Allison Miller is a member of eWorks’ team of accredited consultants, and a regular contributor to eWorks’ blog. Allison is passionate about providing learners with the knowledge and skills that they need in order to succeed in the world of work. Today she discusses the importance of foundation skills in general, as well as how they are […]

It’s an election year here in the United States, and the campaign trail is heating up. In the spirit of democracy, I’ve created an eLearning ballot for this month’s Best of eLearning. There are two categories—Best Blog Series and Best News. Take a look at the candidates for each and leave a comment sharing which candidates get your vote!   Best Blog Series 1. Have you read the Downright Sneaky Lectora® Tricks blog series by John Mortenson yet? These step-by-step, screenshot-packed tutorials are fantastic! Join us on the blog this week and next week for Parts 3-5. Part 1: How to Build a Backdoor in Your Course Part 2: Create a "Hidden Entrance" to devMode Does your job require you to build 508-compliant or accessible learning content? Then you need to read this blog series. Keep an eye out for the third and final installment! Creating Accessible eLearning: What You Need to Know How to Use Lectora to Create Accessible Courses Best News Lectora by Trivantis® was named to the 2016 Top Authoring Tools Companies List by Training Industry, Inc. This is the fourth year that Lectora has been named to Training Industry’s annual list. Check it out here: 2016 Top Authoring Tools Companies List. There’s another Responsive Course Design™ (RCD) webinar coming up! If you haven’t tried out RCD in Lectora Online or Lectora 16, this webinar will give you a great overview of the new feature. Register here: Responsive Course Design in Action: What You Need to Know. Did you know that GoAnimate just released new customizable characters? They have more realistic eyes, new hairstyles, new poses and industries like fitness, plus more variety in attire choices. Now you can make your eLearning videos even more customized to your learners! See all the new additions here: New Year, New Look: Customizable GoAnimate Characters Get an Update. Every new year brings new trends, new "colors of the year," and other predictions hitting the news. The eLearning Brothers shared a great overview of upcoming design trends that you can incorporate into your learning content.       Read it now: 2016 Graphic Design Trends for eLearning Aficionados. Remember to leave a comment with your vote for each category. Happy eLearning voting! The post The Best of eLearning in January 2016 appeared first on .

At the start of the semester, learning names can be a big task..especially, if you have a big class. The Moodle Roster report can help you! Not only will it show you a photo roster of your students, but it let’s you hide and show student names; a great way to practice! The Roster report is a little hidden. But, if you follow our Roster Report instructions, you can soon start calling students by their names.   Want even more name help? Check out this web page Carnegie Mellon’s Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence and Education, Tips for Learning Students’ Names.

I must apologize if you received the notification of this blog post via a Tweet or email, since according to researchers at University of California Irvine, it will take you an average of nearly 24 minutes to get back to your tasks at hand. Now that I have your attention for the better part of the next 30 minutes (or at least until some invites you to play Candy Crush on Facebook), I’d like to invite you attend my session at NCCE in Seattle next month, "You’re So Distracted You Probably Think This Session is About You!"  (Not registered yet?  Easy?  Go here!) I have been concerned about this topic since the first time I experimented with allowing cell phones in my own high school and college classrooms.  There is no doubt that our smart phones (and tablets and laptops) are incredible tools for learning and connecting, but, what unwanted guests are hiding beneath those beautiful, glowing screens? Distraction?  Probably. Lack of sleep?  Could be. Anxiety?  Perhaps. Of course, there is a heated debate on this topic.  We as adults may struggle with this, but, our digital natives have this covered, right?  (Let’s ignore the fact that I don’t believe in the digital native/digital immigrant dichotomy.)  Growing voices suggest that this is a problem for all of us! I will tackle this issue in Seattle.  What does the research suggest?  How is it impacting adults?  What should we be telling kids?  Let’s start working on this problem together!  Your modeling and zen-like expertise can help all learners in our care think more honestly about these wondrous technologies. In the meantime… One of my "must listen" podcasts, Note to Self by WNYC Studios, announced a new project called "Infomagical" where they will tackle an important aspect of this discussion, the so-called "FOMO" or fear of missing out that some feel when they aren’t constantly engaged with their devices. Infomagical will start next week with a series of challenges aimed at reinventing your relationship with your device. I’m totally in.  I’ll report on my results in Seattle and would love to talk with you about it too!   The post NCCE Session Preview: Tech-Savvy Teacher Jason on Digital Distraction appeared first on NCCE's Tech-Savvy Teacher Blog.

