I teach 5th and 6th grade STEM in the lovely Pacific Northwest in a small, rural town called Chimacum. My goal is to help students discover that all learning is life-long and that 21st century tools can be used for work as well as fun.
Jul 01
This was my setup for this year’s ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) conference. Due to circumstances, one of them being available funds from my school district – we get about $275/yr to spend on any PD that we want and we can bank our funds for a few years – I was able …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/07/01/is-live-better-than-virtual-istelive-nccechat/
Jun 13
Making Esports our Own: Stories of Academic Esports session at this year’s Serious Play Conference.
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/06/13/serious-play-conference/
May 02
This year, with students sitting closer together and able to work cooperatively in small teams, our robotics unit was able to happen again! Having 5th graders mixed in with our 6th graders allowed me to change up our usual robotics unit with one that focused on space science. Using NASA’s Artemis mission to go back …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/05/02/lunar-missions-and-robotics/
Mar 13
One of my 6th grade students created a survey back in January to find out the reading preferences of people after a Data Science Math activity we did in class. He put together the following slideshow (click here to open it in a new tab): If you want to leave a comment on the last …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/03/13/print-books-vs-ebooks-results/
Jan 13
In Math class we were looking at some 2019 data about reading preference of adults with regards to print book, ebooks, and audio books. One of my 6th graders is curious if that has changed and wants to collect some of his own data. Can you please take a few seconds to answer his nine-question …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/01/13/student-reading-preference-survey/
Nov 20
My 5th and 6th grade students are participating in this year’s Minecraft Education Edition and UNESCO Sustainability Development Global Build Challenge: Peace with Nature. When using Minecraft Education Edition, or Minecraft:EE or just M:EE, in the classroom teachers have access to ready-made worlds for all subjects and different grade levels. It’s amazing how much is …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2021/11/20/building-for-hours/
Oct 30
At the end of December 2020 I was planning to purchase four Oculus Quest 2’s for students to use in my Science class and for esports. When I finally got the four quests in the spring of 2021 I ran into an obstacle that I thought would be easy to overcome – to make school …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2021/10/30/seriously-facebook-er-meta/
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
I’ve been thinking about how we are working at leveling the playing field between our haves and have-nots. The pandemic has made extremely clear the advantages that our haves have over our have-nots. A couple of ways our district worked at leveling the playing field was to provide every student a laptop to take home …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2021/10/29/leveling-the-playing-field/
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/
I'm a Curipod Ambassador! :)
I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023 and 2024!
