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The time between the end of one school year and the beginning of the next is a season for reflection and renewal. It's important to celebrate student successes and recall challenging times when things just didn't go as planned. This season between school years is an opportunity to plan for new and modified instructional approaches to increase learner success. What follows are suggested readings and resources for developing and deepening your practice to meet the diverse needs of all learners. The readings are grouped from easy starts to deeper complex implementation. Like Steve Jobs, feel free to choose what captures your passion.

TechYES TLC is all online, with nothing to install or download. It's completely new and (we hope) the best, most engaging project-based technology literacy curriculum out there. It's geared towards middle school, just like our TechYES Student Technology Literacy Certification model, but it goes deeper than just certification.

"This report introduces connected learning, a promising educational approach that uses digital media to engage students' interests and instill deeper learning skills, such as communication, collaboration, and critical thinking. The report lists four elements constituting connected learning's emphasis on bridging school, popular culture, home, and the community to create an environment in which students engage in and take responsibility for their learning."

"Originally pioneered at places like 3M and HP, Google's vaunted 20 percent time, which lets employees spend a full one-fifth of their time on passion projects, has spawned everything from Gmail to Google News. Now it's gaining ground among educators who are carving out a chunk of their already-limited time with students to work on innovative inquiry-based projects that resonate on a deeper, personal level."

"Blended learning uses both in-person and online methods to teach students, and there are several different models for implementing it in the classroom. These resources explain the basics of blended learning, but they also dig deeper and can help you decide which approach may be best for your students."

"2015 is the year the focus will finally turn the corner by organizations in education and the business world to get it right: it is about the learner. It is not about calling it "Personalized Instruction" or "Personalized Education." It is not about the technology, the curriculum, or instruction. It is about the learner making learning personal for his or herself. It is about teacher and learner roles changing. It is about calling students "learners." It is about transforming the system because now is the time to change the system. The current system is broken. It isn't working for most of our learners. The current system of content delivery and focusing on performance instead of learning is not making positive changes for our children and their future. So we put together four large concepts that encompass the 10 trends that you will see impacting learning starting this coming year: Learning Culture, Learning Environments, Deeper Learning, and Partnerships in Learning."

"After weeks of poring over reviews and testing the app in my classroom, I can say with confidence that instaGrok offers the best research engine experience for education of any app for tablets running iOS or Android. The instaGrok app is more classroom-friendly than its competitors, and its visual presentation of results is unparalleled. With instaGrok, teachers can encourage self-directed learning, empowering students to hone research, critical thinking, and writing skills. The search results engage students and encourage them to dig deeper in research projects. Read on to learn why instaGrok is the ideal classroom research app."

"Pushing students to go beyond what they think they can do is at the core of good teaching. This Teaching Channel video follows students and educators at Springfield Renaissance School, part of the Expeditionary Learning network. Students at the school understand that struggling with a particular task is part of learning. Teachers have high expectations of students, expect a positive classroom culture and are willing to gently prod students to dig deeper and reveal more. Teachers embed Common Core standards like the ability to use textual evidence to back up arguments, into the culture of class. They also understand that the love of learning takes ownership and self-awareness."

"True Project Based Learning (PBL) challenges students to acquire deeper knowledge of a concept by establishing connections outside their classroom. According to the research on PBL, the main tenets are to create real world connections, develop critical thinking skills, foster structured collaboration, motivate student driven work, and enable a multifaceted approach. Similarly, coding applies all of these core tenets as programs require logical thinking, team work, a variety of tools, and - most importantly - perseverance on the part of the student. Consider the potential of applying the challenges of coding to the proven successful tenets of PBL."

"Since many people are returning to school during the next couple of weeks, I thought I would re-visit and share some of last year's more successful projects in case you want to try one. Today's post is about something I tried last year with the goal of impressing upon my students how much they matter to others - in this case, their parents. What I did not realize was that I would also develop new and deeper connections with my students and their families with this project. The basic concept was this: ask parents to secretly record videos of themselves telling their children how important they are to them and what they hoped the children would accomplish in school that year. The parents would send me the videos, and I would use Aurasma Studio (here is a link to Aurasma tutorial videos in case you need it) to attach them to still images of the parents. When my students scanned the images with the Aurasma app on the iPad, they would see and hear their parents' videos. They kept the photos in their folders all year so they could scan them whenever they wanted, and as a reminder of their parents' personal messages."

"Below is a set of good iPad apps that you can use with your kids and students to enhance their mathematical thinking. These apps are meant for young learners and are specifically useful when introducing kids to those rudimentary notions of mathematical computations. The purpose of teaching kids to think mathematically, as detailed in Kaye Stacey's paper, is three folds: First, it will allow kids to conduct mathematical investigations by themselves. Second, it will help them acquire other thinking skills particularly problem-solving and as mathematician Paul Halmos (1980) stated, 'problem solving is the heart of mathematics'. Third, it helps kids get a deeper appreciation of mathematics and use it in their daily and working lives."

"Teaching critical thinking and creativity in writing can be a difficult task, but it is crucial in preparing students to meet the standards of the Common Core. Digital storytelling is a highly effective technique for doing so, as it requires a clear organization of thought, discipline, and problem solving skills - all of which can translate directly into more traditional essay writing. What's more, digital storytelling has the added benefit of meeting other Common Core standards relating to proficiency in technical skills. In this article, we'll take a deeper look at why digital storytelling is an effective approach for teaching writing, and how to do it best."

"Design thinking is a powerful tool to really get your students thinking about and tackling a problem or topic at a much deeper level. It is a structured task that focuses on giving considerable time to thinking about and empathising with the people within the situation (Target audience or client), designing and prototyping a possible solution that is immediately challenged in order to improve it. It is used much in business and the design industry but can be used as a general classroom task within any subject area. It also gets students to work quickly without much introduction."

"Over the past few months Gmail has witnessed the addition of a lot of interesting features and functionalities that enhanced its overall performance. Gmail also provides several hidden gems to users who are willing to dig a bit deeper and take their email experience to the next level. To help you make the best of Gmail, we have gone through Gmail help documentation and handpicked these wonderful tips for you. These are simple hacks that you can use on your Gmail to increase your productivity and be a Gmail savvy teacher."

"Jean Piaget once said that "play is the answer to how anything new comes about." As educators in the digital age, it is important that we embrace the power of play in our classrooms. One of the ways that we can redefine our practice is by using game education in our schools. Game education is a powerful way to engage 21st century learners in a variety of cognitively complex tasks that lead to deeper levels of understanding. Educational games help students to learn about certain subjects, expand their thinking on specific concepts, and reinforce skill development while they play while increasing engagement, empathy and excellence in the classroom."