[Post by Karla Willems, Account Manager at GeoMetrix Data Systems Inc.] This month at ASTD Techknowledge, we introduced our newest product: GeoTalent Flex. Flex is a completely customizable interface for our GeoTalent Learning and Talent Management System. Our TrainingPartner product line provided customers with a completely customizable learning management system. Now, that same customizability is available in a responsive LMS: GeoTalent Flex. Released at the start of 2016, this system allows current users of TrainingPartner to move to a responsive, 508-compliant system under the GeoTalent umbrella. GeoTalent Flex provides new customers with the most customizable LMS on the market without sacrificing responsiveness to mobile devices. Flex provides simplicity with the flexibility to mold to your unique business rules, internal branding, workflows and processes. Developed to manage all forms of learning, GeoTalent Flex supports mobile learning securely with full compliance. The features and functionality you’ve come to expect from TrainingPartner, including its customizability, are now available in a responsive and compliant LMS. Pages in GeoTalent Flex dynamically adapt for all devices, and the system lets you turn off unused functionality with a click of a button. Unlike simple SaaS applications or custom-developed platforms, GeoTalent provides true enterprise-class architecture that can be tailored to meet your diverse requirements. Thought you couldn’t optimize workflows or add unique processes because of compliance issues. Now you can! Flex gives you control over your learning environment by letting you design your web pages for a truly customized learning experience. For more information about GeoTalent or to schedule a demo, please call 1-800-616-5409, email sales@geotalent.com or use the Request a Demo form at the bottom of the page.

Guess what... A member from the LearningSpaces team was cordially invited for the HUB Conference on December 10th last year. This was of course an awesome opportunity to meet fellow startups and innovators! I was excited in particular, since I was the one who got to go to this great event. Me arriving the night before! Left Groningen, one of the most beautiful towns around 5pm and arrived to Berlin around 11pm the night before. In Germany most things are done well and in organised manner. Grundlich Punktlich. Train rides on time, beer and cool people in the streets. I decided to take it easy, have a small beer and go to bed early that day to be fresh for the HUB Conference. The HUB 08.11 arriving at the HUB. Breakfast was awesome. I had a nice chat with a manager from Ricoh! Nice guy, and apparently it's a thing to wear a black suit in the startup playground in Germany! 09.00 Opening of the day by Thorsten Dirks president of the founders of HUB, Bitkom. The rest of the day Then the day started. Kind of speed rush crashcourse of everything that's going on that day. A confirmation of everything that you've read before the conference, with a little more in-depth info from the experts on the subject. It was like a live-reading of summaries on innovative studies. To be honest, it was nice. But if you're on top of your reading, you won't hear anything new or groundbreaking. Though I would still recommend to visit HUB industry, since it can be a nice experience. The thing that surprised me was Kodak's innovative spirit. In many presentations the digital world has been praised and called innovative compared to the analog world. The later has been portraited as a slow, nonconfirming world, which is unwilling to change and in the end is going to lose to digital world. But hey guys, Kodak is making 1.2 Billion revenue in 2015, and it will be even more this year. Not all old companies die in the end!

