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Sometimes, information is hard to understand just because it's presented in a manner that just doesn't quite appeal to the way we like to learn best. While it isn't always possible to take every class or complete every project in a way that fits into your individual style, there are ways that you can help to ensure that you're making the most of the material at hand. Here are a few tips to help you start improving your learning experience by helping make it work a little better with your needs, whether you're a visual, auditory or kinesthetic learner.

"special education, students, SPED, art, socialization, expression, emotional development"

via http://freetech4teachers.blogspot.com/2008/12/secret-builders-virtual-world-for-ages.html\n\nSecretBuilders is a virtual world for children 5 to 14 years old powered by a web 2.0 community of children, parents, educators, writers, artists and game developers. On SecretBuilders, children will explore virtual lands, undertake quests, play games, maintain a home, nurture a pet, and interact with their friends. Three features which form the backdrop for SecretBuilders distinguish it from other online worlds:\n\n * Children learn through immersing themselves in the stories, themes, and concepts from the best in literature, arts and humanities. They will interact with famous historical and fictional figures and be introduced to content and characters from world civilization and the great thoughts and ideas of human creativity. \n\n * Children will create this site, not just consume it. They are directly involved in creating this world with their ideas, critiques and contributions on virtually every aspect of the site and many of their ideas will be implemented!\n\n * Children publish their works - writings, art, videos - making SecretBuilders their own personal store of creativity. They can invite friends and family to view their works, and comment upon them. Seeing their works published and enjoyed by others instills tremendous for self-confidence as well as motivation to do more.\n

What are the mindful habits of successful learners and how can an understanding of these habits help us better achieve our learning goals? This is the question Art Costa Bena Kallick set out to answer with their study of the Habits of Mind. In 'Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind' Costa and Kallick identify sixteen habits which when utilised promote deeper understanding, unlock creativity, encourage reflective thinking and scaffold problem solving for individuals and groups. 

fun and free learning on the Internet for children ages 5 - 12 best-in-class courseware in math, science, reading and keyboarding

Gail Braddock describes e-Learning for Kids as "free e-courses for kids all around the world. This site has engaging and interactive courses for kids in online safety, computer skills such as using Google, typing, and core subjects like language arts, math, and science. Most of the courses are for elementary school-aged children, and involve dynamic avatars, and are highly interactive."

Learning to write is one of the fundamental skills we gain from our time at school. Writing is one of the cornerstones of learning and we devote significant time and energy towards its mastery. Skilled writing is a mark of an educated individual and a skill required for academic success. But in the modern world what makes a skilled writer? What has changed about writing and what literary skills should we focus our attention on. 

Applying the amplification-through-simplification concept from Scott McCloud's book, Understanding Comics: The invisible Art

Here at "The Digital Arts Experience" we have a huge focus on connected learning in a non-competitive, hands-on, collaborative environment. I'd like to share with you a blog entry that our audio engineer, Emily, wrote up about the Connected Learning 'Experience' that students will have on a typical day at our learning facility. I welcome comments/feedback!

Let's address standards, challenge students, and instill a love of learning in young people through engaging, visually-rich resources and activities. Learn to integrate the growing body of quality print and web-based graphic reading resources for young people across the K12 curriculum. Beyond the superheroes of traditional comics, today's graphic communication projects help students synthesize and apply digital scraps, primary source documents, photographs, charts and graphics, and other visuals to create meaningful communications.

An increasingly significant aspect of literacy is an awareness of the visual elements that fall beyond the traditional components of written text. Termed 'Visual Literacy' this is the ability to read and create communications that use visual elements. It combines the skills of traditional literacy with knowledge of design, art, graphic arts, media and human perception. It takes literacy further beyond a decoding of text to a decoding of the complete package around the communication.

Technology and Learning provides list of Top 10 sites to create digital art.

This year is the fiftieth birthday of Harvard's Project Zero, a research project designed to explore the nature of thinking and learning and from this suggest pedagogies which align with what we know about the mind. For its birthday celebration Project Zero shared insights from its five decades of research with presentations from Howard Gardner, David Perkins, Shari Tasman, Steve Seidel and Daniel Wilson. The presentations revealed the changing nature of the work of Project Zero from its early days and focus on arts education to its current position as a research organisation with broad interests across education but with a focus on thinking, understanding and the workings of the mind.

Terrific resource for students to learn when it is appropriate to use the apostrophe.

This one is great, but be careful if you go to the home page to see what else is on this site. Many not appropriate for children.

Sydney has become a beacon that brings people together and sparks conversations. Most recently the conversation centred on the topic of girls in tech and what might be done to re-dress the gender balance in STEAM subjects and related career pathways. Sponsored by INTEL this Vivid Ideas event drew a mix of entrepreneurs, educators and tech luminaries to the Museum of Contemporary Art on a Saturday afternoon to share their ideas on what might be done.

The Kid Should See This. There's just so much science, nature, music, arts, technology, storytelling and assorted good stuff out there that my kids (and maybe your kids) haven't seen. It's most likely not stuff that was made for them... But we don't underestimate kids around here.

Mutapic is an online picture generator. Use it to create original art.

"LoudLit.org is committed to delivering public domain literature paired with high quality audio performances...Putting the text and audio together, readers can learn spelling, punctuation and paragraph structure by listening and reading masterpieces of the written word. Read and listen via your web browser or on your mp3 player. Regardless of how you enjoy the audiobooks (audio books), they are free."