The New Vision for Education project examines the role that technology can potentially play to improve education for the future. In phase II, we investigated innovative ways to help students develop competencies* and character qualities** broadly defined as social emotional skills, which are critical components of 21st century skill framework but not a core focus in today’s curriculum.

Can technology effectively facilitate the development of competencies and character qualities, in addition to cognitive skills? If yes, what are the opportunities to capture to make it happen? What are the immediate, mid-term, and long-term barriers to remove? How can multistakeholders work together to create a roadmap for this vision?

In seeking answers to these questions, the report assembles a list of 55 research-based digital product features that are highly correlated with the ten competencies and character qualities and identifies five nascent technology trends – wearable devices, leading-edge apps, virtual reality, advanced analytics and machine learning, and affective computing – that extend ways of fostering social emotional learning (SEL) and also offer potential for exciting new learning strategies. The report concludes with recommendations to each stakeholder on actions to advance SEL and SEL technology adoption.