Tag: engagement

The End of the Best Student Engagement & Gamification Tool I’ve Ever Seen

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 …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2024/02/22/the-end-of-the-best-student-engagement-gamification-tool-ive-ever-seen/

Minecraft Education Edition’s Building Competitions

Minecraft House Build

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! …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2021/10/29/minecraft-education-editions-building-competitions/

Sustainability Development in Minecraft

Pirate Ship with Yellow and Green Score image.

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 …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2021/10/29/sustainability-development-in-minecraft/

Back to Hybrid

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, …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2021/02/15/back-to-hybrid/

Gamification Update

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 …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2020/02/19/gamification-update/

100% Total Engagement

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 …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2018/03/02/100-total-engagement/

Playing the Game of School

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 …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2017/10/24/playing-the-game-of-school/

How Do You Engage Your Students?

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 …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2017/04/25/how-do-you-engage-your-students/

My #NCCE17 Takeaways!

This is my 4th straight year of getting to attend the Northwest Council for Computer Education or NCCE’s three-day conference (although last year I was only able to attend for one day)! This year it was in Portland, OR. NCCE goes back and forth between Seattle and Portland and this year it was Portland’s turn …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2017/03/27/my-ncce17-takeaways/

School as a Game

This post was originally published on the WA CORELaborate site! In a way, school is already a game. Think about it. Think about your top performing or A students. They have figured out how to play the game of school. They know how to complete assignments, turn in their homework, do well on quizzes and …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2017/02/28/school-as-a-game/