May 9

Remake Learning Days: Passport to the World: A Camps Maker Adventure

Friday evening, May 8, 2026, I had the honor and privilege of being the Remake Learning Days Ambassador for an event at Ellwood City’s Perry Intermediate School. The teachers there, many of whom teach the special classes, ran a Remake Learning Days event. It was interdisciplinary event, featuring activities from around the globe. Students were given a paper passport that they were encouraged to get stamped.

Overall, this is the second year in a row—if not the third—that I’ve attended events held by the staff. In all honesty, I’ve actually attended numerous events in Elwood City. Their STEM and STEAM activities are phenomenal as are the programs the staff run such as Arts and Bots. Teachers work very well together. It is always great seeing their collaboration.

Topics covered at the event included musical instruments from Africa which they had the chance to play. Students were guided by the music teacher as they tried out the various intruments.

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There was a take-home activity where they made a Japanese lantern. The paper was cut out by the staff using a Glowforge laser cutter and had connectivity tape attached. They were instructed on how to add the battery and LED light, then clip it together to make the lantern light up. So students had that hands-on activity.

Students could make finger puppets, which they colored and glued together at another station.

The school has a hydroponic greenhouse, which hosted a station. We learned about plants, and were able to sample different oils and butter flavored with items grown in the greenhouse.

 

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Phys Ed featured the impossible goal: a long soccer kick with three tries, students and parents were able to give the shot a try. Many came close, but few were successful. It was fun nonetheless for all who tried the kick.

 

For art, they did cave painting and rock painting while listening to a story. It was discussed how Aboriginal peoples in Australia did not have a written language and used images to communicate.

They had some pre-service teachers from Slippery Rock University helping them, and a couple of teachers who have moved on to other districts came back to work with the students as well. It was a fantastic evening to see. Even the superintendent brought her child to attend the event. It was well attended by many parents and their children. They always do an excellent job. If you ever get a chance to attend one of these in the future, please do so.

 

 

 

 

Category: Cool Stuff, PAECT, Remake Learning Days, Student Projects | LEAVE A COMMENT
November 23

AI in the Classroom: Writing Assistant Part II

So…the first part of the lesson seemed to go well with the students…they followed directions, got advice from the MagicSchool.ai tool that was in the online space provided. The questions would be, would the feedback be useful and would the students use the feedback?

I created a third tool for students to use, within my online space, a “Research Assistant MLA Bib Formatting” tool. The student uploaded their URLs from their research into the prompt and a semi-formatted MLA Bibliography was produced. Tehy had some editting to complete, but the heavy lifting was done. This was very useful for the students who actually used it.

The answer is a mixed bag. Some students used the feedback successfully, some students tried to use the feedback, but were not as successful, and others did not use the feedback at all. That being said, I believe it was a worthwhile endeavor. Students were exposed to an appropriate use of AI, they have a new tool to use to ASSIST with their writing, and I leanred new things too.

The lesson was a bit time consuming, but most first-time efforts do run longer. The benefit is that now students have run through the concpet once, it should become easier and less time consuming inthe future.

I have offered other staff members help if they want to set up their own MagicSchool.ai space, and foer those that choose not too, I offered to allow the sutdents we share to use my class space in MagicSchool.

 

 

 

This Post is currently unfinished….

Category: class work, Cool Stuff, Honors US II, Lessons and Teacher Things, Musings, Random Musings, Student Projects, Student Stuff, Tech Tips, US II | LEAVE A COMMENT
August 5

The end of Flip…or Flipgrid

Flip, or as it started out Flipgrid is no more. Microsoft is ending that tool after purchasing it and incorporating it into their Teams. We are not a Microsoft School, so I do not know how cumbersome it could be to use Teams with my students; only time will tell.

In the meantime, I am pulling down my existing videos from the site to store them elsewhere. I am using iMovie to stitch them together by theme, then pushing them out to either TikTok or YouTube. Most of the videos were set up as Optional Enrichment Projects, so student participation varied. I unfortunately must admit there is not a lot of video content to transfer.

