Story: Beth Stark

I live in the LiveBinder space. I’ve had so much wonderful feedback from the dozens of people who went through feedback cycles with me on the Aiming for All collection. So many teachers said that they really loved being able to parse out their learning and to revisit the live binder over and over.

What I appreciate about LiveBinders is that it doesn’t have to be just one folder with a bunch of resources, or one floating document with a bunch of hot links. You can actually visually organize the tools and approaches in the same glance.

I’ve seen people having a difficult time finding what they need, especially when designing more demanding learning experiences. LiveBinders is a perfect place to set up resources so that they can easily find them.

Think of a good sous-chef in a restaurant. They’ve got a very well-organized mise en place. They know where everything is, and because of that they have command of their space.

I see this with teachers too. Some have parts of their practice well done, but they don’t have the mise en place. Their materials aren’t prepped, and the pieces that would allow them to be improvisational aren’t easily at their disposal. They have what they need — but it’s thrown in a folder.

The beautiful thing about LiveBinders is that you can leverage it to give you command over your space. You can build a chain of learning experiences focused on a cluster of standards — not just a lesson plan, but a true mise en place for the classroom. The teacher knows exactly what they’re using and where to find it, so they can be that improvisational chef in the moment.

The binder gives you flexibility without rigidity. Your resources and tools are there when you need them, and you can always add more for future reference.