By now, you are likely fully immersed in the new year. Between diving into the curriculum, getting to know your students, and decorating your classroom, there’s a lot to accomplish as you kick off another great year. But the start of a new school year isn’t just about your students learning—it’s a great time for you to learn something new as well!

We’ve got you covered with engaging professional development to help you improve student outcomes all year long using the dynamic MimioStudio™ classroom software. For a limited time, you can earn your MimioStudio Educator or Expert certification for over 30% off the regular price. From now until October 31, 2019, you can earn six PD hours at the educator level for only $99 or 14 PD hours at the expert level for just $199!

Boxlight is excited to announce its 2019 fall webinar series, featuring insights from experienced leaders in EdTech. The new edition of the Transforming Learning in the Classroom webinar series will bring five free webinars about three unique topics, including using robotics to prepare students for college and careers, utilizing technology to promote critical thinking, and the fundamentals of project-based learning.

When a parent comes into school to discuss technology, they are typically not there to share positive feedback about all the recent wonderful integration lessons that have been going on in the classroom. It is usually just the opposite—concerns about how their student is accessing, using, overusing, or manipulating the technology in the classroom.

Although some of these concerns might be misplaced or lack knowledge about exactly what is going on, other concerns are very valid and need to be considered. So as a teacher or principal, it will be helpful to consider how to prepare for these concerns.

Teachers who are blessed with an assortment of technology in their classroom probably use it often—we are more likely to use something if it is readily available to us. But like any new tool, as we start to gain expertise and comfort with it, we use it more and more. And as we settle into a pattern of use with the technology, we probably feel as though it would be hard to live without.

But even if this is the case and usage is very high, teachers may find themselves in a groove, maybe even a rut, when it comes to how they use technology in their classroom. We limit ourselves to using the tool in ways that we already know and think less about the ways that we could be using it.

In part one of this series, we did a quick rundown of the ISTE standards. Looking closer at these standards, you’ll learn how they can help students to engage, and even more importantly, to think. Don’t be deceived—just because ISTE is a technology organization, the standards are about good teaching and not just about how we use technology in the classroom.

This year, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing. While it is easy to focus only on Apollo 11, this celebration of human achievement actually began in a somber way when we commemorated 50 years since the loss of the Apollo 1 crew, which occurred back in January of 1967. We moved on to remembering the first manned Apollo 7 mission from October 1968, and the audacious Apollo 8 flight to the moon in December of that same year. Apollo 9 cleared the way by testing the lunar lander in Earth orbit in March of 1969. Apollo 10 proved our ability to rendezvous in lunar orbit in May, which all led to the big event on July 20, 1969 when humans first set foot on the moon.

Back-to-school season can be stressful for many reasons: planning curriculum for the semester, finding resources and content, and gathering important materials to support your curriculum and students throughout the semester. On top of that, if you have school-aged children of your own, you will have to make sure they’re prepared for a new school year as well—and remember to make their lunches and get them to class on time every day.

Now certainly is an exciting time with the start of the new school year! It’s another opportunity to build relationships with students and truly make a difference in their world in ways we can’t even fully imagine. 

As you prepare your lessons this month, you may be looking for ways to engage your students as everyone settles in for the new year. We’ve got you covered with our collection of themed lesson content for September:

Happy back to school! I have no idea where summer went and why it keeps getting shorter every year. Yet, here we are—back to another school year and ready to change the world one student at a time. But before we can successfully do this, we’ve got to get organized!

I recently read a great quote by Christina Scalise. She said, “Organization isn’t about perfection; it’s about efficiency, reducing stress and clutter, saving time and money, and improving your overall quality of life.” The start of the school year can be stressful and overwhelming, so here are a few tips to help you ease into your year and improve your quality of life.