"The difference between a community and a network is that you belong to a community, but a network belongs to you. You feel in control. You can add friends if you wish, you can delete them if you wish. You are in control of the important people to whom you relate. People feel a little better as a result, because loneliness, abandonment, is the great fear in our individualist age. But it’s so easy to add or remove friends on the internet that people fail to learn the real social skills, which you need when you go to the street, when you go to your workplace, where you find lots of people who you need to enter into sensible interaction with. Pope Francis, who is a great man, gave his first interview after being elected to Eugenio Scalfari, an Italian journalist who is also a self-proclaimed atheist. It was a sign: real dialogue isn’t about talking to people who believe the same things as you. Social media don’t teach us to dialogue because it is so easy to avoid controversy… But most people use social media not to unite, not to open their horizons wider, but on the contrary, to cut themselves a comfort zone where the only sounds they hear are the echoes of their own voice, where the only things they see are the reflections of their own face. Social media are very useful, they provide pleasure, but they are a trap." - Zygmunt Bauman I would rather say that social media can be a trap, but are not by their nature an inevitable one. Social media don’t teach us anything. We have to teach ourselves how to use social media. For the first time in history, 3 billion people are connected to each other. Is this a trap or an unrealized opportunity? The gap between social media and our real work can be a deep moat. We entertain ourselves with social media during our free time while many of our workplaces block access to consumer social media sites. Connecting social media to our daily lives can be enriching, if we have the skills and tools to filter, create and discern how to share what is appropriate. Using social media to open our horizons takes effort and practice. In order to help us make sense and use our networks to our fullest we need to engage in communities of practice, online and offline. This third-space, between loose social networks and focused work groups, is an essential place in which to test new ideas and learn with peers. Real communities of practice are difficult to find but they give us the feedback we would not get in a social network and they don’t bring the hierarchy of the workplace to bear. In communities we can be open to feedback and criticism, not face outrage from a stranger on social media, nor be forced to hold our tongue in the workplace. For both individuals and organizations, communities of practice can connect work and learning. Communities of practice can bridge the gap between innovation and getting work done. People can seek new contacts in their social networks, and over time (filtering), some of these can become co-members in communities of practice. Communities of practice help to inform our work and life, with some of our learning and observations creating new ideas or practices. We can then share these new ideas with our communities, discerning who and how to share with, at the appropriate times. For instance, we may share a new practice first with a professional community of practice before publishing it to our general social networks. A key part of the practice of PKM is connecting our networks, our communities, our work, and our lives together in order to make sense, be more productive, and open ourselves to serendipity. It’s a holistic approach, not one that compartmentalizes work and life, or social media and communities, but something that helps us to make sense of the whole messy, complex world we live in. Communities can connect work and learning and ensure that social media are not a trap but an opportunity for humanity.  

The Spiritcare program at Indiana Wesleyan University is especially designed to help care for the faith and life needs of our adult students by introducing them to the person and community of Jesus Christ.  Join...Continue Reading »

Some of the most enjoyable - and challenging - parts of IWU’s curriculum require students to integrate the Bible with their subject.  Many times, this requires digging a little deeper into the Word than the...Continue Reading »

What characteristics do top achievers share? What separates successful learners from those who are unsuccessful? These are the types of questions psychologist Angela Duckworth has spent over a decade asking and answering. Grit, Self-Control, and Learning According to Duckworth, people who have grit and self-control are more likely to succeed. Grit is the tendency to sustain interest in and effort toward very long-term goals…Self-control is the voluntary regulation of behavioral, emotional, and attentional impulses in the presence of momentarily gratifying temptations or diversions… For college students, a "long-term goal" may mean succeeding in classes in one semester, achieving honors in one year, or getting into graduate school. Self-control means the "pain" of hard work doesn’t stop you from moving forward. In many studies, Duckworth and her colleagues found that self-control or grit or a combination of both, are more highly correlated to success in school and life than IQ and talent.  But, what if you don’t have these traits? Can they be taught? Teaching Grit and Self-Control Duckworth thinks acquiring growth mindset, a concept developed by Carol Dweck, may be one way to learn grit and self-control. Dweck has shown strong, positive academic results with children in failing schools by changing their attitudes to a growth mindset, a belief that abilities are not fixed, they can be developed through investing time and energy.  How do you accomplish that? Begin by making the process of learning transparent. Giving students information on how the brain works and that "intelligence" can grow—"you’re not stupid; you just haven’t learned that yet"- helps them feel more confident about learning and working harder.  If they understand, as Michael Jordan  says, there must be "work before glory," they can get grittier and push through failure. Courseware Supports Grit and Self-Control Will just changing attitudes towards learning make students succeed? Critics like Alfie Kohn say no.  Changing attitudes without changing traditional education practices such as lectures and passive learning is not enough. In other words, if instructors ask students to work hard, then they have to provide learning pathways where students can actually succeed. Acrobatiq courseware does just that by offering students multiple opportunities to learn through varied exercises with access to hints and personalized practice. According to Duckworth, people who are gritty don’t just keep working no matter what. They have to believe that they can achieve their goals. Experiencing success after working hard at learning in one situation can instill optimism in another. By organizing the learning of complex concepts around simpler skills, Acrobatiq  paves the way for students by allowing them to "rack up" simpler success experiences that lead to achieving a greater goal. If students using this process falter, their experience has taught them: "I can do this; didn’t I ace the last exercise/unit/chapter?"  Each "win" confirms that they can learn by persevering—a strategy they can use throughout their lives.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/29205886@N08/Lately, I have been on a podcast binge. Since being adopted by our dog Yuki, I suddenly have to listen while we go on our early morning and night walks. I thought this would be  a good time to share some of my current favorites.1. Teachers Talking Tech- Eric and Mike are two elementary teachers that produce a delightful podcast that is focused on classroom use. I love the free flowing approach and the useful information that only two practicing teachers can give you. It is also a great example of what teachers can do with technology to support others while still staying in the classroom.2. Education Next- Paul Peterson gives voice to relevant ed reform ideas. While I seldom agree with his stance, he does present an informed and often challenging views.3. TED Radio Hour- Originally TED was consumable, you could watch everything. Now with time and many local TED conferences I need someone to help me get inspired. TED radio hour does just that by organizing multiple speakers around a topic. The hour does not include full talks, instead, there is just enough to whet my appetite, inspire and send me looking for the full talks.4. History of English podcast is my guilty pleasure. I will readily admit that I am a history Nerd and the podcast combines history and language. Kevin Stroud is very thorough (although I have to admit that I listen at 1.5 speed). If you are interested in English and have some commute/ walk time this is a great way to learn something about the most commonly spoken language on the planet.What are the podcasts you listen to?

