Sep 22
The 24-25 school year is under way and with the shutdown of Classcraft I am re-creating the gamification portion of my classes to continue to provide a layer of gameplay that can make the mundane more fun for kids. This is my 34th year teaching and there is never a dull moment when the new …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2024/09/22/gamification-sans-classcraft/
Jul 22
Earlier this year in February we were informed by HMH that as part of their purchase of the gamification learning management system (LMS), Classcraft, they were taking it down completely by June 30. To those of us who have been using Classcraft that announcement was a crushing blow. I wrote about it here. For the …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2024/07/22/classcraft-finally-taken-down/
Feb 22
David Mueller started a petition to let HMH know that there are those of us who would benefit and whose students would benefit if they could keep their current form of Classcraft running for us when they start their new version. Please take a moment to help us and sign this petition: Click Here It …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2024/02/22/the-end-of-the-best-student-engagement-gamification-tool-ive-ever-seen/
Oct 29
At the end of August, after attending an amazing Minecraft Education Edition Esports Camp, I shared their new esports worlds and how to access them. Yesterday I finally got the chance to try one of the Make and Model worlds to have my students practice building together in their teams! It was so much fun! …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2021/10/29/minecraft-education-editions-building-competitions/
Oct 29
The Challenge! That is this year’s Minecraft Education Edition’s Global Challenge: Peace with Nature, a challenge partnering MinecraftEdu with UNESCO! Intro Deck In addition to the video, to get students excited and curious about this year’s challenge, here is a slide deck that comes with the challenge for teachers to introduce it to students: Perfect …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2021/10/29/sustainability-development-in-minecraft/
Feb 15
We started the school year with two-thirds of our 6th graders coming to school on a hybrid schedule with the other third fully remote. Our hybrid kids were placed into two cohorts, A and B, and each cohort was halved to make them small enough to keep kids six feet apart (Cohorts A1, A2, B1, …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2021/02/15/back-to-hybrid/
Feb 19
To make learning in school more playful and game-like, I’ve been working with Gamification for years. By gamifying my courses I continue to teach what I have always taught but more like a game than a school course. Running my class like a game makes it more exciting than just learning Science (or learning how …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2020/02/19/gamification-update/
Mar 02
I’ve been looking for ways to engage ALL my students. It’s been quite a hunt with limited success at best. I’ve learned that you can engage all of your students some of the time or some of your students all of the time (pretty much) but the 100% total engagement has been elusive. And I …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2018/03/02/100-total-engagement/
Oct 24
This post was originally published on the CORELaborate blog! I have heard it before and I agree, school can be considered a game. Think about it. Those kids who do the best have the game all figured out. You show up, do what the teachers tell you to do, be quiet, pretend to listen (or …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2017/10/24/playing-the-game-of-school/
Apr 25
This post was originally published on the CORELaborate blog! Do kids already have grit?? A comment left on Kristen’s Movement in the Classroom post by Carina struck a chord with me. In her comment, Carina wrote, “If my students need a break from our learning every 10 minutes, what am I teaching? How can I …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2017/04/25/how-do-you-engage-your-students/
I'm a Curipod Ambassador! :)
I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023, 2024, and 2025!
I presented at WSTA 2015!
