing online as well as lots of targetted advice on what to do to prevent problems and what to do when problems arise. It also contains visual links to the support docs that Cybersmart can provided.

"I'm Jenny. I'm a teacher. I blog. I started blogging because I was frustrated by talk of introducing more formalised learning programs into preschool. Everything tells us that children learn through play, I thought, so why was no one listening? Blogging about my experiences at a preschool was something that I could do to get an audience for this message - even if it initially only consisted of one! There are loads of other great reasons for teachers to be blogging. Here are just a few:"

"A Community of Practice for teachers using edmodo. Work in Progress" This Wikispace from teachers in NSW covers About Best Practices edmodo and school safety edmodo for Student Voice Independent Schools NSW DEC Topics Parents Resource List School Directory School Policy School Subdomains Selling edmodo Teacher Stories Teacher Topics The edmodo FAQ Use Edmodo - Primary School Using Edmodo - General Using Edmodo - High School Using Edmodo - Special Needs

Below is text from Rupert Murdoch's (Chairman and CEO of News Corporation) speech at the G8 Forum in Paris. Education: The Last Frontier

"Mobile devices are now found in the hands of most children, and school leaders are using that to their advantage by incorporating devices that students already own into classroom lessons and projects.Concerns remain about students who are unable to purchase or borrow a device for use in the classroom, but districts might find creative ways-such as asking local businesses or community organizations for help-to provide devices in such instances, advocates of the trend say."

This Yudu book from Patrick Cauley is an excellent guide to getting started with Edmodo

"Do you learn from your mistakes? Many don't. Different people deal with their own flaws, foibles and flat-out wrong-doings very differently. Healthy people look carefully at their screw-ups and learn whatever they can. Others ignore or minimize their errors, or worse, start blaming circumstances or someone else for whatever it is they did badly. But those who can examine their own mistakes learn more than others. Period. They learn more skills, more deeply and more quickly. "

An infographic on social media use

"[In part 1 of this topic, I gave a very brief overview of Minecraft in comparison to SecondLife, and ended by noting how the creativity, exploration and collaboration elements of the game were catching the attention of educators. This is the subject I address further here.]"

"I'm firmly of the opinion that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in schools is misplaced and therefore misused. In essence, the way it is conventionally deployed negates much of the potential of ICT, and unless there is a dramatic reappraisal, we won't be witnessing much in the way of learning gains in schools. Here's my argument in two points:"