This is my third full year in business, and my second year filing taxes for my small business. I’ve learned a few things since last year, and I thought I’d share some of that with you! This year has been a breeze doing my taxes, and hopefully these simple tips can help you hate tax season just a little bit less. 1. Allot Administrative Time This sounds incredibly boring, but I promise - you will save time in the long run. If you allot a certain number of hours per week or per month to completing administrative tasks, you will have a much smaller headache come tax time when you’re trying to track down invoices, calculate sales tax, itemize expenses, etc. I try to give myself 3 hours per month to tackle anything and everything administrative. Most times I need fewer than 3 hours, so overshooting the allotment makes me feel better about myself when I finish in less time. 2. Maintain a Spreadsheet Some folks I know use bookkeeping software to track all of their expenses and income; I have gone back to the stone age a bit and maintain an excel spreadsheet. This spreadsheet has been pre-programmed with calculations to account for sales tax (a necessary evil here in Canada), and it pulls information from my various income and expense books into one main book that balances all of it out. It’s glorious! My spreadsheet goes hand-in-hand with point #1; when I work through my administrative tasks, I populate this spreadsheet as I go. Doing this throughout the year saves a TON of time in the long run. Instead of spending days labouring over my tax forms, I simply pull data from my spreadsheet and toss it into the tax software. 3. Invest in Software I know I just mentioned going back to the stone age with my spreadsheet, but hey! Excel is software, right? It might not be bookkeeping software, but it does the trick. When it comes to investing in software, I am specifically talking about tax software. I use H&R Block’s tax software because 1) I don’t have time to manually calculate all of my taxes, 2) it’s free up to so many returns, 3) my refund comes expediently, and 4) they have built in information related to my provincial tax requirements and rebates. Last year I used their software and it was easy peasy!

    Develop elearning that encourages your audience to explore, try, and learn instead of forcing facts into their brains. Here is a great article by Nogginlabs Custom e-Learning about some of the mistakes designers make and how to improve the audience’s experience. via Your learners are not stupid. They are bored.

  With technology storming the learning sector like never before, concerns over the privacy of classroom are on the rise. The educational software and applications industry has been growing at a staggering rate and is today valued at around 8 billion dollars. Educational institutes are constantly experimenting with new technological tools that are supposedly designed to improve the learning experience for children and more importantly, make the job of the educator easier. Unfortunately, there is no structured regulation regarding the use of these software applications in schools and a lot of questions are being raised about the security issues that these programs pose in ensuring the privacy of the classroom. In most case scenarios, parents or students are not required to provide their consent for creating, storing, or distributing the huge volume of records that are currently being generated in schools. This could dramatically affect preserving the privacy of classroom.   Sea of Content   When it comes to privacy of classroom, another significant aspect worth noting is the volume of content in the form of apps being used by parents and children. If a recent research is to be taken into consideration, more than 10% of all app downloads in the Apple App Store is comprised of learning applications. This would point towards a surge in interest to explore and try out the latest learning applications within a growing demographic that is becoming tech savvy. What is deeply concerning here is the lack of regulation of data sharing guidelines for these various software platforms. Most people just skip the "Permissions Screen" and just download the app without asking any questions. Very few people actually ask why, how, and when student information is being shared. The tremendous amount of data being collected from students and the end to which this data is being used is definitely something we need to be cautious about. Parents and students alike need to understand why privacy of classroom is a crucial issue.   Potential Downsides of Software   Today, there are a multitude of classroom management software that is supposedly aimed to provide an effective monitoring system for the behavior and implementation of discipline among students. Many of these applications do not address need to ensure privacy of classroom. Although on the surface, this would definitely be a positive tool for educators reaching out to a high number of students, there are negative impacts that such a system can have on students and their learning experience. Any software works on the basis of observed trends and algorithms. It’s basically about recording information, identifying a trend, and working it through an algorithm to arrive at certain conclusions. This could result in the pigeonholing of students and risk them being "typecast" in a certain "category." They could be put on a certain pattern of learning, which is specifically designed for a "category" and will stay on that track long after he or she has undergone a significant change in his/her behavioral and disciplinary patterns. This is another reason why preserving privacy of classroom is important.   Outside the Classroom   Apart from obvious concerns of the privacy of classroom, there are privacy issues that spill out of the classroom. A lot of school buses have video cameras installed in them that monitor students from the time they get on until they get down at their designated stop. Are children comfortable being monitored? Who handles the video clips and how securely are they being stored?   It is the collective responsibility of educators, software providers, and parents to ensure that the privacy of classroom is maintained and that any data that needs to be collected go through a transparent and secure system that does not affect the overall quality of learning.   The post The Importance of Privacy of Classroom appeared first on Fedena Blog.

