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25 Education Leaders to Learn from Today

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I have a confession to make.

This time, I am very happy to say, my confession is not for leaving the classroom– I’m backkkkkkkk. Here are my thoughts after the first week serving teachers and students at my new school.

There are a core group of educators that inspire me daily.

Most of the educators that inspire me daily work in my school division, we fist bump in the hallway and they serve our community….then there are people I’ve never formally met.

They reside on the Internet (gasssppp). Virtually, I follow some supreme educators.

The list is below, in no particular order…….

25 Education Leaders to Learn from Today:

  1. Kasey Bell of Shake Up Learning is one of the biggest Google Gurus out there. Want to learn anything about GSUITE? Check her out! She also offers Google Certified Trainer Training.
  2. Eric Sheninger– He’s always on POINT. From his publication, Digital Leadership, to his continuous efforts to harness social media to be best used in schools- Mr. Sheninger is super worthy of a virtual high five. His newest book, BrandED, co-authored with Trish Rubin is currently available for preorder.
  3. Richard Byrne- what’s not to LOVE? He’s a former history teacher (woot-woot!) and he has been providing invaluable resources on his site FreeTech4Teachers since 2007. He also maintains Practical Ed Tech for teacher professional development. If it’s education, if it’s technology related- Richard has you covered! Oftentimes, I will use the google search on his site once I start planning teacher trainings because like I said, he has you covered! I also appreciate his continued support of WriteReader, the awesome K-5 storytelling app that I work with from Denmark.
  4. Alice Keeler has a strict NO homework stance- can I get an AMEN?! Plus, she’s amazing at all things Google and she’s pretty darn humorous, even as a math nerd.
  5. I have a total girl crush on Jennifer Gonzalez of Cult of Pedagogy. EVERYTHING she posts and promotes hits close to home for me AND makes me think about my current practice as a educator. Timely and relevant are two keys to professional growth.
  6. Sean Gaillard (@smgaillard on Twitter) has the BEST taste in music (Led Zeppelin!!!), is perpetually happy, and started #CelebrateMonday with teachers across Twitter. Yes, teachers actually Celebrate Mondays. He is also an educational advisor for the VERY awesome tech tool Buncee (also in my Top 16 Tech Tools to Try in 2016).
  7. A “Cool Cat Teacher,” Vicki Davis,  is the OG of edtech. She’s been on the scene a while and can most definitely be trusted to provide valuable insight on a range of educational topics.
  8. Sylvia Duckworth is a sketchnoting rockstar. Sketchnoting in education has exploded and Sylvia is one of (if not THE) best out there. She is known for taking other teacher leaders’ speeches, philosophies, etc. and create amazing sketchnotes out of them. One of my favorite pieces is the one she did on Alice Keeler’s ideas on “In the Real World.”
  9. George Couros– He also has a Sylvia Duckworth (see here)- because he’s an innovative educator. Maybe having Sylvia sketch your education contribution is how one knows when they’ve arrived?
  10. Matt Miller, author of Ditch That Textbook, has fantastic ideas about using digital resources in the classroom without the use of a textbook. I agree Matt, we should ditch that textbook!
  11. Steven Anderson, #edchat’s cofounder and educator inspirerer is a prolific speaker and educator.
  12. Monica Burns of Class Tech Tips provides tons of value through her fantastic blog and the professional development she offers through SimpleK12 and face to face training opportunities.
  13. Anything on Edutopia, George Lucas’ Educational Foundation, is worthy of your time. The topics range from “Schools that Work” to “Project-Based Learning.”
  14. Teach Like a Pirate’s Dave Burgess (and his rockstar wife, Shelley Burgess) have a fun and forward thinking “pirate” philosophy. Check out his site or if you’re on Twitter use the hashtag #tlap to find out more about their fun style. FUN side note: Shelley and Beth Houf just released their book, “Lead Like a Pirate,” which is totally worth checking out #leadlap
  15. I have a BIG soft sport for Paul Solarz, author of Learn Like a Pirate. He encouraged and helped me conduct my school division’s first Mystery Skype….but he is also a pirate. His Learn Like a Pirate book is a perfect compliment to TLAP. Pirate’s are so cool, arrrrgghhhh’t they?
  16. Kids Deserve It, founded by Todd Nesloney and Adam Welcome, is setting out to put kids first, what is there not to love? There is also a book available.
  17. The leadupnow and #LeadUpTeach tribe is amazing. Co-founders of #LeadUpChat Jeffrey Veal and  Nathan Lang have created my favorite Twitter chat! Part of movement includes #leadupteach, which features the fabulous Heidi Veal, Elisa Bostwick, and Laura Gilchrist talking about teacher leadership.
  18. Brad Currie is the 2017 National Assistant Principal of the Year and for good reason!
  19. Another one of my favorite Google Guru’s is Eric Curts.  I find myself liking a bunch of his Twitter posts and coming back to them when I need info on a particular tasks in Google.
  20. Nicolas Provenzano is the self proclaimed “Lady Gaga of teaching.” Scratch that- his students actually gave him the name, which is quite the compliment! He wrote “The Starter Guide to Makerspaces” and is an all around pretty cool guy.
  21. Kyle Pace is a firm believer in “Learning is Leading” and gives sound advice from the perspective of being a lead learner and an instructional technologist.
  22. Lisa Johnson, also known as TechChef4You is known for cooking up fresh tech ideas for you!
  23. Larry Ferlazzo always shares lists of “the best” from edtech.  Right now, he has 1700 lists of “the best of” lists you can find by category here.
  24. Caitlin Tucker is one of my kindred spirits as she promotes blended learning in schools. It’s the best of BOTH worlds- virtual and face-to-face.  A list of her books can be found here.
  25. Starr Sackstein writes a blog on EdWeek called “Work in Progress.” I also admire her for openly discussing her depression and anxiety- she’s a refreshingly REAL teacher with out of the box ideas about going gradeless and harnessing the power of students’ self-reflection.

I hope you will take the time to learn from just one of these amazing educators, lead learners, and ed-inspirers!

Like this post? Check out my other featured lists and 5 minute professional development ideas:

25 Tech Tools to Try in 2015

16 Tech Tools to Try in 2016

Top Tools and Best Practices for Curating Your Course Content

Comments

  1. I usually enjoy reading Top XX lists and I appreciate that you gave a description of why you follow each of them. it’s an interesting mix of people.

    If you were to create lists of 5 – top 5 principals to follow, top 5 authors to follow, top 5 bloggers to follow, would they overlap? Or would they separate out? I don’t know but sometimes I think I’d like to separate them out into different groups and see. I’m fairly eclectic in my interests so I suspect, I would have lots and lots of groups of 5. It could be fun to see just how much more groups overlap.

    Thanks for the list of very interesting people.