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Who are Your Favorite Education and Technology Bloggers and Writers?

Like many of you, there are certain educators that I find frequently impact my thinking and teach me new things through their published works. Here I offer 10 of my favorites. Some of these passionate and informed minds have inspired me for years, and others I have become aware of more recently. Of course, there are plenty of other wonderful educators writing and sharing great ideas across the Web and in conferences and schools around the world every day, so I hope you - the reader - will share some of your favorites too!

Terry Heick of TeachThought

I first met Terry at the 2013 TLIPAD conference, but I had already been very aware of his excellent work on TeachThought for some time. Readers who regularly dip into our " Tweet Wrap" posts will note that TeachThought is probably the most used source for quality content that makes it to that end-of-week summary. Terry and his staff produce a constant stream of top notch articles that get us all thinking about how teaching can and should be evolving in this modern age. Check out our 2014 interview with Terry here.

Vicki 'Cool Cat Teacher' Davis

Teachers all over the world love the Cool Cat Teacher, and for good reason! Vicki's contributions to teaching and education technology are consistently inspiring and informative. She has been awarded Edublogâ€™s â€œBest Teacher Blogâ€ award, and has received numerous other accolades for her teaching and education technology thought leadership. Check out Vicki's Every Classroom Matters podcast, or read about her newest book, Reinventing Writing: The 9 Tools That Are Changing Writing, Teaching, and Learning Forever. We also interviewed Vicki last year here on EmergingEdTech.

Richard Byrne (FreeTech4Teachers)

Richard's site has a HUGE following, as if that's a surprise - teachers need free stuff! Frankly, I'm a tad jealous of his brilliant, simple approach with the multi-award-winning FreeTech4Teachers - a fun site name and an outstanding concept. Who doesn't love free! Of course, there's much more to what he does than just share free stuff, he helps teachers learn how they can use these tools, and he offers a variety of other professional development opportunities and sites. I don't think a week goes by that I don't learn about another free tool I was unaware of, thanks to Richard's work.

Kathy Schrock

Kathy was our keynote speaker at last year's TLIPAD conference, and she was such a pleasure to meet. She's knows so much! Her keynote opened my eyes to the power of Digital Storytelling, and I've been tapping into what that vein of thought and those resources regularly since. Her different sites offer a wealth of tools, tips, and techniques that any teacher could spend endless hours learning from. We interviewed Kathy here on the site last year too!

Larry Ferlazzo

If you've been paying any attention to education technology over the last few years, you've probably come across Larry's name more than once. His blog has received numerous Edublog Awards, and he's become a rather prolific author. His work on student motivation has really caught my eye, and I look forward to reading his newest book, Building A Community Of Self-Motivated Learners, which will be available in a few days.

Sal Khan (Khan Academy)

Sal Khan has certainly evolved into somewhat of a celebrity in the world of teaching and technology. The Khan Academy is at the forefront of much of what technology can do enhance instructional processes. While Sal Khan himself does not seem to have a direct channel where he is sharing insights on a regular basis, his work in books like The One World School House: Education Reimagined and published interviews and talks, and the occasional article, have provided plenty of opportunities to learn and be inspired by his ideas.

Jackie Gerstein

Jackie publishes the wonderful blog User Generated Education, where she writes regularly about "Education as it should be - passion-based". I first got familiar with her work several years ago through outstanding articles she wrote about the Flipped Classroom. She's also written a great ebook, The Flipped Classroom: The Full Picture, which I highly recommend, and The Internet and Social Networking for Social Emotional Learning (which I just downloaded, I've been meaning to read it for a while and this reminded me to do so!). Her passion comes across clearly in her interview on this site here last year, and articles like, " Schools are still killing creativity ".

Audrey Watters

Audrey and her HackEducation web site are widely known in ed tech circles, and she is one of the most powerful and outspoken ed tech writers and speakers you will come across. She is not afraid to speak her mind, and she is absolutely worth listening to! Her site's tagline, "The History of the Future of Education Technology" reflects her genius (IMHO). The self-professed "trouble maker" regularly delivers impassioned talks, has several books in the works, and if you really want to stay up on what's going on in education and instructional technology news, here is her in-depth Weekly News page.

