You may have read Mark Phillips' blog post about the ongoing documentary project A Year at Mission Hill. A month after the launch of the video series, the buzz has only grown. With a fantastic and artful Prezi about the series, new videos released every two weeks, and resources tailored to each episode from orgs around the world including Ashoka's Start Empathy project, What Kids Can Do, Responsive Classroom, Learning Matters, and more, this is shaping up to be a new kind of Web resource for those interested in education reform on a grassroots level. I'm excited to share episodes two and three here.

MC² STEM High School is an unusual year-round public school of about 270 students, located in Cleveland, Ohio. The school emphasizes integrated project-based learning, partnerships with business professionals, and real-world internship experiences to help students understand the crucial link between academic achievement and their future economic success. We visited their school and spent time with the dedicated adults and enthusiastic students who have helped create the school’s success. Take a look at this video for a glimpse into three students’ experiences there.

For many educators, spring conferences are coming up soon -- if they haven’t already -- and it can be a stressful time of the school year. With summer on the horizon, spring conferences sometimes get squeezed into the end-of-year schedule. To help parents and educators prepare for parent-teacher conferences, we've rounded up a variety of Web resources.

Ever since I was a kid, I loathed back to school commercials. They always showed parents gleefully skipping through aisles of pencils and notebooks as the kids, sullen and dejected, sluggishly followed along. It's a scene we are all too familiar with, and one that creates a negative stigma around school. But what if that scene were flipped? What if the kids were happy and eager to get to school? Is that possible after roughly 90 days of sun and fun? It is, and at Burlington Public Schools, we have seen it over the past two years during our iPad launches at the high school and middle school.