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I spent most of my teaching career stressed, overwhelmed, and exhausted. While I love my job, I often felt unappreciated and taken advantage of. Well-meaning people in other professions would tell me I just needed to set better professional boundaries, but that seemed impossible. Then a friend suggested I start with just one boundary and add on from there. This was manageable and I'm now up to five teacher boundaries. It's been life-changing - inside and outside of school.

"On this blog I've shared thousands of web tools, apps, and resources that are free or offer a freemium option for teachers. However, I've been asked by several educators what recommendations I have for STEM labs, makerspaces, and technology classes. Below are six products that engage students, promote hands-on learning, and spark creativity. Also, students of all ages love learning science, math, engineering, and programming with these products. Most are reasonably priced for a kit that can be used by an entire class for several projects and lessons. The products are easy to manage, store, and work for K to 12 learners. These products also come with a great support team, support materials, lesson plans, and activities. Even if you are just a beginner these products are easy to learn and implement. These companies did not pay me or ask me to write about them. I just have tinkered with them and truly enjoyed these products."

""I don't like math," my students commonly say. The alternative high school in rural Colorado where I've been working for the last two-and-a-half years serves students ages 14 to 20, who come to us when they have not done well in traditional environments since we have more freedom to use creative instructional methods to meet their needs. Thinking about that comment, I used to ask myself, "How would the students' attitudes toward math change if there was an opportunity to experience a different side of math, one that involved hands-on learning, promoted teamwork, and ended in a product to be proud of?" I thought I could use Rubik's Cubes to facilitate camaraderie among my math-anxious and math-eager students, based on my own love of the popular puzzle. And after learning about students creating mosaics of historical figures, famous landmarks, and animals out of the cubes, I saw a way to promote critical thinking and algorithmic problem-solving."

"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."

"I am by no means a 3D printing expert.  But I do have three 3D printers in my library makerspace (and one in my previous space).  And I have a lot of students who are very interested in learning more about 3D printing.  Some students have built their own 3D printers from kits and love to come hang out and tell me about their latest projects.  Other students have no CAD (computer aided design) experience but are eager to start building. In order to help all of these students better utilize and access our 3D printers, I created a short, Intro to 3D printing session that I teach afterschool every quarter.  It's essentially an orientation to how 3D printing works, how to create a design and how to get it ready to print."

" PreviousNext The True Meaning Behind 50 Flower Types By Janelle | source:HereDec 31st, 2019 Whether or not you realize it, you see flowers every day. A joyful budding bloom peeking through your window, rich and lavish arrangements perched on pristine vases, freshly cut stems ready to be sold in the market. But though you may admire the colors and fragrances of these flowers, do you ever stop to ponder past their beauty? What do they mean, and what do they symbolize? The etymology of flowers has indeed survived, shifted, and grown throughout thousands of years. Arisen from this is the term of floriography or 'the language of flowers'. This is defined as a cryptological communication through the arrangement or use of these flowers that can be seen as you trace through history. Though the term was first introduced in the seventeenth century, there is no arguing that the symbolism of flowers was well reflected through means of art, literature, and mythology at an even earlier age. There is a beautiful correlation between a flower's physical attributes and the meaning it takes possession of. For instance, the taraxacum-commonly known as a dandelion-comes from the French dent de lion, literally translating into 'lion's tooth'. If you have seen and touched an actual dandelion, you might be aware of the fact that its leaves are rather coarse, poking out like little teeth, yet with its sunny yellow hue, it is said to be a flower of hope and joy. Thus is the strange and amusing nature of the monikers and the meaning of flowers. As you grasp a better understanding of the soul of these petaled wonders, perhaps you may take an extra moment to stop and consider their beginnings. Whether you are choosing flowers for your wedding, picking a bouquet for your loved one, or simply gazing at a lone bloom, remember how they sprung from the fertile grass of our lands."

"When school buildings across the country closed their doors due to the coronavirus pandemic, many teachers had about a weekend's notice-if that-to gather up their belongings and reimagine their classrooms from their homes. The hurried nature of the move to remote learning meant many educators never got a chance to hug their students one more time, to look them in the eyes and ask if they are OK or to tell them goodbye. Though most teachers are checking in with their students virtually, via Zoom, Google Classroom or some other video-calling mechanism, it's not the same as face-to-face interaction. After going from spending hours a day together to hardly any face-to-face time at all, the reality is teachers really miss their students. That was one of the most emphatic answers teachers gave when EdSurge asked 15 of them, What is one thing about your job you wish the public knew? For many, the "one thing" is that they really love their students, and during this time of isolation and uncertainty, they miss them a lot."

"When it comes to the first day of school, what you want is a rock solid activity you can enjoy from the background. Or is that just me? There's enough stress around that first day already, no need to stand in the spotlight trying to hold everyone's attention for forty-five minutes. So today I have a quick and fun activity for you (apologies for the lack of a podcast this week, I've been really sick all week, so we're going short and sweet today!). Why not try hexagonal identity one-pagers? While I still love the name tent one-pagers I've always pushed for on day one, you can do a fun version of them by having kids share about themselves on a hexagon shaped one-pager instead. The extension here is that they can then connect their work to the work of the rest of the class in an epic web up on the wall."

"he Cardboard Challenge remains one of my all-time favorite makerspace activities.  I love how accessible it is to students.  How enthusiastic and creative they can be with such simple materials.  I'll never forget one of my favorite makerspace moments - my students at Stewart were Skyping with another school that was looking to start a makerspace.  They asked my students what their favorite thing in our makerspace was.  The answer could have been robots, or circuits, or a 3D printer.  But their answer was: "Cardboard!  We have so much cardboard!  It's awesome!"."

"I love educational technology. When technologies were first available online, I was an early adopter, and often got brutally criticized by administrators and colleagues in my K-6 settings for having students use the internet for research, use web tools, create webpages in wikis, and work virtually with schools in other states and countries (for example, see their work from 2008 at http://weewebwonders.pbworks.com/). Now, similar work is often seen as innovative by colleagues. Boy, have times thankfully changed, but I have not. I still am an early adopter of technologies in that I believe many can benefit students in their learning. As many in education know, commentary about ChatGPT is appearing on the news, social media, and the internet. As I always do, I am exploring its use in my classes (elementary-level gifted education). This post describes its use in education from the perspectives of ChatGPT, itself, and from a handful of educators. Later, I describe and show the work of my students. I conclude with tools for detecting machine-generated text, and provide a parting shot."

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"When Thanksgiving break rolled around last month, teachers all over the country breathed a collective sigh of relief. This school year hasn't exactly been a cakewalk, and, like most teachers, I was delighted to finally be getting a few days off and some quality time with my children. I was looking forward to big meals, cozy nights at home with my family, and lots of love, laughter, and relaxation. Unfortunately, I know that this kind of fun and fulfilling break is not a reality for many of my students. And a couple of days into the break I couldn't resist texting my co-teacher to chat about the same worries that plague us day in and day out. "Do you think Jake's parents are leaving him at home alone all day?" "Mia complained of an earache Friday. I hope her grandmother will take her to the doctor if it gets worse." "Did Kira say she was going to her dad's over Thanksgiving? She's always so emotional after she visits him, and she's allergic to his dog.""

"Wordle's popularity has led many teachers to incorporate it into the classroom. And as much as we love Wordle and how educators are using it to teach, it's not the only word game that provides learning opportunities. "

"I love hands-on science activities, especially when I can integrate technology into my lesson. Two fantastic free apps for Earth Science are Mineral Identifier and Common Rocks Reference. "