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 04
I’ve written about some of the great training I’ve had on Assessment for Learning (AfL) also known as formative assessment. I’ve gotten some great resources but frankly there is way too much. It’s quite overwhelming to keep up with my everyday work of guiding students along the learning experiences that I’m preparing for them AND …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2013/01/04/mass-production-feedback/
Jan 02
Not so much actually. I started the year all hopeful to gamify my classes. After reading Lee Sheldon’s book, The Multiplayer Classroom this past summer I was all ready to jump in with all my classes. I had badges all prepared for my students to place on their blogs as they showed evidence of understanding …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2013/01/02/gamified-classroom/
Dec 27
In Chimacum 8th graders get a full year of Life Science learning experiences. As 6th graders they learned about our neighborhood creek, Chimacum Creek, and tested the water quality. Learning about and taking care of our creek has been a great Science learning experience as well as a service learning project for Chimacum Middle School …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/12/27/fish-trapping/
Dec 26
I saw this video again and thought I’d post it. We need to see this often, at least until the test craze ends. Sir Ken Robinson’s Changing Education Paradigm animated by RSA (It’s only about 11 mins).
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/12/26/testing-or-arts/
Dec 18
I’ve been using WordPress for over six years now. I have a WordPress database on my hosting service. I also have a couple of blogger blogs and although I like them both I prefer my main, professional blog on WordPress (mainly because I’ve been using it so long and customizing it, and I’m used to …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/12/18/wordpress-troubles/
Dec 01
Working in a small school district I get to actually work with our superintendent! After starting my career in the Los Angeles Unified School District this is just awesome. I’m part of our district technology committee so that’s one way I get to work with our superintendent. So what do you do when your superintendent …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/12/01/moving-to-1to1/
Nov 19
During the Seattle Startup EDU Weekend I had the chance to work with two programmers. In high school I studied Basic, then in I tried a little Pascal. I liked programming but didn’t major in it in school, following other interests instead. When I started teaching I learned html and tried to get back into …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/11/19/interview-with-two-programmers/
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/11/18/alternative-to-testing/
Nov 12
So I’ve been looking at what we can do to replace or repair our broken-down microscopes. We have about 20 Boreal Skopes compound microscopes about nine of which are still working well. Asking around about who can fix them I learned that there are no microscope repair people anywhere in the peninsula (the North Olympic …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/11/12/microscope-repair-anyone/
Oct 30
The weekend of Oct 19 I got to participate in a Startup Weekend, specifically the Startup Weekend Seattle EDU at the Evergreen School! From the About Section of the Startup website: “Startup Weekends are 54-hour events where developers, designers, marketers, product managers and startup enthusiasts come together to share ideas, form teams, build products, and launch …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/10/30/whats-a-startup-weekend/
I'm a Curipod Ambassador! :)
I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023 and 2024!
I presented at WSTA 2015!
