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"This paper captures the evolution of the Mozilla Web Literacy Map to reach and meet the growing number of diverse audiences using the web. The paper represents the thinking, research findings, and next iteration of the Web Literacy Map that embraces 21st Century Skills (21C Skills) as key to leadership development. As technology becomes more ubiquitous, and more people come online, Mozilla continues to refine its strategies to support and champion the web as an open and public resource. To help people become good citizens of the web, Mozilla focuses on the following goals: 1) develop more educators, advocates, and community leaders who can leverage and advance the web as an open and public resource, and 2) impact policies and practices to ensure the web remains a healthy open and public resource for all. In order to accomplish this, we need to provide people with open access to the skills and know-how needed to use the web to improve their lives, careers, and organizations. Knowing how to read, write, and participate in the digital world has become the 4th basic foundational skill next to the three Rs-reading, writing, and arithmetic-in a rapidly evolving, networked world. Having these skills on the web expands access and opportunity for more people to learn anytime, anywhere, at any pace. Combined with 21C leadership Skills (i.e. critical thinking, collaboration, problem solving, creativity, communication), these digital-age skills help us live and work in today's world. Whether you're a first time smartphone user, an educator, an experienced programmer, or an internet activist, the degree to which you can read, write, and participate on the web while producing, synthesizing, evaluating, and communicating information shapes what you can imagine-and what you can do. follows:"

The European e-Skills Career Portal project was launched for the European e-Skills 2008 Conference in Thessaloniki on 9-10 October and is supported by the eSkills Industry Leadership Board (ILB).

"Why It's Time To Focus On Skills (Not Just Cool Tools)"

"This approach to teaching critical thinking (CT) makes use of the 'descriptive-not-prescriptive' principle I introduced in this article for Innovate My School. In other words: teach by showing them (the students) what they already do rather than telling them what they should be doing but aren't. Though I will talk about philosophy sessions, as that is my background, the principles and procedure that you will find outlined here apply to any teaching context where the teaching of CT skills will be of value, whether maths, English or P.E."

"In 2011 I wrote a post entitled Using Teaching as inquiry to guide an elearning action plan, looking at how the inquiry cycle enables teachers to integrate e-learning in such a way that it focuses on the student needs over the e-learning tool itself. In 2012 I revised this model. The inquiry cycle continues to inform the elearning action plan, but this time with a focus on how thinking skills can be developed, using collaborative practices and differentiation, and how this can be supported through the integration of ICT in and beyond the classroom. "

"e Skills Minimod Figurative Language helps students practice and master the important language skills of recognizing and understanding figurative language. "

Online learning has come a long way in the last few years.Flickr/Laurie Sullivan When I started learning to code, the options were limited-lots of books (not even e-books), some very basic online tutorials, and a whole lot of experimentation. Online learning has come a long way in the last few years. There are interactive courses, tons of online tutorials, and one of my personal favorite ways to practice coding: games. While a game alone probably isn't going to teach you everything you need to know about coding, it can be a really incredible way to practice the skills you're learning. It makes practice fun. And if you're anything like me, you might suddenly realize you've spent the last four hours reinforcing your coding skills without even realizing it. I've tried out some of the most entertaining and useful games for learning to code. Check out my favorites below. View As: One Page Slides

"Regardless of whether you think every infant needs an iPad, I think we can all agree that technology has changed education for the better. Today's learners now enjoy easier, more efficient access to information; opportunities for extended and mobile learning; the ability to give and receive immediate feedback; and greater motivation to learn and engage. We now have programs and platforms that can transform learners into globally active citizens, opening up countless avenues for communication and impact. Thousands of educational apps have been designed to enhance interest and participation. Course management systems and learning analytics have streamlined the education process and allowed for quality online delivery. But if we had to pick the top ten, most influential ways technology has transformed education, what would the list look like? The following things have been identified by educational researchers and teachers alike as the most powerful uses of technology for learning. Take a look. 1. Critical Thinking In Meaningful Learning With Technology, David H. Jonassen and his co-authors argue that students do not learn from teachers or from technologies. Rather, students learn from thinking-thinking about what they are doing or what they did, thinking about what they believe, thinking about what others have done and believe, thinking about the thinking processes they use-just thinking and reasoning. Thinking mediates learning. Learning results from thinking. So what kinds of thinking are fostered when learning with technologies? Analogical If you distill cognitive psychology into a single principle, it would be to use analogies to convey and understand new ideas. That is, understanding a new idea is best accomplished by comparing and contrasting it to an idea that is already understood. In an analogy, the properties or attributes of one idea (the analogue) are mapped or transferred to another (the source or target). Single analogies are also known as sy

