Another year, another BETT show. This year was my 8th BETT show in a row, and after 4 action-packed days in the Excel Centre, here are my top 5 takeaways from the show.

It is 2018 and we live in a time where media literacy is a crucial skill for students of all ages. Students must learn how to sort opinion from fact. Like most teachers, I have students from a variety of different backgrounds and as a result, they come to me with varying amounts of prior knowledge when it comes to media literacy.

Often, when I’m preparing for the start of a new unit or important section, I turn to videos as a means of engaging my students. Videos are a wonderful visual for English Language Learners, they captivate reluctant learners, and they incite the curiosity of all. Many of my students come to school with different backgrounds and experiences and videos have the opportunity to reach all students.

There are many diverse learning styles that educators need to reach. It is agreed upon by numerous research studies that 65% of the population consists of visual learners. In a Huffpost article from 2014, it states that video may be the best way to improve learning styles, especially when it comes to remembering key facts and figures. Forrester Research estimates one minute of online video equates to approximately 1.8 million written words. In addition, 90 percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text. This indicates visual education aids like video can improve learning styles and increase the rate at which we retain information. 

Using boclips in the classroom has been very beneficial in sparking debates and getting students involved in classroom discussions. One activity that I have enjoyed involves the Revolutionary War. We began class by watching the video titled, The Events Leading to the Revolutionary War.

We love to learn and grow, and we know that the teachers and course developers we work with love to learn and grow as well. One of our favorite places to learn and grow is in our individual Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) consisting of edchats, webinars, podcasts, and more. Through our participation at various events such as ISTE and local edcamps, we've come to personally meet many of the educators that use boclips in the classroom and as instructional technology coaches. Recently, we had the opportunity to coordinate with Edchat Interactive and Mitch Weisburgh and allow some of our boPROs that we've had the honor of working with share their use of boclips. We'd love to share the recorded sessions with you from Suzy Lolley and Dave Blanchard.

There are Learning Management Systems (LMS) of all shapes and sizes. As a Partner Booster Program participant, we have a special relationship with Canvas.

We're excited to bring you three new YouTube partners: Blockchain Central, Looking Glass Universe and After Skool. 

I am flipping over Flipgrid with boclips! I want to share some of the #flipgridfever and this is a fever you will want to catch. Below are my top 5 ways to appsmash Flipgrid and boclips.

October is National Bullying Prevention Month. A visit to stopbullying.gov reminds us that bullying can happen in a variety of ways. By definition, bullying is unwanted aggressive behavior; observed or perceived power imbalance; and repetition of behaviors or high likelihood of repetition.