Welcome to the first ever TAGGY Awards!  Please join us and have some fun while learning about some of the most important educational hashtags on Twitter.
Don’t know what a hashtag is? Click here to learn more.
Vote for your favorite educational hashtag here.   Voting ends in 7 days, and if you don’t think any of these tags deserve to win the TAGGY award, write-in your vote in the comments area.

P.S. Since it’s hard to actually give a prize to a non-human (hashtags, as much as we love them, aren’t human…yet), please …

YouTube is packed full of great content for educators and students.  A few great things about online videos…

there are a lot of them out there.
they cover a wide range of subjects.
they are free!

Here are, in my opinion, some of the best YouTube channels where teachers can find good quality, relevant information to engage their students in the classroom.
National Geographic- National Geographic’s YouTube Channel is one of the best places to find videos for your science classes. All of …

Bullying has evolved greatly in just a few short years and as a teacher, it’s important to stay up to date so you can help protect your students.
Bullies used to have to confront their victim face to face, but now there are numerous mediums, many in which they can remain anonymous, through which they can spread their cruel speech and harass other students without ever revealing their identity.
Some of these mediums include text messages, chat rooms and especially social networking sites.
Take a minute to watch this video from SimpleK12′s YouTube …

Some students, especially older students, find it difficult to talk openly with their teachers.  Why? Well… that’s really an entire discussion in itself, so we’ll leave that for another blog post!  If you suspect that some of your students have a lot going on behind their mute facades, here are a few examples of what they may be thinking:
 

“I do care about my grades.”
Many students care about their grades a lot more than they will admit.  That being said, put time and …

As an educator it’s your job to critique. You help your students grow and become better by critiquing the assignments they turn in to you. However, there’s a fine line between critiquing and criticizing. Do you know the difference?

 The experts over at Collaborize Classroom have put together this free PDF to help teachers establish clear understanding of the difference between critiquing and criticizing students.
This free download not only gives you topics to consider when critiquing a peer but also suggests some verbiage for you to use to express your …

Have you struggled with YouTube being blocked in your school, and your administration just won’t budge on unblocking it? Well, I come bearing good news for you!
YouTube is, for the most part, a fantastic resource for teachers. It’s packed with free content on just about any subject you or your students could ever want. However, all the “junk” that litters YouTube like the suggested videos, inappropriate videos, comments, and other ads has kept it from getting the green light at most schools.
YouTube is now trying to change that with their …

One of the best ways to stay up-to-date on the latest in education (other than a free subscription to the SimpleK12 blog) is to follow hashtags on Twitter. Before we get into which hashtags to watch, let’s look at what they are.
Hashtags (#) are basically keywords for a tweet. Depending on the content of your tweet, you can use different hashtags so other teachers looking for similar content can find your tweet. For example, if I just found a new online resource for teachers, I might tweet about it and …