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"Want to get started in blended learning but don't know where to begin? UCF has created the Blended Learning Toolkit (BLT), an open educational web-based resource. In addition to BLT's broad overviews of blended learning models, processes, research findings, and evaluation models useful for institutional administrators, of particular interest to blended learning faculty and instructional designers are numerous detailed do-it-yourself (DIY) resources in the BlendKit Course designed to support them in developing their first blended learning course."

"The Digital Textbook Playbook is a guide to help K-12 educators and administrators begin building rich digital learning experiences for students in districts across the country. The playbook offers information about determining broadband infrastructure for schools and classrooms, leveraging home and community broadband to extend the digital learning environment, and understanding necessary device considerations. It also provides lessons learned from school districts that have engaged in successful transitions to digital learning."

Universal Design for Learning is a set of principles for curriculum development that give all individuals equal opportunities to learn. UDL provides a blueprint for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone--not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs."

"Research in Learning Technology is the journal of the Association for Learning Technology. It aims to raise the profile of research in learning technology, encouraging research that informs good practice and contributes to the development of policy. The journal publishes papers concerning the use of technology in learning and teaching in all sectors of education, as well as in industry."

"A post-LMS world does not suggest that the LMS is obsolete but, rather, that the practice of evaluating learning outcomes through a traditional LMS as the sole means for knowledge acquisition is obsolete. The original design of the LMS was transactional and largely administrative in nature, hence the "M" in "LMS." The function of the traditional LMS is to simplify how learning is scheduled, deployed, and tracked as a means to organize curricula and manage learning materials."

""Social media can increase employee participation in learning, especially if the programs have a significant element of self-directed learning. Learners are more likely to stay engaged and complete their program of study if they are able to reach out to peers involved in the same program or get help on a particular topic. Face-to-face or virtual group interaction at key points in the program, such as a kick-off or achievement of a milestone, helps enhance user engagement.""

Praise for ability is commonly considered to have beneficial effects on motivation. Contrary to this popular belief, six studies demonstrated that praise for intelligence had more negative consequences for students' achievement motivation than praise for effort. Fifth graders praised for intelligence were found to care more about performance goals relative to learning goals than children praised for effort. After failure, they also displayed less task persistence, less task enjoyment, more lowability attributions, and worse task performance than children praised for effort. Finally, children praised for intelligence described it as a fixed trait more than children praised for hard work, who believed it to be subject to improvement. These findings have important implications for how achievement is best encouraged, as well as for more theoretical issues, such as the potential cost of performance goals and the socialization of contingent self-worth.

A diagram explaining why some individuals are resiliant and others are lazy when it comes to learning and facing obstacles.

"this information gives us a vision of "students that are enabled, engaged, and empowered." This is true, she added, for students at all grade levels, from elementary through high school."

Conrad's class tweeting sessions, which usually come at the end of the day for about 20 minutes, keep communication open with parents and help the kids learn typing, spelling and reading, Conrad said. Getting to push the "tweet" button is also an exciting privilege.

But as Damian Bebell, one of the project's researchers argues, we can't just act as though the devices "arrive on parachutes" into a classroom and suddenly and magically students perform better. "It's really about pedagogy and teaching," says Bebell. The iPads are "just a tool."

"That puts most college-level students right at the beginning of what Metros calls the literacy continuum. "Literacy sits on a continuum. As we move up the continuum, we become more learned, practiced, original, sophisticated, and critical," she explains. So where would we like our students to be on the literacy continuum? "While we do need to move our students toward digital literacy, I think there is some confusion about this continuum. I don't think we need to make everyone an expert. For example, you could be a student in economics and be literate in technology; but if you are a student in film studies, you are going to need to be truly fluent in certain technologies.""

"The research of more than 2,300 undergraduates found 45 percent of students show no significant improvement in the key measures of critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing by the end of their sophomore years."

"MIT has decided to put the two together-free content and sophisticated online pedagogy­-and add a third, crucial ingredient: credentials. Beginning this spring, students will be able to take free, online courses offered through the MITx initiative. If they prove they've learned the materi­al, MITx will, for a small fee, give them a credential certifying as much."

"Employers might prefer a world of badges to the current system. After all, traditional college diplomas look elegant when hung on the wall, but they contain very little detail about what the recipient learned. "

" He says that such inputs may seem to have little to do with emotions, but there are subtle correlations between these behaviors and one's mental state, which the software's machine-learning algorithms can detect with an accuracy of 67.5 percent. "

Renee Hobbs: Kindle Store

"A new national center founded to spur breakthrough technologies that can help transform the way teachers teach and students learn."

"Facebook disabled the profiles of McDonald and his girlfriend Leola Lewis Wednesday morning, according to Donnelyn Curtis, the University of Nevada librarian who set the profiles up as a way to engage students in learning about history. "