Gaming in Education

I don't play many online games but I do see the value in them for educational purposes. I just read about the use of MineCraft in schools.  It's such a great idea to use a game kids love for educational purposes!

I have, I admit, recently become addicted to one online game called Trivia Crack.
The basic idea is that you answer questions in 6 subjects: Art, History, Science, Geography, Entertainment, and Sports.  The goal is to earn characters from each subject area in order to beat your opponent.  You can play multiple games at once.  So far I've played against my husband and friends in Florida.


Here is the Link to it:

http://www.triviacrack.com

And here are the characters you earn along the way.
These remind me of the gamification mechanics in our digital technology class...they are the "badges" or "rewards".


As we were traveling last year we did not allow our children to have gaming devices or other electronics, only Kindles for reading (no internet access)  However, there were two games that I kept on my phone for us to play sometimes, which are educational and a lot of fun:

Whirly Word

This is a great game for spelling and vocabulary practice.  It gives you 6 random letters and you have to make as many words as possible out of them.  It is also equipped with a dictionary so you can learn the meaning of new words.  Of course there is a point system whereby you earn points, the more words the more points!

Stack the Countries and Stack the States

These are great games for geography, history and social studies.  You have to answer questions about countries (or U.S. states depending on which game you're playing) As you answer correctly you earn countries which you have to stack to a certain level to win.  Again, gamification mechanics that I see in Digital Technology class.

These games, used responsibly could be a great tool for the classroom.  I could envision using the games themselves as a reward for hard work...i.e. you earn 10 minutes of game time if you complete an assignment correctly...or something along those lines.  Or maybe even as a homework assignment...have students report 5 new things they learned about a place or 5 new words they learned.  There are lots of possibilities.

My digital story

Here is my digital story....told in my first Gami!

https://tellagami.com/gami/U0FD9Q/

The Maker Movement and how it could impact my future classroom

Many schools are attempting to incorporate the Maker Movement into their curriculum by creating maker spaces where students can create things as part of the learning process.

It's easiest to think of the Maker Movement in terms of how it can impact science or math classes... building robotics for example.   However, I will be teaching history/social studies so I've been thinking of ways that I could use the maker movement in my class.

I think there are many ways to incorporate the maker concept of learning through doing into social studies.  I could use it to have students work collaboratively on writing projects or presentations.  It could be used for map making projects as we learn about different cultures. They could also incorporate some science as we learn about various inventions and inventors.  For example, the class could build catapults as we study medieval times.  Or students could plant a garden /make clothes and learn about the food American Colonists ate and the way they lived.   I think that is one of the great things about the Maker Movement:  it fosters the blending of many different subjects into one area of learning!

Beth cooking with TPACK

In our technology class we were required to do an exercise to demonstrate the TPACK concept.
TPACK is the intersection of technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge.

Our exercise involved having someone pick out a plate, bowl, and random kitchen utensil.  Then the person drew a number out of a hat.  The number corresponded to a specific task which we had to complete using the tools given to us.

My son, Levi, got a plate and bowl for me.  He then selected a mezzaluna(herb chopping tool) as the utensil.  He drew the number 5, the task for which was to slice vegetables for a veggie tray.

I got lucky!  The utensil he selected was easy to repurpose into a veggie peeler and slicer.  The technology was represented by the utensils.  My ability to effectively demonstrate vegetable slicing and peeling with the utensils symbolized the pedagogical aspect of the task.  In my case, I was able to  use the technology with the content(slicing vegetables) and pedagogy to create a useful lesson with the intersection of the three.

However, some people were not so lucky!  I watched three other videos of my classmates.  Tanya's was entertaining because she had to make fruit salad with a corn cob remover!  She did a great job working with the tools she was given.  But this is a good example of how the technology doesn't always match the task.

That is a lesson we should keep in mind....just because we have the technology doesn't mean we should use it for every single thing!

ISTE Standards for Teachers: Classroom Observation

I spent time observing an 8th grade Social Studies class at Cane Creek Middle School in Fletcher.
All in all it was a great day.  I learned a lot and I believe that I would actually enjoy teaching that age group, which is a switch because when I first started the MAT program I thought I would prefer high school.
Anyway, the teacher was very knowledgeable in his subject area and he clearly enjoyed his career.  I noticed a couple of things about his class that relate to the ISTE standards for teachers.

He began each class by letting the students watch CNN kids news.  I thought this was a great thing to do.  They spent the first 10 minutes or so of class watching the news and then they could discuss the current events.  This is a good example of ISTE standard 1:  "Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity" He used the video to explore real world issues and to spark classroom discussion and reflection.

Here is the link to the ISTE standards:
https://www.iste.org/docs/pdfs/20-14_ISTE_Standards-T_PDF.pdf


http://www.cnn.com/studentnews



I also noticed a non-example during my observation time.  The class was studying the Vietnam war era.  During the lesson a student told the class that he had heard some scandalous rumors about JFK having an affair during his tenure as President and also that JFK had accidentally called himself a jelly donut during a speech in Berlin.  So, of course this intrigued the class and several of them immediately pulled out their phones/ipads, etc. (Cane Creek is a BYOD school)  and started pulling up info on JFK and sharing what they found with the class.  The teacher basically just shut them down, telling them that JFK rumors were not the topic of discussion, which is one way to handle it. But, I thought that he could have used this as an opportunity to practice ISTE standard 4 "promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility".
He could have turned the situation into a lesson about making sure your digital sources are reliable.    He could also have fostered a discussion about appropriate use of their devices for classroom research.