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.
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/
Jul 25
Added on July 28, 2020 – From the Washington Post, One teacher’s experience teaching a summer camp with kids who are required to be socially distant and wearing masks. This teacher confirms what I feared as I wrote my thoughts below, any kind of teamwork or small group work is most likely just not going …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2020/07/25/planning-for-a-covid-fall-2020/
Jul 15
I started a short glossary of terms that will help our district and school re-opening planning teams communicate more easily. What am I missing? What would you add? Please leave a comment if you see something that needs to be added. (Updated on July 24, 2020.) Face-to-Face Learning What we consider the traditional teaching model …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2020/07/15/covid-19-school-learning-models-glossary/
Jun 20
I take things personally. Logically, I know I shouldn’t. Logically, I know it’s not always about me, maybe the kid or the parent, or the person is just having a bad day and they are taking out their frustrations on whoever is right in front of them. Emotionally though, I feel what I feel. I’m …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2020/06/20/racism-felt/
I'm a Curipod Ambassador! :)
I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023, 2024, and 2025!
I presented at WSTA 2015!
