These blogs have to do with education as a whole. I write about different topics concerning ed reform and educating our 21st century youth.
Jul 23
The 2023-24 school year was the first year since the 1999-2000 school year that I didn’t have grant money to spend (The End of a 24 Year Grant Streak). The bright side of that was that was also the first time in 24 years that I didn’t have to write an end of year report! …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2024/07/23/grant-streak-ended-but-two-more-grants-for-24-25/
Dec 28
In a recent post by Larry Ferlazzo, Yet Another Nail-In-The-Coffin of AI Writing Detectors, he offers even more evidence dispelling the myth that AI detection software work. Even if AI detection can sometimes correctly identify whether or not a human wrote a piece of writing, they are so often wrong that they cannot be trusted. …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2023/12/28/ai-detection-or-ai-proofing/
Dec 28
Tammie Schrader, with whom I’ve been co-presenting for many years now, and I submitted four proposals to the upcoming 2024 NCCE Conference, the Northwest USA’s premier educational technology conference and we got three of our proposals accepted! There is still time to register so click the image or link above to secure your spot. Click …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2023/12/28/im-presenting-at-ncce24/
Nov 19
The Sally Ride EarthKAM website is a great website with amazing activities incorporating space science and the International Space Station (ISS)! Sally Ride was the first American woman in space and she has left a fabulous legacy with this NASA EarthKAM project. EarthKAM, which stands for Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students, allows students …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2023/11/19/students-requesting-photos-of-earth-from-the-iss/
Jun 26
I received my first grant for $500 in 1992, my second year teaching, to connect my South Central Los Angeles 5th graders from Main Street Elementary to the Internet and to use my AOL account to share and exchange video footage of my students with a school in Vassalboro, Maine. I received a $3,000 grant …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2023/06/26/the-end-of-a-24-year-grant-streak/
Aug 27
They tell us there is no one silver bullet that will make our job as teachers easier. No one thing that will engage all our students so much that classroom management will no longer be necessary and every kid in our classroom will either pass all their tests or make one to two years of …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2021/08/27/looking-for-the-silver-bullet-keep-looking/
Aug 26
I am responsible for bringing Google Apps, now Google Edu, to my district by in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. I have my Google Educator Levels 1 and 2 badges because I have seen first hand the power of Google’s suite of excellent tools for educating our young people. My district is also a …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2021/08/26/google-for-edu-ramps-up-age-restrictions/
Aug 25
As summer comes to an end with one more week to go before we come back together to prepare for the first week of school, which starts the day after Labor Day, I thought I’d reflect on all the great things that I’ve done. I am grateful that this summer was so much better than …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2021/08/25/the-end-of-summer/
Apr 24
Pivot #1 – We started this 2020-2021 school year with a hybrid schedule seeing a different small cohort of kids one full day per week. That schedule allowed for some decent outdoor education experiences. Pivot #2 – By December we switched to having all our kids learning remotely. Pivot #3 – By the end of …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2021/04/24/pivot-4/
Mar 19
I work with amazing people. Teaching is a difficult job and during a pandemic, it’s more stressful than ever. Having colleagues that are caring and supportive will keep us from burning out. I wouldn’t have been able to stay at my district for 24 of the 30 years I’ve been teaching if I didn’t work …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2021/03/19/outstanding-tech-educator/
I'm a Curipod Ambassador! :)
I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023, 2024, and 2025!
I presented at WSTA 2015!
