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If you've ever considered having students bring their own devices (BYOD) to class, you've probably worried…won't the kids text all day long? How do I keep them from taking inappropriate photos or posting on Facebook while I'm teaching? Aren't students' phones a huge distraction? Here to help is Kristy from the 2 Peas and a Dog blog. Kristy is a Canadian middle school teacher who is in her seventh year of teaching Grades 7 and 8′s. She has allowed students to bring their own technology into the classroom for a few years now, and is excited to share how BYOD works in her classroom.

"Education is catastrophically deficient in trust. Pro-accountability education reformers presume that, absent carrots and sticks, classrooms would be overrun with lazy and incapable teachers. Traditional instructors presume that, absent carrots and sticks, classrooms would be overrun with lazy and incapable students. Both viewpoints emerge from a noble desire to make classrooms high-performance spaces, but in actuality they suppress excellence."

Good tips for building a positive classroom culture.

When I first heard about the exit ticket, I thought it was a great idea.  It seemed like a way to keep myself accountable to assess every student, and it seemed like a way to keep students accountable to do something to show me they'd learned what I'd taught.  It also seemed like a decent classroom management tool - if you didn't pay attention and do the exit ticket task, you couldn't leave.

When I first heard about the exit ticket, I thought it was a great idea.  It seemed like a way to keep myself accountable to assess every student, and it seemed like a way to keep students accountable to do something to show me they'd learned what I'd taught.  It also seemed like a decent classroom management tool - if you didn't pay attention and do the exit ticket task, you couldn't leave.

The first blog post on Edutopia's new teacher academy - a series of many posts about the basics of teaching!

"Making learning interactive has always been difficult for educators. Students rarely want to collaborate and get involved in discussions, because most of them are afraid of making mistakes and saying something wrong. Luckily for all of us, the emergence of technology used in classrooms has made educators able of making the learning process interactive. Blending the traditional textbooks with innovative web tools that inspire collaboration will be the wisest thing you've ever done for your students. The goal of project-based learning is to enable your students to put the things they have learned into practice and develop valuable skills through the project development. They will learn how to make priorities, manage sources, and summarize new concepts. The final goal is to enable them to understand a certain concept more easily."