Ditch That Textbook Podcast :: Education, teaching, edtech :: #DitchPod

Podcasts, blogs, social media, books ... They're all fantastic for ideas and inspiration. But still some point, it's time to do something.

It's easy to let ourselves slip, to express our frustration to students (and colleagues) in not so helpful ways. A study shows the negative effects of this and suggests some corrections to help. It's a great reminder.

Wakelet will let you save the web -- tweets, social media posts, links, images -- into curated lists. It's great for organizing and storing tweets for later.

Looking for a way to kick up your video creation game? Hear how I created the videos for my online course, Tech to Learn. (More info: http://DitchThatTextbook.com/part4)

What can students do when they've learned about civilizations all over the world? How about create their OWN country in a world created by the class? Texas social studies teacher Ben Lewis caps off his year with this project. Even if you don't teach social studies, this is an inspiring project.

Alexis Crutchfield, Katrina Yang and Brittany Bondy are believers in Seesaw, a platform for student digital portfolios and parent communications. Hear how these teachers use it in their classes at Sampson Elementary School in Cypress, Texas.

Genius Hour can put a spark in your class, giving students opportunities to pursue their passions. Fourth-grade teachers Kayla Swonke (Twitter: @kaylaswonke) and Lyndsey Kubos (Twitter: @lyndseykubos) share some ideas and lessons from implementing it in their classrooms.

Our why focuses our lives. It's our reason for being. It's easy to lose sight of our why, and many times, our why changes over time. What's your why, and how has it changed over time? It's big questions like these that we tackle in this video: http://ditchthattextbook.com/part3

Google's machine learning is improving lots of its products. Now, it can help us create multiple-choice questions without brainstorming incorrect answers. See how these smarter Google Forms can make your life easier.

Repetitions help students make new concepts permanent. But mindless repetitions are a lot of action without great results. But creating engaging repetitions can make for sticky learning! Learn more about this in the video at http://DitchThatTextbook.com/part2.