A picture speaks a thousand words. And with over a thousand emoji pictures to represent our words, who needs to speak or write any more? According to Professor Vyv Evans of Bangor University, emoji is the UK's fastest-growing language in history. These little electronic pictures started life in Japanese mobile phones in the 1990s and are now hugely popular. They have inspired fashion, like the real-life dress copied from the dancing lady emoji, and are even recognized as art! In New York's Museum of Modern Art you can now see the first set of the 176 original emojis.

Why do we love them so much? They allow us to personalize text and have fun as we express ourselves, make people laugh and be creative in how we use them. UK teenagers also told us they really appreciated the fact that emojis are quick and easy.

People have their favourite emojis. In the UK, the most used emojis are 'face with tears of joy', 'face blowing a kiss' and 'love heart'. Maybe (with emojis at least) the British are more fun and romantic than people think! Companies such as McDonalds have also tried to use people's love of emojis to make advertisement. They used a series of emojis to tell a story of a disappointing day given a happy ending by a visit to McDonalds. Unluckily for McDonalds, most people added the vomiting(呕吐) emoji to the blank space after the story.

What is the future of emoji? Is emoji developing so rapidly that it will soon compete with English as a global language? Or is technology changing so fast that emoji will soon be forgotten when the next big thing comes along? It is hard to say and even technology and language experts are divided on the subject.

What do you think? Keep your eyes open for new developments!

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Every email, post, photo and click you make online leaves a track. Even by reading this article, you’re adding to your ever-growing online image, which will be seen and judged, fairly or not, by others. Whether or not your information is shared intentionally, it’s being gathered by advertisers, employers and companies from which you shop.

It's permanent, it follows you for life and it's not going anywhere——it's your digital footprint.

It is becoming more important than ever in today’s digital economy. One's digital footprint can affect somebody’s life in a positive or negative way depending on what kind of digital citizen you are. Everybody can see what you post, react to, or comment on. This includes employers, parents, teachers and even people you don't know. From seeing the types of things you post and like, people get an understanding of who you are and take a glance at your life. This can lead to loss of opportunity like jobs and schooling. Your digital footprint can also help one to be exposed to more opportunities and bring more attention to one’s brand and business.

“A strong online presence, or digital footprint, can be a career wealth in today’s competitive job market. Many employers are performing online searches——in addition to reviewing resumes and cover letters——in an attempt to learn about potential hires, including their interests, industry involvement and, more importantly, their ability to market themselves effectively,” says Diane Domeyer, career expert and director of The Creative Group.

Now that you know what a digital footprint is, take the proper steps to cultivate it. Think of it as a lifelong development. Take advantage of the platform to present yourself in a good light and show off your best qualities. After all, you never know who will be looking in our newfound digital economy.

Technology keeps students from focusing, right? One solution is ban phones and computers from the classroom. Another solution is to engage students with online tools that will help them complete assignments while still using electronic equipment. Here are some online tools to hold their attention.

Prezi

Presentations are an important part of the curriculum but let’s face it. PowerPoint isn’t terribly engaging. Prezi allows students to create presentations that are more creative and exciting than what PPT has to offer. Not only will this make the presentation-creating process more interesting for students, it will also make watching presentations more interesting as well.

Trello

Because so many students are in the habit of multitasking, a good skill to teach them is how to organize and simplify their assignments. Trello is a free and super easy-to-use tool for students to create workflow charts. Multiple students can be added to the same board; great for teamwork on projects.

Cold Turkey

Cold Turkey is a useful tool to reduce the number of tasks that students can do at the same time on their computers. They probably won’t love this one because it limits their access to certain websites so that students can focus on their tasks. Even having students turn it on for half of a period for some focuses on in-class writing time will make a difference in terms of their productivity.

White Noise

Whatever you want the students to engage in — activities, contents, assignments, etc. — they need to be able to focus, and classrooms aren’t always the easiest places to do that. White noise can not only drown out excess(过量) noise, but also help students keep more concentrated, for there is less noise when they’re concentrating.