Alfonso Gonzalez

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.

Most commented posts

  1. iPads in Science — 22 comments
  2. Awards, Grades and Competition — 18 comments
  3. My ClamCase Experience — 15 comments
  4. Innovative Schooling? — 10 comments
  5. What is On-Task? — 10 comments

Author's posts

I’m bored. So what?

I think about things like keeping students engaged. I wonder about helping students stay on task and having in class socializing focused on the content we are learning. I wonder about asking 28 individuals to conform so that we can get along and learn in a small space. I try to be open to new …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/10/03/im-bored-so-what/

iPads in Science 2

Last year, around October 2010, I got 13 iPads for my Science students through a service-learning grant. This is the start of my second year using those iPads with my Science students. The summer before I got the iPads I was able to try one out myself and wrote about the possibilities here. I elaborated …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/09/28/ipads-in-science-2/

My ClamCase Experience

Just about six months ago I got my ClamCase for the iPad 1 that I had. I searched and read reviews on so many bluetooth keyboards and cases for the iPad 1 and the ClamCase was the one that fit my needs the best. I had an apple bluetooth keyboard but having the keyboard separate …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/09/26/my-clamcase-experience/

RSCON3 Was Sooooo Cool!

For me it’s the middle of summer (a little past middle so middle-ish). How cool is it in the middle-ish of summer to get to choose from a bunch of great sessions taught by incredible people from whom I learn so much? Very cool. How cool is it to do that online, without having to …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/08/05/rscon3-was-sooooo-cool/

How Much Socializing Can You Put Up With?

I’m just curious and want to see where different educators are at. Please make a choice whether you are a classroom teacher, a principal, superintendent, specialist, librarian or any support role. (As of 10/2/2011 I have stopped accepting votes to this survey. Scroll down to see the results of the survey.) As of 8/6/11 at …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/08/03/how-much-socializing-can-you-put-up-with/

In My Humble Opinion

Face to face conversations with my next door teaching neighbor about going gradeless and helping students learn without worrying about covering enough curriculum to pass a standardized test has been helpful for me. I get to think deeply about my beliefs about how I think students learn best and about accountability and if I’m doing …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/08/02/in_my_humble_opinion/

Summer Plans Gone Awry

Water. What lessons do we have to learn from water? I ask that because a few weeks before school let out we had a pipe burst in our hall. Luckily the hallway was the only part of our wing that got wet because several years ago we had a pipe burst over one of our …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/08/01/summer-plans-gone-awry/

Reform Symposium Presentation on Student Blogging!

Saturday, July 30 at 1:30pm PDT (UTC -7) I had the great honor to be able to share something I’ve been enjoying doing for years, having my students blog! Educators from all over the world convened at this year’s Reform Symposium, RSCON3, and my presentation was Student Blogging for Reflection, as e-Portfolio, and as Formative …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/07/23/rscon3_presentation/

New Bloggers and Twitterers

Okay I couldn’t think of a better word than Twitterers because Tweeters just sounded wrong. Our PLC’s WA STEM Grant work has been moving along. At our first meeting everyone started a blog and wrote their first blog post. I wrote about and shared their blogs here: Becoming Bloggers. At our second meeting everyone started …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/07/20/new-bloggers-and-twitterers/

Applications of Formative Assessment

At our final OMSP leadership meeting we read a little bit of W. James Popham’s book Transformative Assessment in Action: An Inside Look at Applying the Process to discuss. We first came up with our own definitions of formative assessment. I thought my team did pretty well. I mean, here we all are, teacher leaders …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/06/13/applications-of-formative-assessment/

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