Jun 25
After COVID it was nice to start the school year like almost normal. Kids were in full classes of 24 or 25 giving us 75 students (14 5th graders and 61 6th graders) in three classes and they were coming to school all day, every day. I was teaching only Science, another teacher taught ELA …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2023/06/25/2022-2023-school-year-exhausting-confusing-rewarding/
Mar 25
I need a fresh perspective on something I’ve been struggling with this school year. My reason for gamifying my courses was to motivate and engage more of my students whether they are gamers or not. Last week I reiterated something in blog post that I’ve learned in over 22 years of teaching, that no ONE …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/03/25/what-am-i-missing-here/
Jan 29
Cross-posted on Inquire Within. I wrote my first post for Inquire Within on Nov 29, 2010 and my last post was on Dec 5, 2011. I’ve gone two whole years without writing a post! Last school year, after many months of not writing a post for this blog, I asked Edna to keep me on …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/01/29/dry-spell/
Jul 18
Back in December when I heard there was interest in starting a 1:1 iPad program in my district I jumped on the idea. I got with the middle school teachers (all nine of us) and I asked if they wanted to pilot a 1:1 program in our school. Everyone was on board so I started drafting …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2013/07/18/11-ipad-program-proposal/
Jul 14
I’ve been obsessed with preparing a new method of gamifying my classes for the upcoming school year this Fall. I’ve written a bunch of posts sharing my journey to make a Results Only Learning Environment (ROLE) classroom that runs like a real life computer game using the 3D GameLab (3DGL) interface. I added more quests …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2013/07/14/almost-ready-for-fall/
Jul 09
After planning possible 6th grade activities, I put them into the 3D GameLab (3DGL) interface ready for kids to Beta test in the fall. So far I have 73 quests in several different chains with room for some student choice. The benefit of having no grades is that kids can really pick and choose what …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2013/07/09/8th-grade-year-plan/
Jul 03
With regards to the 8 characteristics of Game-Based Learning (GBL) [CORRECTION: this should be Quest-Based Learning (QBL) as GBL is something different entirely] mentioned in 3DGL: Choice (Autonomy) Failure Progress Bars Multiple long & short aims Reward ALL successful efforts (XP points) Prompt, meaningful feedback Elements of uncertainty/awards Socialization schools need to embrace these, probably …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2013/07/03/characteristics-of-gbl/
Jul 02
We’ve barely been out of school for two weeks and I’ve already had the first day of school nightmare! What the heck?! It’s probably because I’ve been obsessing with 3DGL and I’m so excited to use it that I’m jumping right in planning my year. I think it’s better to do it now, while I’m …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2013/07/02/planning-for-the-fall-already/
Jul 01
This past year I tried my hand at gamifying my classes after reading Lee Sheldon’s Multiplayer Classroom. It was quite a failure. The class didn’t feel like a game. Kids didn’t show the level of engagement I was after. After going gradeless and offering kids more and more choice to take charge of their learning …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2013/07/01/gamifying-take-2/
Feb 01
So I am continuing to survey my students. It’s our midterm and halfway through our school year so I wanted to check in and see how they’re all doing. After the positive exit slip experience I had last week I thought this week’s survey would be cool. It was cool but not so easy to …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2013/02/01/change-is-hard/
I'm a Curipod Ambassador! :)
I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023, 2024, and 2025!
I presented at WSTA 2015!
