When I work with educators around the world, one common struggle is keeping students focused when using innovative technology. Knowing this is a barrier, I’ve been exploring ways to find balance—understanding that while technology offers opportunities for access, engagement, and innovation, it also creates potential distractions. I recently came across a tool that allows teachers to monitor all student devices on a single screen. Teachers can see student laptop screens in real-time, send messages to students who are off task, or even bring up the tab they should be working on.  Read this short brief, and I’d love to hear your thoughts!

• What barriers does this remove?
• What barriers might it create?

 🔊 Something to Listen to:

“Inclusion” and “inclusive practice” are often used interchangeably in education, but true inclusive practice goes beyond simply bringing people together. Inclusion takes an important step in the right direction by making sure all students, regardless of variability, are present in the same classroom. But in order for inclusion to be effective, you must also implement inclusive practice. Want to know more about this? Listen to Episode 15 of The Education Table (10 minutes).

📺 Something to Watch:

I LOVE Abbott Elementary, and this sweet clip is a great reminder of the power of relationships with our colleagues. It shows how, no matter how long we've been in this work, we all need a Barbara on our team!

🛠️ Something to Do:

I am joining CourseArc for a FREE webinar, TOMORROW, October 16th at 2:00 PM ET. If you are new to UDL, still processing the changes to the UDL Guidelines or want to learn how implementing UDL can help to foster inclusive classrooms and schools, then be sure to sign up.  (FYI: All registrants will receive a copy of the recording following the session.)

Listening to an audiobook counts as reading. Yep, I said it!

I recently wrote an article, “Using Edtech Tools to Differentiate Learning,” for Edutopia with Mary Pettit. In it, she shared how one student exclaimed, “This is the first book I ever finished, and I loved it!” after a recent assignment.

Conflicting opinions aside, check out the article for concrete strategies to help students select and engage with books in ways that work best for them!

If you haven’t tried using AI for meal planning yet, give it a shot. My dad was recently put on a bland diet, and after hearing him complain about boiled potatoes and carrots... AGAIN... it was time to bring in the robots. We gave ChatGPT the doctors' guidelines, and it came back with a delightful meal plan for the week. Soooo much better than seven days of the same thing!