Gaming in EducationI found this week’s topic of gaming in education very interesting. I have been aware of my nephews playing World of Warcraft for years but mostly because my sister in law was frustrated about the amount of time they spent playing the game. I now have a better understanding of the game, the appeal and the surprising benefits of being immersed in the gaming world. I especially enjoyed the TED Talk video titled Jane McGonigal: Gaming Can Make a Better World. I loved the description of an “epic win” which is commonly used today but I didn’t realize how long the term has been around or it’s origin. She describes an epic win as an outcome that is so extraordinarily impossible that until you achieve it, you had no idea it was even possible and that it’s almost beyond imagination. She cited research that shows that in the gaming world, gamers are inspired to collaborate and cooperate, that that’s where the best versions of ourselves are found, participants are more likely to help others at a moment’s notice and that they are more likely to stick with a problem in this problem solving environment. She talks about how the number of hours playing the games has created 500 million virtuosos in these four areas: Urgent Optimism where players develop extreme self motivation, Social Fabric where bonds, trust and cooperation between players are built, Blissful Productivity where humans are optimized and happier working harder and Epic Meaning where gamers love to be attached and work on epic missions. I am now inspired to find more ways to incorporate gaming into my classroom. We currently have ST Math and FASTT Math which are motivating to some students but not all. As a former Read 180 and System 44 teacher, I found the gaming structure highly motivating to my students and for the most part enjoyed the challenges of trying to “level up”. Students love to play Sum Dog but I have never been much of a fan of it. My biggest issue with it was that it wasn’t very challenging to students and they would spend hours upon hours playing games with one digit addition and subtraction problems which is far below 5th grade standards in order to earn coins to use to build, dress and outfit their avatars and pets within the game. My 6th daughter recently came home from school with a new account and again I watched her just go through the motions of very simple problems and found that she was only doing that to work with her avatar. I sat down with her and talked to her about whether she felt challenged and she admitted that she wasn’t. I asked her if she could adjust the level of difficulty. She took some time and explored the settings and found that she could. She has been much more engaged in the more challenging problems and I am happy to know that changing topics and difficulty levels is possible. I will have some very happy 5th graders who have been begging me to set up accounts for them. Interactive Whiteboard App: EducreationsThis week I experimented with Doceri and Educreations. I had trouble accessing all the features in Doceri on my iPad and wondered if the app was updated. I liked the looks of the samples I could see on Doceri but wasn’t successful in creating anything. I am away from home with a spotty wifi connection so that may be part of the issue. I was however successful in using Educreations on my iPad. I had experimented with this a few years ago when I had AppleTV installed in my classroom and the students were really engaged when I used it. One of the things I liked was that I could carry my iPad with me and if a student needed help, I could use my stylus in Educreations to demonstrate or walk the student through a math problem. This benefited other students at the same time since it was projected on the screen via my AppleTV. I didn’t have my stylus when working on this week’s screencast on my Ipad mini which made it slightly more difficult. I am now motivated to find my AppleTV and get in installed in my classroom again. I chose to do a screencast on creating a storyboard because I have two students who have "graduated" from Read 180 and will be joining my core language arts class. I will have those students watch the steps to creating their storyboard prior to class since the other students have had experience with this already.
4 Comments
Dana Hand
11/19/2016 06:37:09 pm
I would love to hear more about Educreations on the ipad. I played around with it on my pc and I wasn't initally excited, but I can see the versatility of it if you are using the ipad as you described.
Reply
Kris Drew
11/19/2016 07:18:47 pm
I am glad that you were able to be successful with Educreation, I was not. I could not upload the images that I made. It is really great that you can use the resources that you have, and hopefully, find the ones that you want to bring back into your classroom. I believe that was the tool that Eddie Obeng was using, and I thought the flexibility was an asset.
Reply
Florencia
11/20/2016 03:04:11 pm
I created an account with Educreations this week and played with it a little bit. However, I am yet to test it in my classroom and I am glad to read your post because I now know about possible issues I might have. I am lucky to have an Apple TV in my classroom, which makes thins SO easy!. I honestly don't know if I could go back to teaching without it. Using it has become as common as using a pencil or a computer.
Reply
Kristin Pruitt
11/25/2016 01:31:47 pm
Wow! You had an Apple TV in your classroom! Why did you choose to take it down? My students work with chromebooks, so some of these fun apps don't translate. I also signed up with EduCreations and need to practice/play with it some more
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
April 2017
Categories |