Shoutout to Jennifer Gonzalez & Mark Barnes, Authors of Hacking Education

If you've been following my blog, you know I am fond of participating in book studies with like-minded educators.  My first study was dedicated to Jennifer Serravallo's The Reading Strategies Book.  I spearheaded the jigsaw-style book study with a group of teachers I met via blogging and social media.  Even though I've never met many of them in person, we still managed to become close colleagues who rely on one another for resources and ideas.  The group is known as the Reading Strategies Crew.

Because the Reading Strategies Crew's book study was a success, I connected with Kristin Richey, a Reading Specialist and blogger in my district, to recruit and organize a team of teachers who would be pleased to blog about various books which sparked our interest. Kristin and I have worked closely this past year to brainstorm ideas on ways to bring FREE and useful professional development to our district with the support of other dedicated teachers.  Since this amazing group of teachers, alongside some administrators, benefit from and love blogging and using Twitter, we decided upon a hashtag to name our group the #D100bloggerPD Crew.  In the past, we've worked together to reflect on various books, such as Reading in the Wild by Donalyn Miller and Move Your Bus by Ron Clark.

For our next adventure, we decided upon Hacking Education by Jennifer Gonzalez and Mark Barnes.  Both Gonzalez and Barnes often make use of Twitter to connect globally with other educators. They caught sight of our promotion for the book study dedicated to their book via Twitter and began *liking*, retweeting and commenting on our tweets.  My conversations with Mark Barnes via Twitter messaging and public comments on Twitter with Jennifer Gonzalez have opened my eyes to how genuine these innovative educators truly are.  Jennifer Gonzalez, however, went above and beyond and decided to give a shoutout to the #D100bloggerPD Crew on her Periscope and Katch Me sites.  Because of this recognition, I would like to return the shoutout to Jennifer and Mark for their dedication to improve our schools with simple and inexpensive *hacks* that can be implemented in schools the very next day.   Thank you for sharing your talent with the rest of us! (Update: Unfortunately, the video has expired on the *KatchMe* site.)  

The #D100bloggerPD Crew's Hacking Education book study has already begun.  Kristin's kickoff post is available on Reading and Owl of the Above, so check it out.  The book study schedule is below.  Stay tuned to learn more about educational hacks YOU can implement in your school! 

Happy Friday!