Sheila recently launched her brand new website for teachers that is completely centered around helping teachers teach happy, live happy, and be happy. Sheila exudes happiness and positivity, and so does her website. Teachers: go check it out and consider getting the VIP membership. You won't regret it. I am so honored to have been interviewed by her.  She has interviewed Greg Smedley from Kindergarten Smorgasboard, Amanda Nickerson from One Extra Degree, Christina DeCarbo from Sugar and Spice, need I say more????  Not to mention, she interviewed my best friend and queen of interactive notebooks Angie Olson last year. You can follow her You Tube channel to make sure you don't miss any of this goodness. An interview with One Fab Teacher, Miss May, will be live in March. She is truly fabulous and you will want to make sure you watch her interview! She has some great videos on Classroom Decorations, Classroom Tours, Organizing Student Work, and more!

• Be sure to visit George Couros' blog, and follow him on Twitter @gcouros. I've said it before, but George has been the single biggest influence on me as a professional and educator. If you have a few more minutes, watch his TEDx Talk too. I promise you won't be disappointed.
• You can read more about the Great Egg Test by reading my blog post and watching our movie trailer here.
• Learn more about Remind and how you can start incorporating it in your classrooms to keep the learning and conversations going at home.
• We have made several movies and trailers using iMovie. It is hands down one of my favorite apps for student creation. Here's the link to my blog video newsletters. And, here's the link to our Hobey Baker campaign for our friend and UND hockey goalie Zane McIntyre.
• If you're interested in incorporating the Audioboom app to improve your students' reading fluency, you can read my teacher tutorial on EdSurge.com. 
• Here's a great resource about the Explain Everything app. And, here's an Explain Everything video a student made this year. She took a picture of a problem in her math book, and demonstrated her understanding using the app. We know speaking, listening, and explaining understandings are huge in the common core. This app helps teachers and students bridge that gap.
• Here's everything you need to get Kahooting! 
• How to create a Kahoot! 
• 10 ways to use a Kahoot!
• Start Kahooting!
• Interested in learning more about the SAMR model? Kathy Shrock is an excellent resource for you! 

Digital Citizenship is something I am extremely passionate about. If we block students from everything, we may be protecting them temporarily. However, when teachers teach students about their digital footprint and give them tools to use in real life situations, they protect students for a lifetime. Thus, after some collaborating with Jen Jones, a new product for Teachers Pay Teachers was born. I think teachers want to talk about Digital Citizenship with kids, but they might not know about the tools that are out there. I have been using my product, in addition to the videos found on Planet Nutshell. My product includes 7 posters for your classroom with teacher minilessons and turn and talk discussion suggestions. It also has a letter for parents, 2 student readers, differentiation options for intermediate learners, and a certificate of completion. After using my product, the work really begins. Students need to be given real world opportunities to begin building their digital footprint. My product simply helps stir up the discussion and lay the foundation with your students. Sheila and I decided to host a giveaway for my new product, and we would love for you to win a copy! Here are some sneak peeks for you! Make sure you scroll to the bottom to enter the Rafflecopter! Good luck! 

Since we have been voting everyday for Zane, my students decided we should make a campaign with reasons why people should vote for him! We read Duck for President and after a lot of discussion, we came to the conclusion that our best option was to create a video! We used iMovie to create this movie trailer for Zane! Enjoy!
              

Thanks!

Hi families and friends! I am super duper excited to announce that I am one of 50 teacher bloggers in the United States selected to attend the 2015 EdExpo in Atlanta, GA! What a treat! This Friday, I'll be hopping on an airplane with my cyber-teacher friend turned real life best friend Angie Olson, and we will be meeting up with some of our favorite blogger friends from all over the US and Canada! We will be participating in a Georgia teacher blogger meet up on Saturday night, and we will spend Sunday and Monday walking through the Expo discovering the latest and greatest in technology and educational products for our schools. To say I am excited to network with these teachers would be an understatement! I have been Voxing, texting, and blogging with lots of these teachers for months and even years now, and we finally get to meet face to face! To see a list of the other fabulous bloggers attending this year, click here.

I'll be using all my social media networks while I'm there, so give me a follow by clicking the icons on the top right corner of my blog. I'll be posting about my weekend in Atlanta next week! Be sure to stop back.

Here's what is up in The Doghouse in February! Enjoy!

I am SO excited to tell you that today I interviewed with Sheila Jane Teaching! We talked all about Technology for 21st Century Educators, and she was just a doll! I don't think I could like or respect her any more than I already do. She has interviewed some HUGE names in education, so this was such an honor! In fact, right after my interview, she interviewed One Fab Teacher, Tiffany May! She is hands down the most positive teacher I have ever encountered.

We talked for about 90 minutes, but the actual video will only be about 15 minutes long after editing. She will take all of the juiciest parts to post on her blog, and YouTube channel. She will also make it into a podcast. It's all set to go live on February 20, and I'll post it here when it's ready! Here are two pictures from today!

In January, I was asked to guest moderate a Twitter chat about Integrating Technology in Today's Classrooms. Of course I jumped on the opportunity, and I can't wait to do it again! Technology infusion is a topic that I am extremely passionate about, and I enjoyed putting together the questions for the evening and connecting with all sorts of educators to compare thinking and philosophies. Here is a link to the chat, in case you want to take a peek.

An overall takeaway for me was that technology allows us to create experiences for our kids that were never before imaginable. Also, an inferior teacher with all the best technology in the world will still be an inferior teacher. However, putting technology in the hands of a passionate and forward thinking teacher can be transformational.

#ndedchat happens every Wednesdsay night at 9pm CST. I hope you'll join us soon! As Kelly Rexine (co-founder of #ndedchat) says, your students will reap all the benefits!