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.
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/
Nov 24
When I received a couple of Samsung Galaxy Tablets running the Android OS I created a teacher account to buy and download apps for the devices. I then added student user accounts so that kids would not have access to my account, especially my credit card. In order to do that I made the student …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2015/11/24/android-tablet-accessing-gafe-tools/
Nov 24
The secret to getting grants is either finding the right grant for the right project or creating a project that matches a grant. It’s not as easy as needing devices for your students and finding a grant to get them. Well, at least that has not been my experience. If you are lucky, you will …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2015/11/24/environmental-grants/
Nov 23
Last Thursday and Friday we didn’t have school for regular classes so that we could meet with parents and students for conferences. Teachers were available Thursday from 8am to 8pm with a couple of meal breaks and Friday from 8am to 12noon. For me seeing and talking to over 50 of the 67 families I …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2015/11/23/arena-conferences/
Nov 23
Samsung has a cool contest called the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow. Teachers are invited to submit ideas for how they will use STEM to solve a problem in their community. Out of all the teachers who apply they select five finalists from each state. The state finalists get two Samsung Galaxy Tablets for getting selected. …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2015/11/23/solve-for-tomorrow/
Nov 17
When I first got a bunch of iPads, the first generation ones, and kids started using them, it was great. I slowly but surely built up to a 1:1 and I’m used to it now. As the iPads have gotten older I’ve been slowly but surely working to replace them with technology that can meet …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2015/11/17/problems-with-tech-google-classroom-with-older-devices/
I'm a Curipod Ambassador! :)
I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023, 2024, and 2025!
I presented at WSTA 2015!
