My reading lately has been flooded with advice that could be collectively categorized as “Back to School Wisdom and Advice”. It’s mid-August, I’m already getting excited to go to the Harrow Fair which happens on Labour Day and then you know what happens next.
Today, I decided to dig into the archive and pull these stories forward in a blog post so that they all appear together in one spot. I’ll do my best to keep this post updated over the next couple of weeks because there are some good ideas and stories. Like all collections, it’s time to cherry pick the ones that are applicable and helpful. Many of the links will take you to internet resources and that’s always good – I look for the free ones first. You may find a title repeated over and over again. Multiple endorsements certainly mean that they’re worth a look for your classroom. And, as always, your mileage may vary. It’s important to recognize that not every resource works for everyone and that’s OK.
Unlike the past where you might get a binder and a red pen from your school on the first day, when you go online, there are so many resources to make things richer. That makes everyone a winner.
Here goes:
- The Epic BYOD Toolchest (51 Tools You Can Use Now)
- First Five Days
- Will online education ever revolutionize learning?
- Supplies For Teachers
- 5 reasons to use world builders like Minecraft in the classroom
- Is First Grade Ready for Your Child?
- Education of the digital natives
- 17 Free Online Learning Sites that Provide High Quality Opportunities
- How to figure out what you really NEED to buy for your classroom
- Free Tech Top five
- Explain Everything comes to Chromebooks
- 100 Writing Practice Lessons & Exercises
- 21 Grab-And-Go Teaching Tools For Your Classroom
- 10 Back-To-School Tips For Teachers Using Google Docs
- Why New Teachers Need A Boot Camp
- 7 Types of Tech all High School Students Should Use this Year
- It’s Not Just You—Little Kids DO Get Too Much Homework!
- Failure is an option. Fear is not: Creating a safe intellectual space for learning
- How and why we let our students create their own timetables
- What are Wikis, and Why Should You Use Them?
- 10 things That Haven’t Changed for Teachers in 10 Years
- How A First-Day-Of-School Lesson Can Improve Classroom Management For The Rest Of The Year
- How Do You Start?
- When Back-to-School Means Back to Being Scared for Kids With Disabilities
- 3 Quick Tips for a Beautiful, Brain-Friendly Classroom
- What Happened When Our School Stopped Assigning Nightly Homework? More Learning! | National Association for the Education of Young Children
- 19 Back-To-School Classroom Ideas That Will Knock Your Students’ Socks Off
- 4 Questions Every Teacher Should Ask About Mobile Learning
- Four Traits of a Great Teacher
- Ten Things Master Teachers Do
- 10 Ways to use Instagram in the classroom
- Coding Schools Are at the Center of an Education Revolution
- Inclusive education means all children are included in every way, not just in theory
- Five academic papers all teachers need to read
- 10 awesome gadgets for teachers
- Classroom Blogging Options (August 2015)
- Applying Second Language Learning Strategies to E-Learning Design
- Getting Technology Right in Schools
- The top 10 edtech lessons I’ve learnt after 15 years in schools
- Back-to-School: 7 Questions Educators Should Ask
- Bring Interactive Adventures to the Classroom – Inklewriter
- Tech Tip: Share student work beyond the classroom walls
- What Cutting Edge Looks Like In A School In 2015
- Advice For Teachers? 10 Things To Not Lose Sight Of This Year
- Microsoft launches site for teachers taking Minecraft into the classroom
- Scratch for Budding Computer Scientists
- A Letter to my Dyslexic Child’s New Teacher
- Student Chrome Extensions
- Enhancing Learning Through Differentiated Technology
- 5 Back to school teacher tips that really work
- A Teacher’s Guide For Creating A School Twitter Chat
- Learning To Read Alone Is Not Enough. Your Students Need A Reading Champion.
OK, that took a lot longer and more copy/pasting than I had planned. I’m not doing this alone. If you’ve read a great back to school story, please add it in the contents.
UPDATE: August 18, 7am
- How School Made Me a Bad Teacher
- 11 YA novels not just for kids
- The First Five Minutes Are Critical
- 7 Tips for Moving Students to a Growth Mindset
- Apple Watch for the Teacher: Passing Notes 2015-Style
- What If All Teachers Had a Coach?
