Inspiring New Futures

Letters: Happiness at the heart of the classroom | Education | The Guardian We were interested to read about the importance of children 's happiness to their development and wellbeing ( Whatever happened to happiness? , Education, 17 January). Our school was designed with children's contentment at its heart, for they learn best when they feel comfortable and safe.

Google+ Welcomes Teens Aiming to hit Facebook in a vulnerable spot, Google on Thursday opened Google+ to teens — and added security enhancements designed to help secure their privacy. In a post explaining the move, Bradley Horowitz, vice president of product at Google+, doesn’t mention Facebook by name, but dubs current social media sharing “second-rate.”

YouTube Updates Video Editor, Browse Page and More Building off its homepage redesign in December, YouTube is rolling out design updates to other aspects of its site. The changes include updates to the Browse page, Video Editor and Video Manager and align with the overall rebranding that Google has pushed out to the majority of its sites and products.

Keep Good Searches from Going Bad — The Digital Shift When students make a beeline for Google, these tips can improve their experience There are many excellent research databases that school libraries subscribe to each year. Proquest, CQ Researcher, and ABC/CLIO are three that my district uses. Yet when given a research assignment, the first place students turn to is Google or another public search engine. For better or worse, it’s a fact of life in the modern classroom.

The importance on assessing students’ 21st century skills, not just math, science and reading - Education Insights - Site Home - MSDN Blogs To make sure schools are ready to teach and assess 21st century skills, and specifically, collaborative problem solving skills, we’ll shortly be releasing policy and teaching guidance, as well as sample assessments. Through these materials, teachers will be able to identify gaps in development and assess where they may need to invest in curriculum change.

Education Week: Some States Prodding Students to Graduate Early To give students an incentive to work hard—and save education dollars along the way—some states are encouraging early high school graduation by ramping up curricula or giving college scholarships.

Digital Education - Education Week School of One Creators Unveil New Nonprofit Joel Rose and Chris Rush, the men behind the creation of the widely publicized School of One middle school adaptive learning math program, have reached an agreement to create a nonprofit that not only spreads those ideas to models in other school districts, but also re-establishes a relationship with New York City schools.