"e first few days of school are a vital time to set the right tone for the rest of the year. Many teachers focus on important things like getting to know their students, building relationships and making sure students know what the classroom procedures will be. While those things are important, Alan November, a former teacher-turned-author and lecturer says the most important ideas to hammer home will help students learn on their own for the rest of the year."

On Tuesday, 21 June 2011, EE hosted a debate on school libraries in South Africa at the University of Cape Town. The night before, the debate took place at Wits University in Johannesburg. The panel brought together library experts from Europe, Australia, South America and Africa as well as local library experts. The panellists were asked to provide insight into the importance of school libraries, share unique perspectives on challenges in advocating for their provision and to address the challenges and opportunities that information technologies (e.g. e-books) present in the campaign for school libraries in South Africa.

I am a huge proponent of using hands-on, interactive learning activities to explore ill-defined problems as a way of teaching for all age groups. Given the spontaneity and uncertainty of these types of active learning environments, I believe educators should observe, reflect on, and analyze how learners interact with the materials, the content, the educator, and the other learners. This practice is in line with the teacher as ethnographer. In my role as a teacher as ethnographer, I made some initial observations during my first two weeks of teaching maker education for elementary age students. With half the kids under 7, I learned a bunch about young makers. Young makers are more capable than what people typically believe. Young makers need to be given more time, resources, strategies to learn how to solve more ambiguous and ill-defined problems (i.e., ones that don't have THE correct answer). Too many don't know how to approach such problems. If a project doesn't "work" during the first trial, they way too often say "I can't do this." They have a low tolerance for frustration; for not getting the answer quickly. Young makers often celebrate loudly and with extreme joy when making something work. Young makers like to work together but lack skills or desire to peer tutor one another. Young makers usually like to stand while working. Young makers are more capable than what people (adults) typically believe. During our maker education summer camp, the young makers made LED projects, circuit crafts, and simple robotics. Looking at the instructions for similar activities, the recommended ages were usually 8 and above. Yet, my group of 14 kids contained half under that age. The kids of all ages struggled a bit - as is common with making type activities but all were successful to some degree with all of the activities.

"Last summer at the Apple developer conference, WWDC, we learned that there were more than 1.2 million apps in the Apple App Store alone. That's a lot of choices. In a sea that large, understanding how to find apps for the classroom can be challenging. In speaking with numerous educators, we learned that most app downloads result from a colleague's recommendation (i.e., word of mouth) or from choosing the first app in the search results. These are both sound strategies given the limited time educators have to explore each new app. But a larger point has become clear: learning to swiftly evaluate apps has become an essential skill in the fast-growing, ever-changing mobile classroom. The Great App Checklist, go.sas.com/MobileLearning. We offer this checklist to help educators zero in on the app they need and to judge how well it performs key functions. This rubric can help developers understand how educators choose apps, what information would help someone in this audience, which details to mention in the app store summary, and what is the essential functionality. The checklist's themes - Purpose, Alignment, Pedagogically-based, Personalization, Sharing, Ease of Use, Privacy, App Citizenship, and Access - are those discussed throughout Mobile Learning: A Handbook for Developers, Educators, and Learners."

"What strategy can double student learning gains? According to 250 empirical studies, the answer is formative assessment, defined by Bill Younglove as "the frequent, interactive checking of student progress and understanding in order to identify learning needs and adjust teaching appropriately." Unlike summative assessment, which evaluates student learning according to a benchmark, formative assessment monitors student understanding so that kids are always aware of their academic strengths and learning gaps. Meanwhile, teachers can improve the effectiveness of their instruction, re-teaching if necessary. "When the cook tastes the soup," writes Robert E. Stake, "that's formative; when the guests taste the soup, that's summative." Formative assessment can be administered as an exam. But if the assessment is not a traditional quiz, it falls within the category of alternative assessment. Alternative formative assessment (AFA) strategies can be as simple (and important) as checking the oil in your car -- hence the name "dipsticks." They're especially effective when students are given tactical feedback, immediately followed by time to practice the skill. My favorite techniques are those with simple directions, like The 60 Second Paper, which asks students to describe the most important thing they learned and identify any areas of confusion in under a minute. You can find another 53 ways to check for understanding toward the end of this post, also available as a downloadable document."

