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"To help us work towards our school goal of purposefully implementing the Universal Design for Learning approach to our formal planning (sometimes referred to as "Backwards by Design", "Understanding by Design", or "Planning With The End in Mind), my principal has provided our staff with a copy of Dr. Jennifer Katz's book, Teaching to Diversity: The Three-Block Model of Universal Design for Learning. As I make my way through the book, I will be summarizing my learning as a means of organizing my thoughts and getting clarification on particular ideas."

"Traditional teacher professional development depends on external training handed down to teachers after having identified their weaknesses as a professional. If you're not so great at teacher writing, or if assessment is becoming a bigger focus in your school or district, you fill out a growth plan of some sort, attend your training, get your certificates, and repeat until you've got your hours or your school has run out of money to send you to more training. Oftentimes these "professional growth plans" are scribbled out in 15 minute meetings with your principal, then "revisited" at the end of the year as a kind of autopsy. What would happen if we flipped this model on its head? What if instead we created a teacher-centered, always-on, and social approach to teacher improvement? One that connected them with dynamic resources and human communities that modeled new thinking and possibility, and that crucially built on their strengths?"

The final round of government funding is currently being distributed to schools all around Australia. So far over 967,000 computers have been bought, infrastructure built and (most) teachers up-skilled to benefit from the acquisition. But as the funds come to an end, many school principals are wondering if the process has been beneficial, and how can they continue to support and progress the Digital Education Revolution?

I was recently at Our Lady of the Angels Rouse Hill doing a workshop with them in creating iBooks using iBooks Author.  The Principal Eva La Rocco and the teachers saw the main benefit for the software as a way of students demonstrating their own understanding and knowledge by creating  an iBook that incorporated all their work.  The focus being for the students to create content rather than it being pushed to them via a teacher created iBook textbook.

If you are a parent, teacher, or other adult working with children, this blog aims to help you learn, as much as possible, about helping digital kids grow into thoughtful, collaborative, and savvy digital citizens. The blog's mission is to provide context for adults - defining and clarifying digital world issues, 21st Century learning challenges, and those virtual environments and devices that children take for granted. It's not really about technology anymore. Instead it's about lifelong learning, collaboration, problem solving, and flexibility. Media! Tech! Parenting! examines or reviews three or four items of digital news and information each week, surveying newspapers, blogs, research, and magazines, as well as the media, safety, and educational websites. Blog posts, as often as possible, provide links pointing readers toward the sites or publications covered in blog posts. I am Marti Weston, the principal blogger on Media!Tech!Parenting! In my professional life I focus on learning in a K-12 environment along with all the digital world issues that challenge teachers, students, and parents. With more than 30 years of teaching experience I also support parents by teaching three-five digital education classes, leading question and answer sessions, and maintaining current resources on the school's website. My professional work centers on four areas: Coaching teachers and helping them develop learning environments that are rich with 21st Century collaboration and problem solving. Helping students learn to use digital tools appropriately, understand their digital dossiers, and move - carefully - along the digital citizenship highway. Providing teachers, students and their parents added context that helps them evaluate media and learn more about how media affect their world, Offering parents information about the always changing, fast-paced virtual world and suggesting effective parenting skills and strategies that will help children grow into stro

"Effective leadership is extremely important in any system, but it is even more imperative in schools if we are to provide all learners with a world-class education. This education has to be relevant, meaningful, and applicable. During my tenure as Principal at New Milford High School, we worked tirelessly over the course of four years to transform the culture to one that was primed for student engagement, learning, and achievement.  Through the lens of social media, I was exposed to a whole new world that I did not know existed. My subsequent journey as a connected leader and learner resulted in small, then large, shifts in professional practice that eventually served as catalysts for transformative change. Thus I began to construct an area of practice around digital leadership."

