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 18
January 18, 2021 LA Works hosted an incredible series of events in honor of this year’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr Day of service. One of the events was a tour of Washington DC and Dr. King’s historic 1963 march to the Capitol, which ended with his awe-inspiring I Have A Dream speech in Minecraft! …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2021/01/18/2021-mlk-day-minecraft-march-on-the-capitol/
Dec 31
In my 30 years teaching I’ve gotten 48 grants in 24 years totaling just under $371,000. In the last 22 years straight I’ve gotten at least one grant per year every year. That’s quite the streak and the Ocean Guardian Schools project is one of those grant opportunities that I can apply for year after …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2020/12/31/grants-and-prizes/
Dec 30
Last year I started a 6th grade esports club and we got off to a great start before the pandemic closed our schools. A group of kids in the club remained active during the spring. I expected more to be able to participate because the nice thing about esports is that we don’t have to …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2020/12/30/esports-thriving/
Dec 29
I’ve been taking 6th graders to our little stretch of Chimacum Creek to gather water quality data since 2001! In all those years we’ve seen our stream flow go from pretty low to really low. In all those years, we did have one year where after some major rain the water level went from ankle …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2020/12/29/flooding-event/
Dec 28
The first week of school I sent home all my Ocean Guardian School project information, permission slips, and photo release forms. Once I got all the permission slips, which I had to have them all because I could not send kids anywhere while the rest of us left the room, I was able to start …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2020/12/28/outdoor-education-during-a-pandemic/
Dec 27
Our district leaders met this past summer to plan what the start of school was going to look like. We surveyed families and based on the results our re-opening team decided that since our county was at low risk with regards to COVID cases we could offer families at least their overall 2nd choice – …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2020/12/27/the-hybrid-schedule/
Dec 26
Before I share an amazing resource for getting some awesome gamified Science lessons, I wanted to share a cool resource for having students request photos to be taken of locations on Earth from the International Space Station (ISS)! Yes, the students choose where the ISS camera will take the photos based on the ISS’s orbit! …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2020/12/26/gamified-science/
Dec 26
I’ve written and shared quite a bit about Classcraft as not only a full-fledged Learning Management System (LMS) but also as a way to easily gamify any class and content for students. I’ve mentioned before and it’s worth mentioning again that of all the edtech tools I use with students this is the only tool …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2020/12/26/gamification-of-online-teaching/
Dec 24
Friday, December 18, our last school day before winter break concluded our third week of having school 100% online for everyone. Well, almost everyone. Special Education programs were able to support kids coming back to school Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 8:45 am to 12 pm. There were enough Educational Aides (EA’s) available to …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2020/12/24/fully-remote-again/
Aug 19
I had the pleasure of being one of three contributors to part 1 of a Larry Ferlazzo two part series on Blended Learning titled Blended Learning in the Age of COVID-19. Click on the image below to read the entire post:
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2020/08/19/blended-learning-edweek-post/
I'm a Curipod Ambassador! :)
I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023 and 2024!
I presented at WSTA 2015!
