Category: Ed News

These blogs have to do with education as a whole. I write about different topics concerning ed reform and educating our 21st century youth.

Aug 13

Vote for Me!

My Awards, Grades and Competition blog post has been nominated for an award! My first nomination (well, 1st and 2nd nomination it seems as my blog was also nominated for a Middle School Teacher award)! (For more information on who sponsors this award please read the comments section of this blog post.) Here’s the reason they …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/08/13/vote-for-me/

Aug 10

Student Feedback 11-12

Every year I find some way to get feedback from my students. I’ve been getting feedback from my students for years to determine what I’m doing well and what could use some fixing. I especially wanted to see what students thought this past school year about getting feedback from me because I struggled finding time …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/08/10/student-feedback-11-12/

Aug 06

Educators Connecting

I’m a little slow sometimes. I may even be days to weeks behind when things are trending on Twitter or Google Plus. I have to admit that I came a little late to Connected Educators Month! I attended a webinar and am starting to join in some of the many activities there are to choose …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/08/06/educators-connecting/

Jul 16

Gamifying My Classes

I’m taking the leap and am going to try it out. I finished reading The Multiplayer Classroom by Lee Sheldon and I was able to start mapping out how I can gamify my classes. After two and half years of teaching completely gradeless I have found that I still haven’t managed to engage all my …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/07/16/gamifying-my-classes/

Jul 15

My Two Cents on Standards

Okay, so this is a rant. There, I’ve said it. I’ve just been so put off by all this common core (next generation in Science) standards stuff (I didn’t write what I was actually thinking), so I thought I’d put my thoughts here on my place to think things through and learn. What I hate …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/07/15/my-two-cents-on-standards/

Jul 04

Social Networking for PD

This was cross posted from the WA STEM Blog: Our program to have teachers use social networking to connect and learn from each other continued early this summer. We added six teachers to our mix and gave them a short, two-day immersion into the world of blogging and tweeting to connect to learn. Here’s a …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/07/04/social-networking-for-pd/

Jun 18

When is Extrinsic Motivation Okay?

I’ve been looking into gamification and how it can help motivate students to have fun and learn Science. I would love to make certain lessons, projects, or activities look like a game to motivate students to learn boring things like vocabulary. I’d like to do that without points, badges or too many rewards. I’ve abolished …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/06/18/when-is-extrinsic-motivation-okay/

Jun 17

Looking for Ideas

I have this vision of something I’d like to do at the start of each class. I usually start by talking. I remind kids what we’re doing, where they left off the day before, and what the agenda or goals are for the current time period. I find this useful because my students only have …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/06/17/looking-for-ideas/

Jun 11

Alternate Reality Game

This past Thursday Nicholas Provenzano hosted a Twitter chat at #NerdyChat on the topic of Gamification (see transcript here). Gamification is the idea of using the best of video gaming in the classroom. Why? Watch a kid play a video game. Video games hook the player and motivate the player to persevere through failure and …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/06/11/alternate-reality-game/

Jun 04

Real Life

We talk a lot about preparing our students for real life. We entice them with the reward of high marks (A’s, 100%’s, 3’s and 4’s) and we threaten them with failure (F’s, 0’s, 1’s and 2’s). It’s easy to think that enticing kids with high marks works because of the kids who work hard for …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/06/04/real-life/

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