There’s a lot of technology out there. Much of that technology makes its way into the classroom, helping teachers bring their lessons to life and helping students learn in ways they couldn’t before. Tomorrow is Digital Learning Day, a nationwide celebration that started as a way to actively spread innovative practices and ensure that all youth have access to high-quality digital learning opportunities no matter where they live. But it’s also about how educators can learn with each other through technology.

Here are four ways you can celebrate Digital Learning Day and the role technology plays in your life.

Topics: Online Tools, Webinars, Online Learning, Community Conversations, Journalism, Using Technology, Facing Ferguson

Can you practice being more empathetic—that is, the ability to sincerely understand and share someone else’s feelings? Jane McGonigal, world-renowned game designer and Director of Game Research and Development for the Institute for the Future, says you can. And she can tell you how.

Topics: Gaming, Social-Emotional Learning, Empathy, Community Conversations

From November 13-14 Facing History and the Institute for the Future launched Face the Future, an online game for social change. For 30 hours, students, teachers, and community members from around the world gathered virtually to imagine the future of empathy. Daniel Braunfeld, Senior Program Associate for Special Projects, shares his experience playing the game, which is set in the year 2026—and how it is changing the way he lives in 2016. 

Topics: Online Tools, Empathy, Community Conversations

From November 13-14, Facing History and Institute for the Future will virtually gather secondary school students, educators, and community members from around the world  to play Face the Future: A Game About the Future of Empathy. Set in 2026, the game invites us to think about what empathy might look like—and how that future will impact the choices we make today. Read more from Jane McGonigal, world-renowned game designer and Director of Games Research and Development at the Institute for the Future, about why you should care about imagining the future. 

Topics: Social-Emotional Learning, Empathy, Community Conversations

In 2015 Facing History and Ourselves celebrated ten incredible years of Community Conversations, marking the decade with its first ever event in Boston.

Thanks to The Allstate Foundation’s sponsorship of Community Conversations, Facing History has been able to engage communities in difficult discussions around bigotry and hatred; work we’ve honed for nearly 40 years in classrooms around the globe. These free events spark respectful dialogue about pressing social issues and engage people from all different backgrounds to address racism, prejudice, and antisemitism. And in today’s world the need for unifying, understanding, and healing has never been greater.

Topics: Boston, Community, Community Conversations, Bryan Stevenson, The Allstate Foundation

The roots of violence and injustice are complex and mired in societal and political specifics around the globe.

Facing History and Ourselves teaches that rigorous study of history can help us make choices for a better future. Each history has its own lessons, but all of them give us a platform from which to ask fundamental questions, in communities and in schools: how did identity impact the choices people made in the past? How do we, today, engage with each other across difference?

Topics: Facing History Resources, Race and Membership, Facing History and Ourselves, Community Conversations, Bryan Stevenson

We are excited to welcome American photojournalist and MacArthur Genius Grant Winner, Lynsey Addario, who will be headlining our upcoming Community Conversation in Chicago on Thursday, November 12, presented in partnership with The Allstate Foundation.

The author of a New York Times best-selling memoir It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War, Addario uses her work as a photographer to record images of people and societies in conflict around the globe.

Topics: Photography, Community Conversations, Lynsey Addario, Journalism, The Allstate Foundation

2015 marks a decade of partnership between Facing History and Ourselves and The Allstate Foundation. Together, we have held over 100 Community Conversations in ten cities, engaging more than 70,000 teachers, parents, and community members. 

Topics: Facing History Together, Video, Sonia Nazario, Isabel Wilkerson, Community Conversations, Wes Moore, Deborah Prothrow-Stith, Douglas Blackmon, Don Cheadle, Bryan Stevenson, Lynsey Addario, Margaret Stohl

On November 5, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sonia Nazario will join Facing History in Cleveland, Ohio, for a Community Conversation—one in a series of public talks held across the country in partnership with The Allstate Foundation. You can RSVP here today. Ahead of the talk, we sat down with the author of the bestseller Enrique's Journey to discuss immigration, reporting during times of conflict, and the power young people have to shape our world for the better.

Topics: Books, Events, Immigration, Facing History Together, Sonia Nazario, Community Conversations