The importance of individualized education, especially in regards to children who suffer from learning disabilities, ESL (English as a Second Language) students, and students who don't identify with the euro-centric text that they are tested on in school, has proven to be a remarkably effective method when teaching students of any age.

San Antonio, Texas veteran teacher Wanda Longoria understands that, and is using an innovative social networking platform to help at risk children to fully understand what it takes to meet academic standards and graduate in a timely manner, important because the high school dropout rate for Latinos is at 40 percent.

Longoria, 32, is a reading specialist in a predominately Latino school district. She is tasked with assisting the most challenging middle school students who have dyslexia, ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), ADHD (Attention Decifit Hyperactivity Disorder) and other conditions. She utilizes her ability to convey information in a comprehensive way, and is passionate about using her abilities to educate as many at risk or impoverished children that she can.

"I felt education can close the gap with poverty. My father used to say people can take anything away from you, but they can't take away your mind," Longoria said.

Longoria's hard work and work ethic has earned her the title of teacher of the year, every year that's she has worked for the department.  Her reputation is what caught the attention of one of the largest teacher networks in the world, American Federation of Teachers and TES, when they were developing developing a digital platform that would provide that would make high quality resources available to teachers. They wanted tenured teachers, like Longoria, to review lessons and offer feedback.

The free programming is called "Share My Lesson," and it was launched during the summer of 2012. It provides scripted lessons, worksheets, videos and Power Point presentations.

Many of the lesson are aligned with Common Core State Standards, which has supports, and those who stand in opposition - because it "teaches to the test," and focusing on Geometry and less on things like classic literature.  Nonetheless, Longoria believes that Common Core offers the skeleton for student success, but students need to add mass and muscle to their learning through mentoring, provided by well trained teachers, and support offered by attentive parents at home.