It's a new school year.

This school year has been a race so far. It all started in late August when I transitioned from our district's technology coach to be an 8th grade Social Studies teacher. Did I mention our district rolled out our K-12 1:1 iPad initiative at the beginning of the year, too? Needless to say, it's been a struggle to get my feet on the ground between helping the new tech coach transition in and making sure my lesson plans are good and ready. However, I miss blogging (both personally and professionally) and need an outlet to 'talk shop' (my husband can only listen for so long when I talk about 8th grade). So, here you'll find my ramblings on what we do in our 8th grade Social Studies classroom -- some technology, some paper-pencil, some classroom management and decor, and some pleas for help :) I hope you like what you read. If you're a middle school blogger, please leave a comment. Upper middle school bloggers seem in short supply and I'm always eager to find new blogs to read and new ideas!

-Mrs. Luckhardt!

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What is Blended Learning?

As a year has almost gone by in my transition to a blended learning coach, I'm realizing more and more just how passionate I am about blended learning. See, before I was introduced to blended learning I was always entranced and perhaps befuddled by the concept of "what's next?" in educational technology. I think, as educators, we tend to be searching for anything to help us reach every single one of our students. It's a never-ending race as our students change and move to the next grade, but still... we search. But when you think about blended learning, it's not so much about what's next, but rather, how we choose to incorporate it into our classroom to best impact student learning. So when I was facilitating a year-long professional learning opportunity with teachers and we tasked them with the "Chopped Challenge, Blended Learning Edition " I felt it necessary for me to play along, too. The task: Use all of the props placed in front of you...

MI Open Book: A Social Studies Book FOR Michigan Teachers BY Michigan Teachers

If you've been watching the news lately, you've heard about the MI Open Book project coming under fire. I'm not here to name names or point fingers, but I'm here to defend the process and vision of MI Open Book. Last year, Dave Johnson, an amazing social studies consultant for much (all??) of lower Northern Michigan, asked me to take part in the process of helping to write a digital 8th grade social studies text. At first, I hesitated...me? Write a textbook....uhhh, lemme think about that. But after I turned it over in my mind I realized something... I HAD AN OPPORTUNITY TO HELP DESIGN AN AMAZING TEXTBOOK FOR MY STUDENTS AND STUDENTS AROUND THE STATE OF MICHIGAN THAT WAS UNLIKE ANY OTHER TEXTBOOK THAT CURRENTLY EXISTS. So I said heck yeah! Obviously. Let me tell you a bit of what we've done thus far. We all got together for a few days in August. We met up with our 'author teams'. I don't think that my group is unique when I say that I am worki...

Using iTunes U in the Classroom.

It's been awhile, but I'm back with some of the cool things that we're doing in 8th Grade Social Studies. One of my favorite 'apps' to use for our iPads is iTunes U. Not only is there a bunch of free content, you also have the ability to create your own content. For each unit in my class, I've created a course. These appear publicly in iTunes U (more specifically on the BCPS page). Creating courses allows me to upload handouts, articles, videos, and podcasts so that my students can easily snag them/watch them/listen to them. One of my favorite parts about iTunes U is that students can download the material and thereby overcome the discrepancy of who has internet and who doesn't at home. iTunes U has allowed me to begin flipping my classroom, too. I'll post more a more in depth look at iTunes U in the future, but it is simply an amazing tool that should be looked into whether you have iPads/iPods - there's content for students as well a...

Lucky in Learning.

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