Moving forward, in my attempt to gamify my classes I am hoping for more student created content in the near future. I am using the PAECT Book Study on Explore Like a Pirate: Engage, Enrich, and Elevate Your Learners to bolster my attempt at this endeavor. That is a story for another blog post…

Category: Book Study, class work, Lessons and Teacher Things, Random Musings, Student Projects, Student Stuff | Comments Off on The end of Flip…or Flipgrid
March 15

Old Guy Moments…Argh!

So, AI is all the RAGE or FEAR depending on your view of the future…of education…of the world…of humanity. I believe it is here to stay, at least in some form, just like the Internet, Google, Wikipedia, Web 2.0, and other forms of technology. I have been playing/experimenting with it for a while now, I want to learn more so I can address it APPROPRIATELY with my students. There will be other posts on that later, or you can listen to our discussions on the PAECT Pod. I am off-topic from the start of this post…let’s redirect…

For my classes Civil Rights/Black History Month Projects we once again were creating video projects, this time using Canva.  I have some students who are a bit shy and do not like recording their voices for projects.  The idea was to find a TEXT TO SPEECH TOOL my students could use for their projects, like VOKI. I went through my lists of resources from my PLN and Google and played with other free AI tools.  Some worked, but some were not really free if you wanted to download and use the text-to-voice file elsewhere.  Students used several of the free tools, one that worked well, we broke when it read every student using it in our building as the same user.  It found us “SUS” and shut down our attempts.  I have to reach out to them and see if I can correct that issue.

Anyways, yesterday I had a student who had been absent finishing up their project, but could not record audio due to losing their voice from illness,  Instead of going to Wakelet to look over my curated resources, I had the student open up the apps tab in Canva…THERE IT WAS THE ENTIRE TIME!!!! A TEXT-TO-VOICE app right within the tool we were using!!!!  ARGH!!!!  In the immortal words of Mr. Dierks Bentley, “What was I thinking!” Murf.AI was right there.  We connected through Google, and the student copied and pasted their script from Google Docs into the Canva-connected app which automatically pushed the audio into their project.  No downloading MP3s uploading MP3s then dropping them in to the projects, which is easy enough, but this is integrated right in the same program.

Why I did not check on this first, I have not a clue, but alas and alack, I now know better. I learned from my error, which I attribute to my age…yes, it is a low-hanging fruit of an excuse, but it works today.

Below are screen shots of Canva and Murf.AI along with an embedded video made with that app.

Search for Murf.AI in apps.


Create or log into your account, we used our school Googler Signins.

You can choose which voice to use, some are PRO Account only.

Choose tone of voice and type in or copy and paste what you want the app to say.

You can test the voice and adjust as you feel is necessary. When you are satisfied, click “Add to design.” Once you add the audio, you may need to adjust the length of your clip to get the audio and image to match up.

Granted, there are limitations to what AI can accomplish at this time.

 

Category: Class Updates, Cool Stuff, Lessons and Teacher Things, PAECT Pod, Random Musings, Student Projects | LEAVE A COMMENT
September 10

A Bit About Me

Students have completed this short project for my class over the last couple of years., This year they asked me to complete a copy.  Here it is:

I think it is important to build connections and let the students see “behind the curtain” if you will.  We as teachers are not perfect, we make mistakes, and we enjoy life outside of the classroom.  Students need to see those characteristics in us.

Category: Class Updates, class work, Random Musings, Student Projects, Student Stuff | LEAVE A COMMENT
September 9

Our Second StickTogether

My classes participated and completed our second StickTogether as an OPTIONAL ENRICHMENT ASSIGNMENT, It went well and more students worked on completing this activity than the first StickTogether.  Once they work on the activity they are to take a screenshot of their work and submit it to me via email or messages in Schoology so they can be given the points they earned.  At times I put the activity on the big board, the interactive TV, in the front of my room.  Students could come up and click squares to complete the puzzle.

You can read more about StickTogether here.

A screenshot of the completed  activity is below:

Category: Class Updates, class work, Cool Stuff, Extra Credit, Lessons and Teacher Things, Student Projects, Student Stuff | LEAVE A COMMENT