The Role of Games

“James Paul Gee on Learning with Video Games” is the podcast I will be looking at now. Video games are often controversial in general and definitely in education. Gee is a major advocated of video games in the classroom.

Gee explains that today’s video games are much more than just the game. Games have become a social phenomenon. Role-playing games have become increasingly popular, which are played with other people.  The main example he uses is World of Warcraft. In this game players make groups of 5 where they all specialize differently, yet must maintain a big picture view to do well. This has obvious overlap with the modern successful business strategy.

It is really interesting to me, a non-gamer to the core, that video games can integrate skills that would be really useful in the real world. When seen from this perspective, teachers can use the games that students play for fun to help the student understand content collaboration and business strategy.

Another example Gee gives is the game of Portal. In Portal players make orange and blue “portals” where they enter one and come out the other to get to different places to complete missions. However, the game follows the laws of physics. This game could be a fantastic way for a physics teacher to pull in the students’ interests to help them understand the material. Playing the game would likely be an advantage to better understand concepts taught in class.

Gee offers many other examples. However, the main takeaway for me is that as teachers we need to be intentional about understanding the culture and interests of our students. It is their interests that give them experiences. A person’s experiences is what helps them to learn, really learn.  We need to give students the opportunity to really use the knowledge that they are being taught in the classroom. While at the same time realizing the depth of their current hobbies and relate that knowledge to their academics as well. This is a distinct two-way street.

  

Mentorship and Collaboration

Today I’ll be reviewing another Edutopia podcast entitled “Teaching Teamwork through Video Game Development.”

This podcast focuses on Computer Science teacher, Ben Chun,  and his high school class, which is making  educational video games for a 5^th grade class. This is a really neat integration idea between different students and schools. The designing students had the opportunity to meet the students and teacher that they are designing these games for.

I think this is a really awesome opportunity and neat idea. Technology isn’t often used to mentor and connect students. However, this relationship has obvious benefits to everyone involved. The high school students have a clear real life application for their work, which is a HUGE plus. The elementary students get games personally made for them, to engage their interests to help them learn. The elementary teacher gets incredibly more say than the average teacher over what the educational games played in class actually entail.

The high school students are broken up into groups of three to create the video games. The roles are broken up quite similarly to the way that they might be broken up at a real software company, which gives the students great experience and understanding.  Except that all of the students in the group are responsible for designing the game, which maintains academic focus. The real-world emphasis in all aspects of this particular project is especially appealing to me and fits in well with the 21^st Century Skills Model.

The fifth grade students were even able to visit the high school to further their relationship with the high school class. During this visit the fifth grade students were able to play some demos of the games, which allowed the high school students to get live feedback from the ‘customer.’ The level of real-world and mentorship integration in this project is mind-boggling to me. It seems like this is an ideal situation that more teacher should be striving for to really make learning collaborative across schools, ages, and content-areas.

Technology & Literacy

Our world has become an increasingly Digital Nation, which is the title and topic of a PBS documentary and point of interest.  One aspect of this controversy and intrigue is education and more specifically Literacy.  After watching the documentary and further interviews  I created a prezi to distill the issues and point out the controversy.  It can be seen here.

Creating Creative Time and Space

I will be reviewing another Edutopia podcast, today, Big Thinkers: Salman Khan on Liberating the Classroom for Creativity. Creativity is an important aspect of learning and education.

Salman Khan is the founder of Khan Academy, and only faculty member. He makes videos on nearly every imaginable academic area, from basic addition to the economic debt ceiling. These programs focus on mastery before the students progress.  Schools buy the videos to use with their students.

Students watch the videos on their own. Then they work on the concepts together. The students work collaboratively to master the concept, similar to the idea of a college study group. Students are able to teach each other and review through practice and the video.  

Salman stresses that these videos are not a cure-all to bring every student up to mastery level. However, he thinks the greatest accomplishment of the videos is to “get the lecture out of the room.” The idea that students work together to teach each other could be very helpful in the classroom.  Students will remember and understand different aspects of the video in the same way that students understand different parts of a lecture. The collaborative learning and teaching would likely help the students to understand the concepts on a deeper level, because they have had to explain them.

 However, teacher supervision and appropriate intervention would be key. No matter how good the videos are if students are not grasping the concepts there should be plenty of opportunity for a more knowledgeable other whether it is a classmate, tutor, or teacher to step in and help out.

Khan argues that the real magic of this program comes from the collaboration of the class. The students are then free to talk to each other to better understand and master the program. But in any class this will take teacher supervision to keep the conversation on the math concept, not the most recent movie.

Khan is attempting to move from micro-managing teachers. Instead of forcing teachers to teach on a specific topic on a specific day, essentially the lecture is taken care of. So now the teachers can focus on making fun creative projects to really help the students to internalize the concept. This could create a really neat classroom environment where the teacher has more time to work with students, but also on the development of interesting projects based on the concept, allowing creativity to flow from the teacher and the students.

The Move to Online Learning

Today I’ll be reviewing Edutopia’s podcast: Susan Patrick: Why Online Learning is a Smart Solution. 

With a growing lack of specialized teachers, Patrick argues that online learning is the solution to help students. She uses the example of a lack of physics teachers in Georgia. By using online classes students can have more opportunity to learn subjects that their particular school may not have been able to offer otherwise.