"Guidelines and instructions are not the enemy of makerspaces.  Working through guided projects can help students to develop the skills that they need to further explore creatively.  It's true that some students can just figure it out, but most need that gentle push to get them started.  While things like LEGOs and K'nex are intuitive, many other activities are not.  If you just sat me down in front of an Arduino with no guidance, I wouldn't have a clue what to do.  But after following some example projects, I can start to feel more comfortable with branching out on my own. The problem comes when all we ever do are guided projects.  Sylvia Martinez and Gary Stager warn against the "20 identical birdhouses" style class projects, where there is zero creativity involved.  It's very easy to fall into the trap of focusing too much on standards, rubrics and guided projects and zapping all the fun and creativity out, turning a makerspace into nothing more than another classroom.  It's tempting for many educators to just print out a list of instructions, sit students down in front of a "maker kit" and check their e-mail while students work through the steps one by one.  This is obviously not what we want in our makerspaces."

"Rather than the maker experiences being an after school program, an add on activity, or an activity that is implemented when students have done their regular lessons work, it should be part of the regular, day-to-day curriculum. As noted in USC Rossier Online, "In order for your school and students to be fully invested in maker education, it has to be integrated into your curriculum, not squeezed in" (https://rossieronline.usc.edu/maker-education/sync-with-curriculum/).  Ayah Bdeir, who invented and runs littleBits, had this to say about integrating maker education into the curriculum: It's time for maker ed to move into the mainstream. Making should not be relegated to the times spent outside of class, e.g. lunch or after school. Nor should it only flourish in private schools, which don't have to teach to standards. We need to work to show how making is a rigorous process that leads to valuable new technologies, products and experiences. Specifically, we need to tie maker projects to standards-based curriculum and show clearly the kinds of knowledge, skills and practices students learn as part of making (https://www.edsurge.com/news/2015-09-24-building-connections-between-maker-ed-and-standards) Albemarle County Public School District is very intentional in their implementation of maker projects: Maker projects can be created to support just about any subject area, from science to history to language arts. Maker education can be a tool for teaching the curriculum that you already have, At a glance, maker projects may appear disconnected from the curriculum. What may look like an arts and crafts activity, or just a bunch of kids playing with Legos, is actually a way to teach about ancient Rome or how to write a persuasive essay. (https://www.edutopia.org/practice/maker-education-reaching-all-learners) "

As you would most likely be aware, I am a massive fan of QR Codes and there application within the classroom. Since discovering them in 2008 I have gone on to blog extensively about how I have used them in the classroom and ideas for possible future activities, with one of my all time favourite ideas being QR Coded posters. (If you are are still unsure what a QR Code is I suggest watching the video here)

"Education in Social Studies is needed to achieve levels of civilization that the nation requires of its citizens. Teaching and learning in Social Studies is effective only when it is substantial, authentic, integrated and value-based. Its disciplines are diverse with an expanse of historical, geographical, political, civic and a lot more content. So, learners and educators of Social Studies should possess tools and resources to learn about it and acquire skills in it. Here are some worthy and free tools and resources for Teaching and learning Social Studies, available online:"

"English grammar is a topic that actually frustrates a number of people. Irrespective of learning level or nationality, spelling and grammar error seems to confuse a lot of individuals. And in case anyone has a learning debility such as dyslexia, using accurate grammar looks like a terrible task. Using grammar correctly could be challenging may be not for those who are English native speaker, but surely for those who learn English from scratch. English language and its difficulties can be very much puzzling. Although, a dictionary or software can assist learners but it cannot give accurate answer. In fact, word processing programs are not very much effective in correcting grammar errors completely. Now, the question is how one can improve or nourish their English grammar skill? With the advancement in the technology, there are a number of tools that might help those struggling to improve their grammar. Web technology has actually contributed a lot in this through the ease of access. Today, you can find a number of tools, apps and websites available over the web that helps in learning and improving grammar from scratch. Here is a list of top ten websites for teaching or learning grammar lessons."