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"The Common Core standards don't just suggest novel technology use as a way to "engage students," but rather requires learners to make complex decisions about how, when, and why to use technology-something educators must do as well." Thoughtful and precise blog article with quotes from the Common Core. This may be useful for EFL as well as ESL teachers both inside and outside the U.S.

diSessa 2000 Changing Minds--need page of quote

"One of the Eight Essential Elements of Project Based Learning is Revision and Reflection. This important element enables learners to improve their work through the use of feedback from multiple sources - peers, teacher, and expert. "However, giving and receiving feedback from others can be tricky. It can take time, and the giver might not know how to frame his or her feedback, both in terms of content and tone. The receiver might take critical feedback personally, or be misled by feedback that is off-target in some way. "One way to avoid potential pitfalls and help ensure feedback is "kind, specific, and helpful" (to quote Ron Berger) is to use a protocol. One of our favorite feedback protocols is the Gallery Walk. The basic idea is to post pieces of work on a wall - as in an art gallery - so people can move around and look at it. In BIE's "PBL 101" workshops, teachers use this protocol to give and collect feedback on their initial ideas for a project they're designing. "

"OnSugar is a hosted publishing platform that is based on what we use to publish PopSugar, FabSugar, and the rest of Sugar. Key Platform Features: * 11 different post types: (text, gallery, layout, poll, look, quiz, quote, link, chat, video, & audio) * Free access to a hundreds of thousands of Getty Images® * Fun drag and drop layout tool. Create your look with thousands of fashion images from hundreds of online retailers through ShopStyle, e.g. ShopBop, J. Crew, Net-a-Porter, and others. * ShopSense: Make money by linking to products and retailers NEW * Build your audience of followers with automatic notifcation of new posts * Follow your favorite sites and view an aggregated feed of your followed sites * Post by email NEW * Automatic update of your Facebook and Twitter status NEW * Multiple sites per account * Multiple authors per site * Easy import from Blogger, Wordpress, & Typepad * Full domain support * Free Key Site Features: * Drafts/Timed Publishing * Search * Archives * Pages (e.g. About Me, Galleries, Videos, etc) * Widgets for highlighting content from your site or around the web (e.g. Popular Posts, Latest Comments, Latest Tweets, etc) * Completely customizable themes" Looks like an up-to-date blog tool that allows for lots of different social networking interfaces, and has drag-and-drop tools for layout and adding media. Somewhat commercial, but might appeal esp. to teens.