I think this is a great opportunity, especially in high schools, where students are beginning to explore their academic interests. If students can be in classes that truly interest them, their engagement level will be inherently higher and they will likely learn more. In that case, giving students the opportunity to engage with material they are interested in seems like common sense and a good situation for everyone involved.

Online learning, according to Patrick, allows time to be allocated differently and the teacher to have more time to work individually with each student. This definitely correlates with the computer programs in the classroom I evaluated early. It seems that much of technology in the classroom can be used to teach, which then frees the teacher to help those who are struggling.

Patrick also emphasizes that it is important to shift the professional development for teachers so that they are prepared to teach in a digital world. If technology is to be used and used well in education the teachers need to know how to use it as well. This is the reason that Fryer teaches seminars, but in order for teachers to be on the same page and working together there needs to professional development and importance put on the different aspects within the school system.

Online learning also can help students to be more self-responsible for their own learning. They would know that they need to be through certain content by a certain time and then it is their responsibility. Helping students at a high school level to learn that they are responsible for their own learning is important, especially for those moving on to college. However, it would also be important to remember that they are still high school students in need of supervision.

Using the Right Tool

Today I’ll be reviewing one of Edutopia’s Technology Integration video podcasts, “ Differentiating Instruction through Interactive Games.” Differentiation has definitely become a key word within education speech and teaching. Let’s see how Edutopia connects differentiation and technology.

This podcast focused primarily on an elementary math class, although the principles behind the ideas could be incorporated into nearly any classroom.  In addition to some traditional teaching methods the teacher had the students practice their addition and subtraction through computer games. The great thing about using computer games for practice is that the students receive immediate feedback on their answers and progress. This allows each student to essentially have a tutor sitting with them.

Additionally, because each student is working independently the teacher is much freer to be able to work with the students who need the extra support during the class time. This really allows each student to get the help and attention that they need, without having to pull struggling students from recess or their time or having to find busy work for students who are excelling.

Computer programs also in many ways naturally differentiate. If students understand the concepts they will accelerate through the levels and move on to more challenging material. There are also some programs that rely on the individualized learning profile and how the student is doing, which would intensify the differentiation. This type of differentiation really takes a lot of pressure off of the teacher. Instead of trying to find the best way and something to gauge and help each student, their needs are being met.

The teacher put a lot of emphasis on use of the right tool. He still taught his students with them sitting on the rug in the more traditional style. He also encouraged his students to find the method that worked for them whether it is writing on the white board, counting their fingers, the computer or another method. He would take small groups of struggling students aside to work with them, not just assign them a game. We shouldn’t  make technology our only tool, but use it as one of many options to help students learn.

Fryer, iPads & Reflection

I recently check out Wesley Fryer’s podcast series “Moving at the Speed of Creativity.” The name of the podcast series intrigued me, as our society and schools have become faster as our technology has improved, but we cannot allow creativity to be lost. The particular podcast I listened to and will review is “Lessons Learned from June 2012 iPad Media Camp.” Dr. Fryer taught a 3-day seminar on how to integrate the iPad and especially video into the classroom. More resources are available at ipadmediacamp.com

Summary & Commentary:

The summary will be first with my personal commentary and reflection on the idea indented directly underneath.

 Fryer reflects on his own teaching and the whole seminar that he taught in June. He was very intentional about having teachers work in groups and choose more cutting-edge group names, like band names.

The neat thing about iPads is they can easily be used outside of the computer lab for long periods of time, because of the battery life.

 Teachers should know their technology as they assign projects to students, it really helps if the teacher has actually completed the projects that they assign.

 Fryer reflects that the teachers learned the most from their own hands-on work, which obviously correlates to the classroom, when students often learn best through hands-on work.

All of the participants used the “Show-me” app to make narrated slide shows and then uploaded them to the same channel.

 This could be a very neat resource for the classroom. Students who get nervous in presentations wouldn’t have to present in front of the whole class and a lot of classroom time could be saved from presenting in class. Students then could watch each other’s presentations later, or at home, and have the presentations to use for review for a test. This technology could make it much more feasible to incorporate more presentations into the class without spending a lot of time to present in class.

Teachers created a short interview video on iMovie and then moved onto more complicated video creating. There is now a YouTube education site that teachers and students can make channels to publish videos to.

                Making videos is a really neat opportunity for school projects. Even younger children can make videos to express their opinions and what they learned, really giving the opportunity for neat presentations and lasting projects. As teachers, we need to remember to give our students at all ages and ability levels options when it comes to projects and presenting.

Teachers should make their assignments easily accessible to their students. Fryer achieved this by making the wiki he was using everyone’s homepage. Similarly QR codes can be handy for students, because all they need to do is scan it.

                This type of accessibility could make it really easy for students to remember their assignments and ask questions. However, for this system to work the teacher, as well as the students need to be diligent in checking it and updating it.

Overall, Fryer has some really neat ideas of integrating technology into teaching, especially with the iPad. I thought this podcast was especially neat, because it was his reflections on teaching teachers. Reflecting on our teaching is definitely best methods. And as a beginning teacher listening to the reflections of others can often be enlightening.