Oct 11
Five Student Profile Types of My Current Classes Generating the Profile Types Above Our district is having a few of us teachers, a principal, and our IT Director work with UnconstrainEd to learn how to leverage AI to work with student data. I have not done a lot with actual student data so this has …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2024/10/11/student-profile-cards-from-actual-data/
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/
Dec 24
Since my last post sharing AI tools that teachers of students under 13 years of age can use with their students, I’ve found some more tools that we can use with our students! Once you’ve established a class AI policy then kids are ready to go and begin practicing. After finding out about CodeBreaker’s Byte …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2023/12/24/more-ai-tools-for-kids-under-13/
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/
Feb 19
My 5th and 6th grade STEM classes have been working on robotics using the Lego Mindstorm EV3 kits since December. Students built their first robot then took the Lego Mindstorms programming lesson tutorials before we began some activities and challenges. We still have two major challenges left in this unit before we transition to our …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2023/02/19/students-excited-by-robotics-and-ai/
Aug 01
I wrote about struggles I’ve always had with reading before, but I’ve never really reflected on my struggles with Math. Reading is more prevalent so I face my struggles on a daily basis. My struggles with Math are not as obvious, especially because the types of Math I use daily are Maths I can do …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/08/01/best-math-combo-ever/
Jul 11
As part of our Ocean Guardian School’s Environmental Stewardship Project, I give students a pre and post project survey. In addition to questions about their perceived understanding of the topics we cover before and after the project, I also ask questions about the project and what they liked best and least. It helps inform any …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/07/11/reflecting-on-21-22/
Jul 05
I thought it was just me. Just my students. Then I read this EdSurge article, Students Got a Crash Course in Tech During the Pandemic. Now Some Want a Break. I had been experiencing a bit of cognitive dissonance because I envisioned more and more teachers and students using tech in school because they experienced …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/07/05/do-your-students-have-tech-fatigue/
I'm a Curipod Ambassador! :)
I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023, 2024, and 2025!
I presented at WSTA 2015!
