I teach 5th and 6th grade STEM in the lovely Pacific Northwest in a small, rural town called Chimacum. My goal is to help students discover that all learning is life-long and that 21st century tools can be used for work as well as fun.
Feb 14
Gamification and Game-Based Learning (GBL) are all about student engagement. Does the kid in the following picture look engaged? And how often do we see little ones looking like the one above? How often do we see teenagers not just sleeping in class because they are not getting enough sleep at night or because they …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/02/14/flow-in-school-gbl-gamification/
Feb 10
One switch I’ve made with my Science labs is in the way I have students write their conclusions. I’ve tried many different ways, I’ve even spent time working with my Science PLC on conclusion writing, and lately I’ve been having my students use the Claim, Evidence, Reasoning or CER method of writing conclusions. It’s quite …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/02/10/claim-evidence-reasoning-cer/
Feb 10
I feel like a real blogger now! Sure I started this WordPress blog with my first post on July 2006 (that’s coming up on 10 years!) but it wasn’t until a few years later that I started blogging for an audience beyond my students and their parents. Blogging on my own, for my own reflection …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/02/10/standards-good-or-bad/
Jan 18
I’ve been working on my school district’s tech committee since I started working at Chimacum in 1997. Our most recent district tech plan included a plan for moving our middle school to a 1:1 model. The plan required pretty substantial funding, the likes of a Tech Levy or a portion of a Capital Levy or …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/01/18/student-tech-support-edtech/
Jan 14
In my classroom students have iPads, Samsung Galaxy Tabs, Netbooks, Chromebooks, Laptops, or iMac desktop computers to choose from to do work that requires technology. Some of my devices are old enough that they are glitchy at best and downright frustrating to do anything other than surfing the net. We had some troubles when first …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/01/14/multiple-gafe-accounts-shared-devices/
Jan 13
Just this past weekend I attended a Common Core English Language Arts (CCSS-ELA) training put together by the Washington Core Advocates from Achieve the Core Student Achievement Partners. Because of my work with the OSPP I was invited to attend this fantastic training. I had the choice of going to the Math training or the …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/01/13/wa-core-advocates/
Jan 06
Being a career educator in K-12 always makes New Year interesting. New Year is a great time to start over and focus on meeting your goals or making new goals altogether. And yet the week before winter break we started a lab in my Science classes that we are finishing this week. It’s only been …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/01/06/same-school-year-but-new-year-year/
Dec 09
I’ve been meaning to write this blog post reflecting on a wonderful STEM summit I attended on Dec 1st, the WA STEM Summit 2015. I was wondering which takeaway I wanted to share the most or what I was going to write about the takeaways. And I will, but this blog post is about the …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2015/12/09/working-in-isolation/
Dec 07
I never would have thought of these, but they are interesting indeed and good to know. Even though these reasons to use gamification are targeted to and from the business sector, it doesn’t hurt for those of us in education to tap into this resource and know about these reasons. Find more education infographics on …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2015/12/07/other-reasons-to-gamify-gamification/
Nov 25
It may look like our 1:1 middle school Indiegogo Tech Campaign is not doing very well. We’ve only raised $195, not even enough to buy one Chromebook. I’m very grateful to those friends who cared enough about our campaign to donate. It’s very gracious of them. The good news is that this campaign has some …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2015/11/25/tech-campaign-indiegogo-style/
I'm a Curipod Ambassador! :)
I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023, 2024, and 2025!
I presented at WSTA 2015!
