10 New Year's Resolutions from 6 Blended Learning Experts

When asked to describe what Education Elements does I typically say, “Education Elements helps school districts design and implement personalized learning.”  And its true.  That’s what we do.  But what I should *really* say, if I am being completely honest, is “The amazing consulting team at Education Elements works tirelessly to help school districts design and implement personalized learning.”  Because the thing is, they are really and truly incredible at what they do.

And since the “DI Team” spends a lot of time working with districts on their goals around blended learning, personalized learning, or just their goals in general (and then helping them achieve those goals), I decided for today’s post to ask DI to share their own personal New Year’s resolutions.  Since these are the resolutions of some pretty awesome people, feel free to add some of theirs to your own resolutions list.

The DI Resolution List:

1. Read Blend My Learning every week. It's full of great ideas from teachers, instructional coaches, and school leaders implementing blended and personalized learning. I especially love this post from my colleague Jonathan Tiongco at Alliance College Ready Public Schools.

2. Visit more schools. I learn so much from visiting the schools, whether blended or not. Every time I leave with a new idea to share with the districts we support. For example, I love Matchbook Learning's GPS system for tracking student progress.

3. Read Twitter every day. It's such a quick and easy way to learn about what's happening in the world and in education. I recommend following @educationweek, @edsurge, @tgrierhisd, and of course, @edelements

4. Read one education book each month.  It could be non-fiction or research-based.  A current Ed Elements favorite is Blended by Michael Horn and Heather Staker.  In addition to being a great how-to-do blended learning guide, it also talks about a lot of schools we have worked with on page 39. If you want a headstart on your reading, download the preface below.
   

   

5. Meditate. Sometimes taking a break from thinking about all the things we need to do, actually helps us to think better about all the things we need to do. I like these guided scripts for meditation.

6. Volunteer at least once a month.  I enjoyed all the volunteering I have done at places like Citizen Schools and Reading Partners, and want to do more of it in the future.  

7. Read one book per month, even if it's an Old Man and the Sea-length novel. There is so much information shared on a minute by minute basis I find it helps to still be able to engage with a set of ideas over a few weeks.

8. Send more postcards!

9. Be a lifelong learner and pick up a new language using one of these fabulous websites and apps: DuoLingo and Busuu

10. Yoga! Online yoga classes are as short as 10-20 minutes which helps you rejuvenate and get good brain energy to put back into your work.

Personally, one of my resolutions is to have just half the impact that this team does.  And I am going to start working on that tomorrow.