"One of the hottest new education books is The Innovator's Mindset by my friend George Couros, a division principal of Teaching and Learning with Parkland School Division, located in Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada. He's also a highly-sought-after teaching, learning, and leadership consultant. I caught up with George recently to talk about his book"

"On October 1st, 2015 the very first class entered our STEM lab/Makerspace and it was truly magical. The kids were engaged, they were learning, exploring and discovering the entire time they were in there. It was the moment we had worked so hard when we created this innovative learning space. It was a long journey that our little Makerspace/STEM lab team took to get there and we learned a lot along the way! The lab was originally Wendy Townlin's (@wtownlin) idea. She wanted to create a dedicated science lab for our school. It evolved into a STEM lab, then (with a little help from twitter) we decided to add in the element of a makerspace. With the support of our awesome principal Kris Martin-Meyer, four of us, Wendy, Amanda Young (@ajyoung53), Claire Simon (@MissSimon246) and I put our heads together, researched, reflected then began building. Here are some things we learned about along the way."

"A couple of months ago when Brad Gustafson (principal/lead learner at Greenwood Elementary School in Plymouth Minnesota), asked me if I wanted to help him create a "book talk" play-off podcast, of course I jumped at the chance. Since then, we've been plotting, scheming, designing, collaborating (mostly over Voxer) and collecting video book talks from some of the finest educators on the planet, so that we can bring you (insert drum roll here) ...  The #30secondbooktalk Podcast Challenge!!!!  "

"When the bell rang for early dismissal on a recent afternoon at Cold Springs Middle School in Nevada, students sprinted toward the buses while teachers filed into the library, where posters filled with the names of every child in the 980-student school covered the walls. Taking seats where they could, the teachers turned their attention to Principal Roberta Duvall, who asked her staff to go through the rosters with colored markers and make check marks under columns labeled "Name/Face," "Something Personal," "Personal/Family Story," and "Academic Standing," to note whether they knew the child just by name or something more-their grades, their family's story, their hobbies. "

"Face it. Like all organizations, schools get locked into routine, impeding change. But all schools need to innovate to prepare kids for a dynamic and uncertain future. The question is, "How?" The Innovation Playlist can help your school make positive, informed change. It represents a teacher-led model, based on small steps leading to big change, that draws on best practices from outstanding educators and non-profits from across the country. The Innovation Playlist consists of albums (the big goals on the left) and tracks (the small steps on the right that help you reach each big goal). Each track can be done quickly - fifteen minutes to a day or two - with minimal downside and lots of upside. The playlist process can be led by a school's principal, by faculty at the school, grade or department level, or even by a family at home. The "Mobilize Your Community" album is the ideal place to start, letting you generate enthusiasm for innovation. Then, focus on a few tracks in coming months. Start with one (e.g., Curiosity Time), find a few eager volunteers to try it (many will!), and have them share their experience with the entire faculty. Over time, encourage the early adopters to go deeper, and others to give it a try. Innovation is contagious. This "small steps leading to big change" model means you don't risk the painfully-visible failure that inevitably comes from a sweeping top-down dictum. Each teacher can innovate as much, or as little, as fits their strengths and styles. Give permission to those itching to innovate, and let them run with it. And if a teacher isn't up for this kind of innovation, that's ok, too… It can be a good thing for students to experience a range of pedagogies."

"o one is perfect. Not one of us. But if we're not careful, we can fall into the trap of thinking we have to act perfect.  I find it puzzling how students sometimes have the idea that teachers/principals/educators are somehow above making mistake or should be above making mistakes.  I remember when I was teaching 9th grade English how students would jump at the chance to point it out if I misspelled a word on the white board, as if I was suddenly an incompetent teacher. They would express shock and dismay that I would make such a mistake. But without question, I made my fair share of mistakes, and I learned that it was best to admit them and help dispel the myth that teachers don't make mistakes."

