Released in February 2024, Dr. Lyon’s third book, 50 Ways to Engage Students with Google Apps, was co-authored by Alice Keeler.

It’s very easy for one person to say a lesson is engaging while another person might view that same lesson as disengaging. Tech companies promise to “engage students” and “measure student engagement” when they are really only measuring the number of minutes students spend online. Some or all of those students, however, may have been bored out of their minds. Despite the ubiquitous use of the word engagement, there is little to no agreement on what that word means.

Alice Keeler and Dr. Lyon know a few important things about engagement: The first is that tools do not teach. The second key is that it’s only when people are interested or absorbed that they are really engaged.

So how do you create tasks that students want to do? That’s where the fifty strategies that the engagement and Google tools experts share here come in. This book is full of templates, tips, tricks, and hacks for shifting engagement levels from disengaged to engaged using tools everyone can try. Learn how to use:

  • Google Docs and Slides as collaboration tools
  • Spreadsheets in ways that are fun and creative.
  • Google Classroom to recognize students as individuals
  • Google Forms to quickly see where students are struggling.

In June 2024, Dr. Lyon’s article, “Unclear Roles, Unfulfilled Expectations: Hidden Reasons Behind the K-12 Leadership Shortage,” was published on The Forum of American Journal of Education. In the article, Dr. Lyon shares two surprising reasons for the current K-12 leadership shortage as well as possible solutions.

Dr. Lyon has a Ph.D. in Educational Administration and an Ed.M. in Reading from the University at Buffalo. She is a consultant, speaker, author, blogger, and district administrator. Heather’s books include:  Engagement Is Not a Unicorn (It’s a Narwhal), The BIG Book of Engagement Strategies, and 50 Ways to Engage Students with Google Apps. To contact Heather for speaking or consulting, please visit www.LyonsLetters.com, where you can also subscribe to her weekly blog posts.