Mark Wagner, CEO, EdTechTeamYou may have noticed the slow introduction of EdTechTeam's new logo. We're very excited to be rolling it out more widely in the coming weeks and months. As a continued evolution of our earlier logos, it has many familiar elements that you may recognize. The green leaves still represent the organic nature of student growth (and student agency in schools), which has always been our focus. The circuits (or network nodes), which appear now as the veins in the leaf, still represent the important role that technology (and networks of all kinds) play in the learning and development of today's students. Each of the five nodes also stands for one of the key elements of school change that now drive so much of our work: Courageous Leaders, Empowered Teachers, Engaged Community, Inspiring Spaces, and Robust Infrastructure. We believe the cleaner, simpler, and more modern look of the new leaf will be more useful (and more appealing) in a variety of media, including app icons, swag (think backpacks), and smaller printed formats such as the spine of a physical book.This new logo is also part of a logo system that will clearly and visually bring together all of EdTechTeam's services and products, including our conference-style summits, our custom professional development programs, our online courses, our regional subsidiaries, our forthcoming books, our free community engagements, and much more. We hope this will make it easier for educators around the world to recognize which events and resources are provided by EdTechTeam - so you'll know when you can expect the inspiring and empowering (often fun) experiences EdTechTeam is known for. (We are also proud to produce Breakout EDU, but that brand remains independent as we believe it also has a great deal of potential beyond the usual bounds of EdTechTeam.) We'd love to hear your thoughts about the new logo - and we hope you'll use it to share what we have to offer with your friends and colleagues. Thank you for being a part of EdTechTeam's evolution over the past 10 years. We hope we'll be learning with you, and serving your students, for many more. This is only the beginning.

Learning Commons Technology Mini-MOOC The purposes of a Library Learning Commons are inherent in the 5 Standards of the Canadian Library Association. They can be found in the Leading Learning Document. They are as follows: Facilitating collaborative engagement to cultivate and empower a community of learners. Advancing the learning community to achieve school goals. Cultivating […]

Check out this website for innovative knowledge building with virtual book clubs!  Innovating Knowledge by Deborah McCallum

Holistic Tech Integration in the Library Learning Commons

Many books provide a good read and then go on the shelf, where they stay. The latest publication from the 70:20:10 Institute, 702010 towards 100% performance, is not that type of book. It should stay on the desk of any learning & development professional and be used as a constant resource. The book is big, in number of pages, size, and content. I was amazed at how much practical information the authors were able to put into it, and how accessible it is. The book consists of 100 practitioner-focused  articles, many of which provide checklists and examples. It is focused on helping people to implement the reference model. Five roles are identified (not all for traditional L&D professionals) with sections focused on each: Performance Detective Performance Architect Performance Master Builder Performance Game Changer Performance Tracker The reference model integrates training, performance improvement, and social learning. This book fills a gap in the professional literature on workplace learning and provides a much-needed integrated perspective. The golden age of training is over, and it’s time to "pop the training bubble". "The twentieth century was the golden age of training. Organisational learning achieved worldwide growth, with more L&D professionals, trainees, theories, research, conferences, instructional design models and professional associations as well as bigger budgets. It made sense to separate work from learning, replicate the schooling process and and provide formal solutions in classrooms or conference rooms away from the workplace. This was the beginning of the training bubble … The training bubble was the logical consequence of twentieth-century Taylorism, with its emphasis on standards and efficiency. As it expanded, so learning and working became separated, and L&D produced and delivered training, and later eLearning, on a larger scale. The bubble was an effective response to the twentieth century view of organisational development, with its strong need to provide formal, standardised learning and even to track the amount of time employees spent on it." I highly recommend this book, and it is not one I will be giving away anytime soon. I look forward to the pending release of the 70:20:10 app and the launch of the online community. In the meantime, you can dip into the model with the moving to social workshop.