"Peering up, a teacher asked me, "What are we going to use it for?" as I flew our shiny new drone up between the umbrellas on the quad, past the roof of the gym, and into the low scattered clouds. The camera projected back to my iPhone, and I could see the newly planted trees in our quad, the only green for miles in the Mondrian concrete grid that is our local community. The students and teachers in the quad all looked up too, shielding their eyes to see the drone fly. Our custodians pulled up in their cart, and my assistant principal whooped like one of the middle schoolers on my campus. Get the best of Edutopia in your inbox each week. It's my job this year to answer questions like the one above. As a teacher on special assignment currently serving as curriculum coordinator for my school, I get to learn what's coming our way and devise methods of implementation. I specialize in technology and project-based learning, and I began thinking about implementing the drone immediately upon hearing that our district had purchased it. And I'm not the only one thinking about this issue. In the book Drones in Education, the International Society for Technology in Education touts the engagement factor but also sees academic potential in using drones. To guide schools to successfully implement the technology, the book promotes the SOAR model, which stands for Safety (ethics and legal use), Operation (flight and maintenance), Active learning (engagement in problem solving), and Research (practical applications)."

"I am a big fan of music in the history classroom and I have created a number of Spotify Playlists for this purpose. Often this is merely to help create a calm and purposeful working atmosphere, when a bit of Chopin or Debussy sets the tone perfectly. Occasionally it's even possible to have calming instrumental music directly related to the topic in question: for example, Elgar's Cello Concerto in E Minor, which was inspired by the composer watching British troop ships heading off to France in 1914. However, some songs are better used to stoke up some energy during lessons, whilst the very best of all are historical sources in themselves, combining musical feeling with powerful lyrical content. What follows is a list of songs I regularly use in class, organised in broadly chronological order in terms of the topics they relate to, with a brief explanation of how you could make use of them with your own students. What follows is a list of 25 principal songs, but with links to others on similar themes or by similar artists, bringing the total up to over 50. If you have any other suggestions, please contact me (@russeltarr / @activehistory on Twitter) and I'd be delighted to add them to the list (as long as it isn't "We didn't start the fire" by Billy Joel. Which I admit is superb, but we all know this one, surely?)."

"Every year thousands of educators gather for the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference eager to learn about the newest features in favorite apps and to glean ideas from one another about how to effectively teach in new ways. The conference seems to grow every year and there is palpable excitement from educators who finally get to commune with their "tribe" - techy teachers from around the globe. But many of the products currently being marketed to educators are firmly rooted in the current moment of education. For the most part, they focus on how to help educators do what they already do more efficiently. Or they offer flashy digital tools meant to engage learners presumed to have short attention spans, and entice teachers with the analytics under the hood. But too often the conversations around what educators can do with technology in their classrooms focus on the current moment in a system that almost no one thinks is perfect. "I'm fascinated by trying to look forward rather than looking at what schools look like now," said Alan November during a presentation at the conference. November has long been invested in education, first as a teacher and now has a consultant and speaker. He suggests that to fundamentally change, education leaders need to define a new role for learners and then hire teachers who can help nurture those qualities. With that in mind, November proposes seven questions that he thinks should become standard in the interviewing and hiring process. "

"The week after my dad passed, I decided to come back. Bereavement time was up and I felt that getting back into my classroom would help. I was wrong. By the third day I was still feeling lost, overwhelmed, and exhausted. I ended taking the last two days of the week off. I came back, what I felt as "refreshed", the following Monday. Only still feeling lost, overwhelmed, and exhausted. As soon as I walked into the school I immediately met with the principal and told him that I couldn't continue. I needed more time away to deal with my emotions and to understand the scope of what took place. I could hear words of my dad echoing in my ear - "take care of yourself… if you don't, you'll end up sick." While my dad's health wasn't that great, and he knew it; he always made sure that everyone else took better care of themselves. Exactly like me. I make sure that others are always put before me. I could not longer do that. I needed to take care of myself before I ended up lying on the floor unable to move, like Izzy in Grey's Anatomy. Those four extra days was what I needed. I processed his death, I cried, I slept (for nearly two whole days), and I remembered the good times. I sat on the couch catching up on missed shows, Netflix, and Days of our Lives. We stress the importance of good mental health to our students, but I wasn't heeding my own words. I knew that being in the classroom too soon after his death wasn't making me a good teacher for my students."