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A growth mindset is the secret to maximizing potential. Want to grow your staff? Give them tasks above their ability. They don't think they could do it? Tell them you expect them to work at it for a while, struggle with it. That it will take more time than the tasks they're used to doing. That you expect they'll make some mistakes along the way. But you know they could do it.

As students begin producing a plethora of digital work - and connecting and sharing that work with the world - we need to take a step back and teach them to think a little more about typography and design.

""The reality is that to survive in a fast-changing world you need to be creative," says Gerard J. Puccio, chairman of the International Center for Studies in Creativity at Buffalo State College, which has the nation's oldest creative studies program, having offered courses in it since 1967. "That is why you are seeing more attention to creativity at universities," he says. "The marketplace is demanding it." Critical thinking has long been regarded as the essential skill for success, but it's not enough, says Dr. Puccio. Creativity moves beyond mere synthesis and evaluation and is, he says, "the higher order skill." This has not been a sudden development. Nearly 20 years ago "creating" replaced "evaluation" at the top of Bloom's Taxonomy of learning objectives. In 2010 "creativity" was the factor most crucial for success found in an I.B.M. survey of 1,500 chief executives in 33 industries."

"The Buck Institute for Education commissioned the cutting-edge advertising agency, Common Craft, to create a short animated video that explains in clear language the essential elements of Project Based Learning (PBL). This simple video makes the essential elements of PBL come alive and brings to light the 21st Century skills and competencies (collaboration, communication, critical thinking) that will enable K-12 students to be college and work-ready as well as effective members of their communities."

"The growing access to knowledge, information, people, and tools that our students are getting demands a shift in how we think about the work they do in school."

Game designers understand how to make games memorable and "sticky" in the sense that, even when you aren't playing the game, you're still thinking about solving its problems and puzzles. As teachers, how might we make our projects and content as sticky as games? How can we engage kids in thoughtful learning even after they leave the classroom? Here are game designers' top five secrets and some tips on using these same game dynamics to make learning in your classroom as addictive as gaming.

One of my favorite features of Google Drive is Google Forms. If you're unfamiliar with this, think of it as a way to create quick surveys that can be used for a number of applications. Google automatically aggregates this data into a Google Spreadsheet, making forms a great way to quickly collect and share information. I have seen educators and administrators use Google Forms in the most creative and inventive ways. If you're just starting with Google Forms, here are five ways that you can use them to streamline your classroom!

The Padagogy Wheel visual places the idea of motivation and capabilities at the center, which gets at one of its more compelling characteristics as a model - the meshing of technology, thinking, and student motivation. 

"The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education helps educators gain confidence about their rights to use copyrighted materials in developing students' critical thinking and communication skills. These slides accompany the book, Copyright Clarity: How Fair Use Supports Digital Learning by Renee Hobbs. You can offer a staff development program using the materials in the book, plus these slides, to introduce your colleagues to the power of the Code. Use the lessons below, which are complete with multimedia, readings, discussion questions, activities and hands-on production projects to help you teach about copyright and fair use."

"Saving iPad Files Through iTunes"

You need to watch this video. It gets you thinking how this technique could be adapted for getting multiple files from students onto your iPad.

"I watch principals or superintendents who tweet or blog a lot, and often I wonder what they could be doing in their building instead of that. In the blogosphere or twitterverse, there is a lot of self congratulatory back slapping in the education administration world with people who tweet and blog, but truth be told, the people running really tough schools (i.e. inner city, struggling to make AYP) don't have time to do it."

There's much more to iBooks than you think.

"How this class attempted to transform the traditional research process to a completely paperless one"

The 4 goals stated in this post tie in with Alan's philosophy nicely.

"Solution Fluency Activity Planner "