Here's my second summer book report (blog report) on the best of what I've been hearing about education:
If anything you read below inspires you or if you just want to get a head start on your PDP next year, click here:
http://piedmontpd.weebly.com/piedmont-pd/take-charge-of-your-professional-development

All You Ever Needed to Know about Personalized Learning
http://pl.cmslearns.org/
Amazing Personalized Learning site that explains the direction CMS is heading and offers all the latest tools in one spot thanks to Jill Thompson.  (Note the shout out to Piedmont on this page  as Ms. Newburger transforms the media center into a 21st century makerspace showplace. )

Mr. Parkins' Summer Faves:

If it's recommended by Mr. Parkins you know it's good.

Try the links below for a few easy ways to go 21st C. this school year- invite a backchannel or other audience response into your usual lessons- it increases engagement, participation, feedback, and some even make instant data graphs for you. To start, all you do is call one of these up on the projector and invite students to participate via their BYOT devices or chromebooks or ipads. (You will get a code or address for them to join you)




www.socrative.com

www.mentimeter.com

www.todaysmeet.com

www.polleverywhere.com

Speaking of BYOT, Mr. Parkins also recommends If you have a smartphone or tablet try Apps Gone Free- download it in your app store - saves tons of money and lets you try new apps to get new ideas of how to use i-devices in the classroom. Share this with your students as well.
Speaking of Students, besides remind 101 there is a new site people like called Remind.com https://www.remind.com/

Click the links within any tweet to know more.  
If I were going to have you glance at my twitter feed this week, these are the tweet's I'd most hope you'd see:

Links worth checking out and/or Passing on:

Personalized Learning Myths-
Stop The False Generalizations About Personalized Learning http://onforb.es/1nREQiN

Digital Citizenship-
https://magic.piktochart.com/output/1328944-nycdoe_create-the-digital-image-
If you don't have time tomorrow to talk to your students about their digital footprints (in preparation for summer), you can post this to your summer reading site or just teach it next year. Links at the bottom go to other Digital Citizenship topics like cyberbulling

Deeper Thinking-
Every time we review for standardized testing we reinforce the one correct answer shallow thinking model. This is necessary for some tasks but not all and not worth the weight we give it in education. Not sure what that means as long as we judge students, teachers and schools based on standardized scores but I do know that once the child leaves academia, it will be of little use to him or her. pic.twitter.com/b8uYjwxLAj

Resources for inquiry lessons (PBL) -

• PBL Projects and explorations https://docs.google.com/a/cms.k12.nc.us/document/d/1F64ITXnUPNLKCh0Y-gMvdWkCpijtt0wzmEQM19jSsYk/mobilebasic

• Creating a board game in mathematics PBL-

http://mrkempreflects.blogspot.sg/2014/06/pbl-in-mathematics-creating-board-game.html?m=1&utm_content=buffer58661&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

 Using Urban Resources for Education (Museums, Libraries, etc)

"In 10 years, I’m hoping our cities are our classrooms." - Amy Eshleman
http://t.co/PVAEFcHhfS - (I didn't listen to the podcast but reading the link alone is a good idea)
This experiential learning model and reminds me of Piedmont's walking field trips:

You may have heard of Net Neutrality and know that it will affect your entertainment, but do you know that net neutrality is an important education issue in a democratic society and is even more important to our students and children than it is to us as teachers and parents? 

The FCC's servers recently crashed under the weight of the volume of comments. However, your voice is still needed. 

Here is why teachers and students and parents should:

We are on in the midst of an age as monumental as any in human history. The free and open internet is creating entrepreneurial and educational opportunities for our children.  If net neutrality had not existed, Khan Academy may never have become a thing. Your child may be the next Sal Khan, or you child may NEED the next Sal Khan. Either way, we cannot afford to slow this change and close down these opportunities.  

If you think the printing press was big, you have no idea where we are headed thanks to the internet. If net neutrality is stopped, that will jeaopardize the gains we are making and have made toward open educational and entrepreneurial opportunites such as described here in this recent speech at the Harvard Business School Graduation (Skip to minute 6:00 for the heart of the talk as it relates to this issue:  
http://youtu.be/ac0Kq3jSsp4 )

Click here to submit your comments on Net Neutrality (14-28)  

http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/upload/display?z=cjsqt

If the link does not open to an Express page where you can submit a comment into a text box under your name and address, then select the words ECFS express at the top then select 14-28

Here is a ready-made comment you can take or adjust to your situation and beliefs:
As an educator who believes in the power of an open internet for both the current education and future entrepreneurship opportunities of our students, I support net neutrality.  Thank you. 

Here is the  humorous but factual explanation (somewhat crude, but bleeped) that inspired the FCC server crash: (even though I highly disagree with him about the value of Caillou)

FCC link courtesy of http://consumerist.com/2014/05/15/how-to-tell-the-fcc-exactly-what-you-think-about-the-proposed-net-neutrality-rule/

Here are some links if you want to think big thoughts about education.

Big thoughts about Grading
-What do your grades represent? Here are the latest in teh conversation raging about standards based, mastery, the failure of averages and percents.

How Did You Learn How to Learn
-Howard Garnder, multiple intelligences (not learning styles) and the failures of intuition.

Big Thoughts about Privilege
Goes to a short Google Doc with resources for thinking about and discussing race as it relates to education. really interesting quotes. Conversation welcome. More on race here.