Jon Bergmann

I can honestly say that Jon Bergmann and co-conspirator Aaron Sams changed my life. I am not alone in that sentiment, as no one has done more to propel the grassroots Flipped Classroom movement forward than these two gentleman. I've written about their work many times, and had the pleasure of meeting them both at last year's FlipCon14 conference. I focus on Jon here because he writes and shares a wide variety of content more regularly than Aaron, but they both have much too offer. Learn about their hallmark book, Flip Your Classroom, in this article.

Robert Talbert

I recently started following Talbert on his Huffington Post blog Casting out Nines after reading a few of his articles, such as " Flipped learning skepticism: Can students really learn on their own?" I think he speaks very effectively to the challenges and objections that flipped instruction can encounter, and he does so from a very experienced perspective. Additionally, his writings on a wide variety of education related topics, from "GTD" ( Getting Things Done) to the wastefulness of unsolicited copies of textbooks speak well to efficiency, effectiveness, and other objectives that hit home for me.
Follow these amazing educators on Twitter:
In addition to the blogs, websites, and other sources cited above, most of these educators post on Twitter pretty regularly. Here are their Twitter User Names:

So how about you? Who do you follow? There are so many amazing bloggers, writers, speakers, and authors focused on education and technology! I'm always excited to come across another new teacher, technologist, or other individual who educates and inspires me regularly with their content, so, please, go ahead, drop a comment and share a favorite!

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10 Brilliant and Inspiring Education and Technology Experts I Follow, and Why

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Like many of you, there are certain educators that I find frequently impact my thinking and teach me new things through their published works. Here I offer 10 of my favorites. Some of these passionate and informed minds have inspired me for years, and others I have become aware of more recently.

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All (53) Mathematics (26) Language Arts (19) Science (4) Social Studies (5)

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Despite having been raised by two teachers and working for an ed tech company, I knew that sending my oldest off to kindergarten this year would be an education for me.

Volunteering in his class, I was blown away by the range of skills these five-year-olds brought. Some were reading books and writing in complete sentences before the first day, while others were still learning the alphabet.

How could any teacher manage such disparity in her daily lessons, much less challenge the advanced kids while nurturing those who needed some extra help? Obviously this is where "self-paced" and "individualized" learning get their appeal.

In the classroom, I got my first real-world experience with the difference between self-paced learning in a blended learning form compared with its pre-digital form - workbooks and worksheets. And what a world of difference they are.

Traditional Self-paced Program for Reading

The kindergarteners were divided into groups by reading level for bi-weekly Response to Instruction (RTI) reading lessons. The students rotate in groups from a writing lesson with the teacher to a reading comprehension session with volunteer parents, like me. The reading comprehension program is self-paced, with a dozen color-coded booklets and corresponding worksheets each child must complete. Every child is working on a different workbook (there's only one copy of each in the classroom) and then they trade off as they finish, progressing at their own pace

Digital Self-paced Program for Math

For math the entire class uses the online game-based program ST Math weekly in the computer lab and occasionally in rotation model in the classroom with a half dozen ipads and computers. (Full disclosure, I work for the nonprofit that creates ST Math and let my son play the games at home for months before he started at school.)

The self-paced reading comprehension system requires an adult to keep track of who's completed which workbook and make sure they are trading off a new one. It's not an exact science, nor a very efficient one. A child may wait a few minutes for us to figure out which workbook he still needs to complete and retrieve it from another student.

With digital tools, this isn't an issue. The program can seamlessly and fluidly advance the child to the next problem or a level of difficulty

After class, we correct the worksheets the students worked on (some completed two, some completed seven, each working at their own pace). Unfortunately, there's no chance for me to tell Madison that the picture of a baby flower is a "bud" not, as she wrote, a "bit." So she missed an opportunity to learn a new vocabulary word.