- 9 Virtual Tools For The Math Classroom
- What It Really Takes To Become an Elementary School Teacher
- Blogging in the Classroom- 5 Ways to keep students blogging
- Five Critical Skills to Empower Students in the Digital Age
- 14 Essential Google Search Tips for Students
UPDATE: August 19, 7am
- Teaching in September
- What Do Sixth Graders Say About Learning With Games? It Works
- Back to School Like a Boss! 10 Survival Tips
- Teachers Who Tweet
- Teaching how to think is just as important as anything else
- 8 Great iPad Games to develop kids mathematical thinking
- Online Course teaches kids to program while having fun
- Don’t Waste the First Day of School
- 8 Ways Educators Help Parents Promote Powerful Learning
- Guide Helps Educators Negotiate Social Media
- 50 Tips, Ideas and Tricks for Substitute Teachers
- 10 Critical Thinking Activities Students Will Love
Update: August 20, 2pm
- 7 Bygone Practices That Made Going Back to School Even Scarier
- Is it Initiative or Compliance?
- Will Your Students Be Digitally Fluent? Messages for 2015
- The Top 10 Characteristics of Globally Competent Teachers
- Office Mix For Student Learning
- Eight rules for cover lessons (from a frustrated supply teacher)
- 5 Ways of Bringing Student Passions to Student Learning
- Head back to school with useful apps before the bell rings
- 200 Free Textbooks: A Meta Collection
Update: August 21, 11am
- The Funniest Back-To-School Pep Talk You May Have Missed
- The Practical Ed Tech Handbook – Download It Today
- Noticing Tools
- Why Public Schools Don’t Teach Critical Thinking — Part 2
- We’re Spending $10 Billion On Kids’ Classroom Technology—But Does It Help Them Learn?
- Student Motivation Matters: 25 Tips and Strategies
- A letter to the kindergarten teacher from an adoptive mom
- 4 Ways Photomath Will Ruin Math Class This Year
- 4 Google Apps to Share Lesson Plans
- The Onus of Education – On the Importance of Teaching Kids About the Dangers of Social Media
- An Education Fit for the Times: Who Will Engage the Millennials?
- 8 little-known video resources popular with teachers
- Flipping continuing professional development
- 9 awesome photos of school computer labs from the 1980s
- 20 Things Kids Worry About on the First Day of School
- 5 Best Practices For Reimagining Professional Learning This Year
- Is Your Professional Development a Waste of Time?
- Learn How to Flip Your Classroom using Swivl!
Update: August 22, 10am
- 30+ Sites for Students Who Finish Early
- 6 Tips For Creating Effective Student Groups
- Education for Free
- Student Motivation Matters: 25 Tips and Strategies
- Educator Duo Reflects on How Design Thinking Has Transformed Their Teaching
- When You Flip, and it Flops. Lessons Learned from Flipping my Leadership.
- 5 Ways of Bringing Student Passions to Student Learning
- In Defense of Education
Update: August 25, 7am
- (Learning) time is on their side
- Connecting Students and Teachers for Better Learning
- Inquiry-Based Learning: The Power of Asking the Right Questions
- Listen To the Teachers Who Stay
- How to teach … robotics
- Mindfulness for Teachers — Considering Teachers’ Social and Emotional Well-Being
- Save Time This Year With 10 Free Tech Tools for High School Teachers
- Grading for Mastery and Redesigning My Gradebook
- Apple Watch’s best back-to-school feature? Teachers can’t spot it
- 10 Manners Parents Should Be Teaching Their Kids But Aren’t
Update: August 28, 10am
- 10 Ways Well-Meaning White Teachers Bring Racism Into Our Schools
- Use Homework to Ease Back-to-School Anxiety
- What Going Back to School is Like for an Introverted Student
- Storyboards in the Classroom – A Webinar Recording
- Creating Interactive Math Tasks With Google Sites
- 10 Things Smart Teachers Don’t Do
- 3 Things Every Student Should Understand About Education
- Teachers teaching teachers – how Google for Education fuels collaborative learning
- Focused curation – an indispensable role for the school librarian
- Using Minecraft (And Zombies) To Teach Coding And Math Skills
- Technology reshapes education, ‘making thinking visible’
- Making the flipped classroom work
- When Educators Make Space For Play and Passion, Students Develop Purpose
- 5 ways to Make Your Classroom LGBT Inclusive
- Connecting Students and Teachers for Better Learning
- Inquiry-Based Learning: The Power of Asking the Right Questions
- How to teach … robotics
doug --- off the record 