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"At Branson Junior High, our amazing team of teachers and principals, along with the encouraging support of our school district superintendents to be innovative with a purpose, are on a journey to personalize learning for every child. We are starting small, but dreaming big and have already experienced some momentous transformations in our school culture. At this school year's kick-off orientation event for parents and learners, we built on the familiar analogy of a go-kart track to communicate the vision of personalized learning at BJH (Branson, MO is a big tourist destination in mid-America). Most junior high/middle school aged kids would be excited to hear their parents say they were going to the go-kart track for a night out of family fun. However, if when they arrived at the track the parent asked the attendant for a two-seater go-kart and then directed their son/daughter to climb in the passenger seat, the child's excitement level would immediately deflate. You can easily picture in your mind's eye the typical response a child would have to their parent's action: "I thought we were here to have fun?! Can't we each have our own go-kart to drive?" Likewise, if we desire fully engaged and responsible learners, then we must provide them the opportunities to drive their own go-kart. Just like a go-kart track, we set-up safe boundaries, provide some initial guidance, but then let the learner buckle-up and drive!"

"What is 21st century learning? It is collaboration. It is creativity. It is critical thinking and problem-solving. It is research and information literacy. It is digital citizenship. It is responsible use. We expect our children to develop these skills. We integrate these skills in our every day lessons so that our students can grow and expand their knowledge. We create spaces so that our students can create and collaborate, whether it is a physical space or a virtual space. We expect our students to be good digital citizens, using devices, programs, and tools responsibly.  We want our students to ask questions and explore for answers.  We expect our students to learn, grow, and then reflect on that learning. So, wouldn't we expect the same skills for ourselves as educators and professionals?"

"4). Stop thinking it's your school or district's responsibility to provide professional development learning opportunities. We all expect our kids to be self-autonomous learners who take some ownership of their learning; educators should be no different considering all the avenues and paths that exist."

"Four years ago, I realized that I needed to take responsibility for the damage I had done to students who came into my room loving (or at least liking) school and left diminished in some ways. Those kids who loved math until my long-winded lectures about process left them confused and bitter. Those kids that loved to read until my strict book report guidelines and reading logs devoured their curiosity for great stories. I had to take responsibility for what I had done. There was no one else to blame. Just as important, I had to make sure that my future students would leave our classroom still loving school, with passionate curiosity, not afraid to try something new. How do we make children hate school so much? I now teach 5th grade, and by the time they reach me, certain subjects have already landed on their top 10 list of most dreadful things to do. Math tends to top the chart, but social studies usually is close behind, and some even hate reading (but may read many books outside of school). Most students confess a love of recess, art, music, and sometimes even science. PE is always a crowd favorite as well. But math and social studies, yikes. "

"One of the strategies that I use when creating lesson plans is to reflect on the previous lesson. Part of that reflection includes feedback from students. This can be done by simply asking students to raise their hands in response to a "did you get it?" type of question, but I like to have better record of responses than just a hand count. Here are some tools that can be used for collecting exit information from students."

"Wikipedia is the seventh most-popular website on the Internet and is the web's most popular and largest reference resource. Many instructors decry student reliance on this online encyclopedia open to anyone to edit, but I am part of a growing movement of teachers who integrates student editing of Wikipedia pages into our pedagogy. There are many pedagogical reasons for this; integrating Wikipedia editing into your courses teaches students to navigate the rules and social norms of an online community of knowledge creation, trains them in developing responsible public-facing research, and introduces them to ways of dealing with a variety of responses to their work."

"A fight or flight reaction may be useful in some situations, but it is highly detrimental in the classroom. Whether anxiety stems from test taking or from an unstable home environment, the brains of students experiencing high levels of stress look different than those who are not - and those brains behave differently, too. In this article, we'll take a look at the neural and hormonal responses that underpin a student's stress response, and make a few suggestions for continuing to teach through the challenges it presents."

"I have been throwing some coding challenges up on my Twitter steam lately using the #WSDHSchallenges hashtag as a kind of test to see what kind of response I had to this sort of thing. The response has been fairly strong and so I am exploring the next step. I really can't take credit for this whole idea actually. It's really modelled after the Hour of Code activities, and the Twitter challenge connection was suggested by the incredibly smart cookies that attended my coding session at this year's CHARGE 2016 conference for preservice teachers at the University of Winnipeg I had the honour of being asked to participate in."

"Jacqueline Prester was a self-proclaimed hustler in middle school. Mowing lawns, babysitting-she took the initiative to earn her own money. But she was also a responsible moneymaker, using the envelope system to budget every cent before she knew it was an actual budgeting strategy. Back then, her friends rolled their eyes when she tried to share her financial savvy. Fast forward two decades and Prester is a popular business and technology teacher at Mansfield High School in Massachusetts, working to give students real-life financial skills. Only this time her audience is keen to learn. (Her Personal Finance classes always reach their 28 student capacity.) Students are learning about personal finance, but not just because that's the name of the class. They're making it personal. Prester's passion is infectious, and the content she chooses-like Pathway To Financial Success created by Discovery Education and Discover-immerses students in authentic lessons with videos, interactive modules and real-world connections. Pathway To Financial Success Video: Being Financially Responsible EdSurge caught up with Prester to find out how she packs her classes with willing learners and to uncover her secret to finding compelling financial literacy content. She also shared how and why she helped pass a new Massachusetts bill focused on financial literacy."

"We are starting a journey into the new terrain of parenting in response to school closures and home-bound learning opportunities for students. As we know that our children call many different types of places home, with varying degrees of access to resources and experiences, we want to be mindful of not projecting a "right way" or "best way," and be more intentional of providing some resources and considerations that we hope to be useful. We want to acknowledge and curate great resources that are coming together in our communities. Many started from educational services and companies but also more grassroots support from teachers, often out of concern for their students. First and foremost, as a parent, it is not your responsibility to be the teacher right now. It is helpful for you to support and encourage your child to continue exploring questions and keep up a reading practice and attempt to solve problems- but it is most important that you provide them space to connect, feel, wonder, try, and find refuge in these uncertain times."

free app for sharing responses to books

"This weekend, my family and I were camping in north central Minnesota, and Internet connection-both 3G and wi-fi were sporadic. In one of the situations where we had service, I saw Tony Vincent's (a leader in educational technology who I have seen speak in person) tweet about Matthew Gudenius's "No iPad" video series:"

"With the wide variety of resources available for teachers, there's no reason we shouldn't be promoting the importance of behaving safely and responsibly in the digital world. Speaking of resources, check out the nifty infographic shown below, one that can be used to address various aspects of digital citizenship."