Kids Discover Online is home to over 1000 articles covering an enormous variety of science and social studies topics.  For those familiar with the Kids Discover publication, the organization has now made some impressive moves into digital content.  For those not familiar, stick around, because Kids Discover Online has some excellent content for 3rd - 8th grade students.  See more on our Reviews Page

How passionate are you about the career you have chosen for yourself?  Does it seem like maybe you should be doing something different… ALL THE TIME?  My brain is itching and I think its time to find something new to do… am I normal? Check this Ted Talk out:

Throughout the year, I have had opportunities to work directly in classrooms on digital learning initiatives. Each of those moments seemed to inform a new reality that we needed to face from 5th graders not having the foundational skills needed to simply use a computer beyond online testing tools or kids not having access to any form of learning in a connected world. Then…there was the realization that our wifi access needed a major boost on every campus because as a district that fully supports BYOD, making sure that every person could connect at least one device should be a priority. Today, I talked to two young men on our robotics team. One of them stated that he actually started writing code when he realized that in order to make the game that he downloaded from "STEAM", collaborative, he needed to create a server. Youtube was his teacher. He is not enrolled in Computer Science and as of now, his schedule doesn’t even permit it until junior year. On our robotics team, he decided to program because he wanted to learn more about computer languages. Six days per week…after school and all day Saturday, he does. The other student chimed in that he has never had a computer in his home. They have wifi for their mobile devices, but he didn’t have a laptop…until he was given one as a student in our High School STEM program. Having that computer enabled him to access not only his school work, but the programs and videos needed to continue learning about writing code for the team’s robots. Having that computer meant that he was no longer limited by learning what he needed when mobile browsers aren’t enough. As of now, we do not give every student a laptop. I hope that we can revisit this soon. Like many districts, we collected Brightbytes data at the beginning of the year. It allowed us to see a snapshot of the access that our students had and did not have. I love brightbytes because it informed quite a few decisions on what we needed to provide for our teachers and students but the realities often fail to become real until you are actively experiencing them. Earlier today I shared a video on Periscope of a student, Elie, designing an SD card holder for SLR cameras to be printed on the 3D printer. Elie works with Lockheed Martin as a student intern through a partnership with our CTE program. Last week, I spent some time talking to him about some of his projects and learning that he was passionate about providing computers for families in need. He is so passionate that his eagle scout project is to refurbish and build computers for single mothers and families in need in one of our housing projects. To him, everyone should have access to a computer and I imagine that he came to understand it even more as a student surrounded by those that did not have such a luxury. (Stay tuned in the coming weeks to learn how you can help his project) To those that scream that kids can write entire essays on their mobile phones, I would like to point you to the student that I mentioned earlier who only had a phone, until his school gave him a computer. I saw his phone and let me just say that typing an entire essay on that phone would have been completely impossible. Not every "smart phone" is as smart as an iphone or the latest android. He did, however, play minecraft on that phone…so there’s that. This evening, a student mentioned to me that he had never seen as many black students as there are on this year’s robotics team and he was excited that they were there. One of our black students, a senior, joined the team for the first time this year. When I asked him what took him so long, he responded that he had no idea that it existed until he was placed in a class taught by their robotics coach. He wishes that he knew about it sooner. His teacher, fully aware, said…"We’re working on it". And she is. Personally, I am deeply happy that he has her as his teacher. Her presence means the world to all of her students, especially those of the Lufkin HS Pantherbots. One more thing… If you are in a role in school where you are charged with making decisions for kids, especially on technology and digital learning, please do so only after getting involved with your schools at the core and having some conversations with kids…specifically those whose decisions you make will impact the most. Also, read the National Edtech Plan (NETP16) Aside from talking to kids, it’s a start.

According to the Klout score and the Top Influencers web page I rank like this at the moment:GENERAL LIST:Bizkaia, Basque Country, Spain: #23http://topinfluencers.net/?state_id=16TEACHERS LIST:Spain #37http://topinfluencers.net/?activity_id=23

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