Author: Todd Nesloney

So I left ISTE 2013 today.  Man what an exciting, invigorating, exhausting, and somewhat life changing experience I had these past 5 days at ISTE.  Before I jump into my week I think it might be best if I give a little background information about myself to help you better understand why this week made…

So yesterday was my first experience ever with ISTE (the international technology conference).  Now granted ISTE didn’t start yesterday for “normal” people, but yesterday was when they held ISTE Unplugged, or the HackEd Conference.  It was very similar to an EdCamp model.  And man I had a blast. So I left my house at 4:30am…

Well I am SO excited to announce a new endeavor I am undertaking with two of my friends; Stacey Huffine (@TechNinjaStacey) and Chris Kesler (@iamkesler).  It’s a new podcast series called EduAllStars! At least twice a month (maybe more) we will be interviewing different people in the education field to hear their stories and to…

So school is officially over!!  Man it has been an incredible year.  There have been so many positive things that happened this year for me and my class.  I can’t even begin to start thinking about them now!  But man did this last week really test me.  Due to many unforeseen circustances I had to…

Another eventful week!! Most of the week was spent on completing our Roller Coaster project.  This project had no real reason except to be fun at the end of the year.  About a month ago I told my students to start collecting toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, and cardboard boxes (cereal, cracker, etc).  Then…

The last two weeks have been a blast. First of all we’ve been working on our latest project; Bridge building!  I wanted a fun project that still involved some math so here’s what we did… The first things students did was watch two videos from Discovery Education about how bridges are built in the real…

Wow, what a whirlwind weekend.  This weekend Waller hosted it’s first ever EdCampWaller!  We had over 200 educators from all over Texas!!  Several of whom drove over 7 hours to be there.  To say that it was an incredible day is an understatement. The idea of EdCampWaller came from when Stacey Huffine (@TechNinjaStacey) and I…

Ok so I know I didn’t blog last week! My bad!  What we did last week was that my fifth graders were given third grade TEKS (our state standards) by a 3rd grade teacher that the 3rd graders were low in.  My fifth graders created games, presentations, whatever for those TEKS, and then on Thursday…

Man what a great week! So on Monday I wanted to do something different.  Our After School program has had archery equipment for a while, and I am the certified Archery Instructor for the program….so I thought, how can I use this in Math? So I went out, set up the targets and equipment and…

So this week was finally the time.  The time for our state standardized test (or STAAR). So Monday we had a last minute review where I mainly just talked with the kids about setting a goal and not stressing out about the test.  I haven’t mentioned STAAR much this year because I think it should be treated just like…

First off I have to say I work with some pretty incredible people.  So I heard about the whole EdCamp idea last year when I attended EdCampDallas.  I fell in love with the idea so much that now I am in the midst of planning EdCampWaller for our area.  When explaining what an EdCamp is…

So, yes I know, the title to this post is very negative.  But it’s very true.  STAAR (or the state-exam for Texas) is crazy.  Now, honestly I’m all for testing.  I think our students should be tested for what they know and have learned that school year, but WAY too much emphasis is put on…