As a busy teacher, it can be hard to find the time to sit down and read teaching blogs, articles, or books for motivation and professional development. Luckily, we live in the golden age of the podcast, making it possible to listen to this same motivational and educational content while you’re doing something else, like commuting to school, organizing your classroom, or making dinner at home.

Because podcasts are easy to record and publish, there’s an extremely rich market of content to choose from. Weeding through all this content can take time, but we’ve done the research for you and found 10 inspiring and interesting podcasts with great reviews and ratings. All of the podcasts on this list are rated 4.5 stars or higher on Apple podcasts, so you know they’ll have great content!

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.

Industry Influencers Leading the Way

As we enter a new school year, we thought it would be interesting to look at the change-makers leading the way in EdTech this year. Previously, we created a comprehensive list of the top 20 influencers in education technology, and earlier this year, we shared 10 more industry leaders. The EdTech industry is constantly growing and changing, so today we're sharing five more innovative influencers making active change to shape education for the future.

If you’re like me, you ended the school year with summer goals: work-related tasks, household chores, educational books to read, and so on. You may have been assigned a book by your administrator, or perhaps you’re taking a class that requires intensive reading. As an English major, lifelong reader, and elementary teacher-librarian, I believe in the power of stories. And as much as I enjoy reading books that help me become a better teacher, I also like to read positive and inspirational stories about students and teachers.

Over 20,000 industry professionals from 81 different countries were in attendance at the 2019 ISTE Conference & Expo in Philadelphia, and more than 550 companies came out to present their EdTech solutions. For every teacher, administrator, technology specialist, and education leader in attendance, this year’s conference offered many opportunities to discover new products, explore innovative ideas, and develop new connections with others in the industry.

After another exciting year at ISTE, the Boxlight team has returned home with new industry trends in mind as we approach the 2019–20 academic year. Keynote speeches, BYOD sessions, and vendor presentations at the conference focused on a wide variety of EdTech topics and trends from robots to human connection. For those who were able to attend, the 2019 conference made a lasting impression.

Educators tend to focus on what students know in school. We teach, we test, and we intervene if needed. We also take into consideration the social and emotional wellbeing of students, caring about their socialization and their effort. But one of the most foundational factors in a student’s future is often ignored. One thing that, when changed, can literally change the course of a person’s life: their belief.

When school districts invest in technology, the tools they buy must be user-friendly, integrated, and ready to use to support instruction—not something that creates an additional burden for teachers. That’s the foundation that Clayton County Public Schools (CCPS)—Georgia’s fifth-largest school district—used in 2018 when it was time to refresh digital classroom tools.

Years earlier, CCPS had spent millions of dollars putting digital technology into classrooms, ending up with a very disjointed solution that included projectors from one manufacturer, whiteboards from another, student response systems made by a third provider, and slates and cameras by yet another. “None of it worked well together,” says Chief of Technology Rod Smith, M.Ed. “From an instructional standpoint, teachers need something that's seamless so they can save instructional time and focus on teaching students.”

Another year full of new and innovative EdTech ideas, products, and methods has come to an end, and you may find yourself wondering who is guiding progress in the EdTech industry at the start of 2019. Back in 2015, we made a comprehensive list of the Top 20 Influencers in EdTech, but since then, many new faces have joined in to champion growth within the industry. Here are 10 more EdTech influencers who are working to shape the industry today: