Tonight I had the honor of being on the panel for an AMLE twitter celebration for Middle Level Education Month. The topic was two-fold: First about celebrating middle level education and Second about collaboration. This was a very well attended and lively chat.

http://storify.com/ToddBloch/mled13-amle-twitter-event-3-7-13

The Panel was:

Todd Bloch @blocht574 : great middle level thinker and supporter who hosts a weekly twitter chat on Thursday nights at 8p.  Hashtag #mschat

·         Summer Howarth @EduSum : a wonderful middle years teacher from Australia who has travelled to the US for professional development and a serious tweeter. http://edusum.edublogs.org/

·         Julie Ramsay  @JulieDRamsay : a prolific tweeter, fifth grade teacher, and Stenhouse author who is really in tune to middle grades   http://juliedramsay.blogspot.com/

·         Todd Williamson @twilliamson15 : tech-savvy director of technology at a school district in North Carolina who has been interviewed about technology integration on Middle Matters for their podcast

·         Rick Wormeli @RickWormeli : nationally and internationally recognized educator and speaker on all matters related to the middle level

and the questions were:

a.       Why should we celebrate the middle level?

b.       How should we (teachers, schools, parents) celebrate the middle level?

c.       How can we involve students in that celebration?

d.       What are some challenges we will face in the middle level?

e.       How can we prepare ourselves and deal with those challenges?

f.        Why is collaboration such an important element in the middle level?

g.       How can we collaborate more effectively –time, technology, etc.?