With the online program like ST Math, if a student selects four blocks as the answer to what one block plus two blocks equals, the program immediately shows that she's one short. This helps learning occur.

3. Teachers can be more efficient

Another parent and I correct the worksheets. Everyone completed different workbooks that day, so there is no single answer key to check them against. It's quick and easy, but this kind of mundane task is a time-suck for a teacher's valuable time. Except for one reason...

4. Identifying struggling students is easier

When I correct the papers, I notice that certain students are struggling significantly more than others. That's information that the teacher needs - and preferably during the course of the lesson, not after class.

Good digital tools give teachers access to reports about how the students are progressing overall, and if there are any struggling right that moment that need special attention.

5. Digital is more natural

With the reading groups, toggling between the workbooks with the questions and the worksheets where they write their answers presents a surprising array of challenges for the kinders, who seem to write the answers on the wrong lines or in the wrong sections, even after a few weeks of practice.

I watched a class of 30 kindergarteners simultaneously sit down and start clicking away in ST Math the first day after watching an intro video. By comparison, this seemed so much simpler.

6. "There's no achievement gap in videogames"

There are a number of ELL students in my son's class and one or two with learning challenges. One student in particular seems to constantly struggle with following directions in class. It seems there are too many distractions for him to focus on the teacher in front of him or the task that's literally at hand. But I noticed he was unusually focused in in the computer lab, more in the zone with ST Math than I've ever seen him. Watching this student brought to mind my colleague Dr. Art McCoy's favorite saying: "There's no achievement gap in video games."

Not all digital tools are game-based, but ST Math is, and for comparison, this is a lot more fun than a seemingly endless stream of worksheets. Words cannot express the disappointment on the face of a child when I told him that even though he'd completed all 12 of the purple reading comprehension workbooks, he had dozens more workbooks in other colors to complete.

This isn't an issue with video games, where kids are competing with themselves to advance to the next level. In ST Math, for example, students are solving problems to help JiJi the penguin cross the screen and get home. This paradigm is as old as Mario Brothers, and intrinsically compelling.

When my son used ST Math at home, I remember him gleefully exclaiming, "Yes! 100%" when he completed a level with no errors. Work is more fun when it's a game.

8. Failure isn't failure with video games

I have to admit, I have never been a gamer. But even I understand that there is no stigma with losing in video games. You just play again, challenging yourself to make it further next time. When my son played ST Math at home, he rarely started with "Yes! 100%" He usually started with an equally gleeful "Yes! 18%" followed a few minutes later by "Yes! 40%." Of course, in the context of schoolwork, those sound like failing grades to me. But it doesn't carry that same meaning for a five-year-old nor does it with gaming. He was excited to be, essentially, failing a level and getting a chance to play it again for a higher score. ST Math is all about learning by doing, and embracing the failure as an essential part of the learning process.

But the red ink on those worksheets with 2 out of 6 correct answers? I haven't seen one of the kids react to that yet, but I'm afraid it would still feel something like failure.

My few months of volunteering in my son's class have given me deeper insight into education than my previous 10 years working in industry. And one takeaway is that if you have a great teacher and you want her to spend valuable time with your student, I hope she's got some powerful digital learning tools at her disposal.

This blog is part of our Smart Parents Series in partnership with the Nellie Mae Education Foundation. We would love to have your voice in the Smart Parents conversations. For more information about the project see Parents, Tell Your Story: How You Empower Student Learning as well as other blogs:

Christine Byrd is communications manager for the education nonprofit MIND Research Institute. She shares the beauty of math with her sons through everyday activities like baking, bike-riding and building blocks. Follow her on Twitter @cabyrdie.

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8 Ways Blended Learning Changes the Game

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Despite having been raised by two teachers and working for an ed tech company, I knew that sending my oldest off to kindergarten this year would be an education for me. Volunteering in his class, I was blown away by the range of skills these five-year-olds brought.

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Project Noah | Networked Organisms And Habitats

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Project Noah is a tool that nature lovers can use to explore and document local wildlife and a common technology platform that research groups can use to harness the power of citizen scientists everywhere.