What’s the first thing you see in the morning? Is it your spouse or your pet? The sun? If you’re like most people, you’re probably awoken by a phone, vibrating within arm’s reach, its alarm blaring at you that it’s time to wake up. For you, and many of us, the very first thing our eyes will adjust to is that small screen and all of the shiny new treats it has to share. But if this is indeed the relationship you have with your phone, then ask yourself — How healthy is it?

Every new year, media tends to focus on weight loss and a healthier you — gyms offer up free membership trials and weight watching ads saturate our news feeds, all while mental health awareness takes a back seat. But as we've discovered after the first few days of 2018, it's become increasingly important to pay attention to our mental health as much as our physical health. 

According to a 2016 study by Flurry Mobile, the average person spends a total of 5 hours a day on their smartphone. Considering many of us work or attend school for a large portion of the day already, this is a significant (and alarming) amount of time.

As the holidays approach, so does exam season for students across North America. By now, educators hope (and expect) that students have learned everything needed in order to succeed, which means that they must comprehend the course material in addition to the notes they took throughout the semester. But for most students nowadays, these notes live on a laptop, and there is growing evidence that typewritten notes may not be what's best for students.  So, we ask — are your students really as prepared as they could be?

These days, nothing is more challenging than complete and uninterrupted focus. Even just five minutes of meditation gets the best of us when you have a to-do list the length of your arm, conversations that need replying to, and emails to check. Our society is drunk on information and content, and it can often feel close to impossible to disconnect.

The Obama Foundation recently announced that digital citizenship is one of its top initiatives for education. But what does it mean and how can teachers teach students to be good digital citizens?