Approaching the start of a new year...

Okay peeps and tweeps, it's time for this year's round-up of inspiration and wholesome challenging goodness for the start of the school year. This is when I share who / what is challenging me right now with you... kind of an annotated bibliblography of awesome.


Are your students totally Psyched?

Okay, maybe they're not, but they should be. If you're a teacher, and you're not a Vlog Brothers fan (or a Nerdfighter like me), you may have missed this. I'm posting it here for you to share with your friends, colleagues, administrators, and, most importantly, your students. DFTBA


An Open Letter to Students Returning to School
John Green



Room Readiness

Ahhh... Room readiness. No matter what your district calls it, you probably have to go set up your junk this week or next week. What are you going to do differently? What will you keep the same? What is your core message? ...WHAT? I thought we were talking about room setup, not an essay or lecture. This year, I'm going to have to face the ideas that challenged me in this blog post, "The Secrets of Your Classroom - What Your Set Up Says About You", by Pernille Ripp. I now have to figure out how I'm going to go desk-less in the lab & still have a planning space...

Some Good Reads... pun totally intended

  • Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds - If you use computer visuals, such as Power Point, to give presentations to anyone, you owe it to them to read this book. No time for that now? I'll be curating some of the content in my Design Matters series, and Garr has a blog.
  • Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal -  To get a flavor of what you may experience in this book, you should check out this video and this video before you read. So much of this book resonates with what I see in my students. If you really want to understand what is going on with games, you need to read this book. At the very least, you will stop regurgitating all of the clichéd disparaging comments about your students and their games.
  • What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy by James Paul Gee - This is the practical application of Mcgonigal's book in education. It is also the required text for the course I'm facilitating this fall. Even if you're not up for the course, the book is a "must-read", not typically the case with required texts...

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