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.
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Pondering or Wandering?Continue building a bridge between your practice, your action research and what you are learning. Muse about anything that inspires you, observations, reflections, experiences, connections, dilemmas....what’s innovative about what you’re planning to do this semester? How are you thinking “outside the box”?
It has taken longer than I expected for all the pieces and new learnings to begin to fall into a place where I can begin to see the connections and make sense of it all. I am thankfully edging closer to that with each class, reading, video, discussion, along with a whole lot of thinking. Like others, I have found the Baggio readings to be easiest and most enjoyable and have enjoyed looking at my work with a more critical eye as well as creating new products with a focus on balancing contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity in mind. I think I have intuitively created products with many of those elements in place because it’s pleasing to my eye but now I will be much more mindful of how those elements impact the learner since that is the ultimate goal. The video, Smart Failure for a Fast Changing World with Eddie Obeng was fast paced, much like the world he is trying to describe. I think it’s both fascinating and overwhelming that we are trying to prepare our students to be successful in an ever changing world and one in which so many of the jobs needed haven’t even been conceptualized yet. I liked the WHY HOW ladder exercise and it has led me to a slightly different question than what I started with. I like the new question but feel the need to do more thinking and pondering of it as well as discussing it with others to see if it will take me where I wish to go. Infographics in EducationI really enjoyed exploring the various sites and videos about infographics this week. I had fun creating an infographic to use with my capstone project and loved the creative aspects of it. I found it quite time consuming but a big part of that was learning how to use the features in Piktocharts. I think it will be easier the next time around.
In Kathy Schrock’s full length video the idea of using infographics as a way of assessing student work and thinking was explored. Several ISTE standards as well as many Common Core State Standards can be assessed such as integration of knowledge and ideas presented visually and the strategic use of media to express information and enhance understanding of presentations. I appreciated her suggestions for the steps to teaching how to understand and create infographics as well as some of the other suggested sites that students could use to create infographics. I have teach my 5th students to use Google Slides at the beginning of the year but I love the idea of having them create an All About Me presentations. The SITE ModelIn reading about the various instructional design models, it’s clear that careful consideration needs to be made in creating meaningful learning tasks. These learning tasks need to be relevant, engaging, rigorous, and meet the needs of the individual learners. In addition, the learning should ideally be linked with opportunities to apply the learning in a real-world context. Considering the learner’s background, the best methods to engage and meet them where they are as a learner and finding the right tools is essential in an effort to keep them engaged, motivated to learn and work through challenges are what I have taken away from the SITE model.
I am still struggling with an idea for my capstone project and driving question but am currently considering the following: “How does the use of digital tools enhance student engagement in reading and writing?”. |
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April 2017
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