iPads Can Survive Fall

After the tragic fall and destruction of one our 13 iPads earlier this week, I’ve been very protective of the remaining 12. But yesterday I got confirmation of something I don’t ever want to see again. Another iPad fell. A student had her headphones connected to the iPad, she got up (forgetting the head phones …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/10/08/ipads-can-survive-fall/

Future of Ed Webinar

After Monday’s epic webinar, I sent this email out to all the MS and HS school teachers in my district: If you missed the Elevating the Education Reform Dialog webinar and want to know what happened here is a link to the event recording page: http://www.learncentral.org/event/106358 The rest of the links came up during the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/10/06/future-of-ed-webinar/

1st Email to Parents

[I sent this email yesterday to all the parents on of my current students, well all the parents whose email I have.] Hello Students and Families, You are getting this email because you have a child who has me for either 6th grade Science, 8th grade Science or Eagle Time or a combination of those. …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/10/06/1st-email-to-parents/

The Need for Protecting Your iPad

So this is what can happen to an iPad. The backs are very slippery. I hadn’t planned to do it but it seems that purchasing some kind of silicone or rubber backing for the iPads would be a good investment. It just slipped from the student’s hand and just happened to land on the corner …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/10/04/the-need-for-protecting-your-ipad/

Green Way to Clean up Oil Spill

My 8th graders found that BP could have used hay to clean up much of the oil spill without putting any dispersants or dispersed oil in the water. We saw the following YouTube video: Here is our class’ response video where we tested their idea for ourselves:

Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/10/04/green-way-to-clean-up-oil-spill-3/

Play First, Work Later

When you bring out math manipulatives you let the kids play with them a bit so that later they can focus on the work of learning with the tool. That was my intent with our new iPads and netbooks. I have lots of ideas I want my students to try out but first I thought …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/10/01/play-first-work-later/

Mt Saint Helens

Last week at Camp Cispus I was able to take about half of our 6th graders to Mt Saint Helens on Sept 15 (the other half went the next day). We have enough time to visit Meta Lake and the miner’s car, walk up Windy Ridge, and go down to Spirit Lake. I put together …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/09/20/mt-saint-helens/

Great First Week!

What a great first week of school! I am lucky enough to get to work with three classes of 6th grade Science and two classes of 8th grade Science. Thanks to Mr. Rice’s Play with a Purpose blog we did a fun activity on the first day of school with oobleck. I had to take …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/09/11/great-first-week/

Welcome to Mr. González’s Class!

Can you believe that school has started! Today is our first day back to school and I’m very excited for this brand new school year. I have the great pleasure of getting to work with every 6th grader as they enter middle school for the first time. I’m also very fortunate to get to work …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/09/06/welcome-to-mr-gonzalezs-class/

Tech Requests to Start the Year

After having access to many web 2.0 sites last year I was bummed to start off this school year with almost everything I use blocked. I am a teacher and staff accounts are supposed to have access to most of the things I requested to have unblocked. Tech support did try to help but after …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/09/06/tech-requests-to-start-the-year/

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