This time of year has to be my favorite time of year. I am seeing so many wonderful things from my students with how they are taking ownership of their learning, collaborating with each other, becoming more and more creative, and starting to see some quiet students really begin to open up and share their personalities. It is also my favorite time of year to try out new ideas, reflect on my successes and failures, and start thinking about how and what I want to accomplish with next year's students. I find myself building my PLN more and more, as I search for new ideas and ways to improve my current practice. The information I am getting through Twitter, Voxer (thanks to the suggestion of fellow educator Rachelle Dene Poth), Google+, and my director of technology is extraordinary. While I have heard of Alice Keeler for years, I recently started following her on Twitter (@alicekeeler). I honestly do not know why I waited so long to follow her. Everything she tweets is outstanding....

With my blended learning classroom running very well and Google Classroom taking off in my class, I keep thinking about what's next. There is still so much out there to learn and to improve upon, but I keep coming back to sharing as the next thing. I have been very fortunate to have had the support of my administration in my blended learning venture, that I feel compelled to stop thinking about my classroom and start thinking about my school, my district. What I have learned from this year, I feel I need to share with my colleagues. However I do not want to push anything on them. I simply want to share my experiences and engage in discussions with them and work together as we move forward. But so much of the discussions need to begin with questions, from them and me. At the most recent inservice, my director of technology and I had the opportunity to share our knowledge about blended learning and my failures and successes from this past year with the faculty. What came out o...

Quick rundown of new ideas I have implemented in my teaching and shared with my colleagues after attending PETE&C 2016: Kahoot, Classcraft, Aurasma, Google Chrome, and Chromebooks. Plus, a more refined focus on blended learning, Google Classroom, Google Docs, Google Slides, and not to mention building my PLN more. I'd say PETE&C was worth it. Kahoot, the engaging formative assessment tool that students and teachers love, went over extremely well with my students as they used their Chromebooks to answer. Every day since using it, at least one student has asked me about when the next time we will be using it. Classcraft, the classroom-based role-playing game, took off among the students, too. They were extremely excited to setup their avatars and start playing. They also showed me they knew a lot more than I did on the subject matter of XP (experience points), HP (health points), and AP (action points). I think I might have them design a Kahoot formative assessment on ...

I attended my first PETE&C conference this past week with my district's technology director. What an incredible amount of sharing from so many passionate educators. There were so many practical, student-centered, and forward thinking ideas there that were shared. With all of the positive energy and exciting ideas, I couldn't wait to get back into my classroom and start to try them all. But with so many ideas to take away from PETE&C 2016, where would I begin? So, I started reflecting about my time at PETE&C, and the biggest take-away for me, after reflecting, was the idea of sharing. All of those educators were there to share, so that teachers and students could have better learning experiences going forward. Then it became clear to me. I have to stop thinking about my classroom and starting thinking about the school and the district. Now the only question, how do I effectively help bring back all of those exciting, practical, student-centered, and forward think...