Gaming for Education

There are opportunities for us to think outside the box around every corner.  Traditionally we have taken games away from children and denied their practice as a way of learning.  The fact is, however, as resilient as humans are, we learn from whatever environment we are presented with in life.  For those growing up in today's America video games and media in general are unavoidably part of the totality of their intake.  To deny that they provide no educational value is arguably naive and short-sighted.

Platforms such as the Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360 Kinect provide ways of interacting with our digital world that generations before have not had.  We just need to tweek our way of thinking about these technologies.  There are teaching moments all around us and at all times.  Just because they are video games does not immediately negate their educational value.  Lessons learned in life offline might be mirrored in a game played through a video game console.  Our jobs as parents and teachers is simply to provide a learning context to what these children are experiencing.  Life is everywhere, let's embrace it!

Using Voki to create a talking avatar

Sweet!  I just made a talking avatar (from the website Voki.com) to introduce my portfolio.  Check it out.
 

Here's the link to my portfolio (still in work as of right now):
https://sites.google.com/a/u.boisestate.edu/hans-portfolio/

Spreadsheets

At Boise State there is a program called Building Bridges with Technology where technology-supported lesson plans are shared to help inspire teachers to utilize technology in developing educational opportunities for their students.  Here is the link to more information on the project: http://edtech.boisestate.edu/bridges/tslessons.htm
There are so many great examples on this website.  I think I prefer to create my own rather than use somebody else's lesson plan.  I find it makes what I teach more impactful, because it means more to me.  I could take some of the ideas on this site and tweak them to utilize them in my classroom.  The specifics would depend on which class I was teaching and even on the students I have in that particular classroom.  Using PowerPoint and Excel are effective tools in assisting learning.

Classroom of the Future

Today my baby son was sick.  He has been sick and is just not getting better, so I felt like I needed to be at the doctor's office with my wife in case there was anything really important with the diagnosis.  So I e-mailed my EdTech professor and let him know I wouldn't make it to class.  So I asked him what my options were.  Interestingly enough, he said I could stream the class from home and participate remotely in a group as we collectively build a document online.  Sweet, said I.  Let's do it.  In participating in this remote classroom exercise I was able to meet Standard 5 for the International Society for Technology in Education National Education Technology Standards (ISTE-NETS) https://sites.google.com/a/u.boisestate.edu/hans-portfolio/technology/iste-nets-for-teachers/standard-5-1.

So we used a tool from http://www.ustream.tv where my professor has a channel.  At the appropriate time I accessed the stream through a link embedded in the "quest" he had given for me to do.  Once the stream began I was able to hear and see my professor introduce the discussion and get a plan for how this project was to go.  I was also able to chat... sort of.  The chat application didn't work very well.  I was not able to speak back to my professor.  I can see how that can be a good thing because some students may not be very professional or need extra technical help with their microphone.

Anyway, I was connected with "Group 4" to collaboratively create a Google doc about the classroom application of the video website http://www.vimeo.com.  One of my student peers created the document and e-mailed me an invite to collaborate on the Google doc.  Once I was in the Google doc, I was able to chat with my classmates about the document while we researched different aspects of the paper.  We all edited and built the document in real time.  Google docs is pretty sweet!

My only negative is that I could not audibly communicate with my partners.  There was some dead time as I was waiting for them to either respond to a chat message or do some more editing in the document.  I assumed they were doing some research, talking about how the website could be used in the classroom, or discussing something with the professor.  This information I unfortunately was not privy to.  They did try to update me briefly in the chat, and so I did get at least part of the picture in that respect.

Overall it was a great experience.  This is something that could easily be reproduced into a public school classroom.  It's basically like the "Classroom of the Future" post in my legacyhappens blog (http://legacyhappens.blogspot.com/2012/02/classroom-cant-find-your-place-in-this.html).  I'm looking forward to using this type of technology when I teach because there might be an important lesson I'll be going over and if a student is sick for the day he or she won't have to miss it.  They can get better at home and still play a part in the classroom.  Good stuff, we just need to work on the audio aspect.

Annotated Video Playlist

Here is an annotated YouTube playlist I put together to illustrate how something like this can be used in the classroom.  In total it is a little under 7 minutes long for all six videos.  I had fun putting it together and I hope you can watch it as well.

Reflections of Assistive Technologies

Some technologies are worth more than their weight in gold.  Below is Josh's story.  It is about 8 minutes long and definitely worth watching if you have any interest in assistive technology, children with autism, or education in general.  The video is about a child named Josh who has autism.  At first he was described as non-verbal and  by the end of the video he's making eye-contact and reading to his teacher and classmates.

Assistive technology like the AbleNet Super Talker and the AbleNet Bookworm (more info on AbleNet here: http://www.ablenetinc.com/) allow students to communicate in a socially safe and predictable manner.  Josh's teacher was able to identify the toys that he enjoyed playing with and figured out what technology could be used to make him feel more comfortable communicating, not only with his teacher, but with everyone in his social circle.  The great thing about these technologies is that they really only need to be used temporarily.  Once the student has developed the skills/comfort that the technology provides, it can be phased out of use so that he/she can do the things other students can do without the use of any additional help.

The goal of any school special needs assistance is to get the student to the point where they don't need the assistance any more.  I see that with Aurora (my daughter) as well.  She has mild spastic diplegia cerebral palsy.  When she was going to public school she had an IEP (Section 504) plan because her brain has a hard time switching topics and ideas.  It's mild but it's there.  In addition, she wore braces on her feet, ankles, and lower legs while going through physical and occupational therapy several days a week.  Because of the IEP and all the therapy and braces, she no longer needs as much individual attention in the classroom, is out of her braces, might go out for the swim team at the YMCA, and rides horses like a champ!  Sometimes these assistive technology devices give just the right amount of help to give the students the momentum to stay caught up.

The Jigsaw Method

One of the quests for my Educational Technology class took me to these two resources to learn about the Jigsaw Method:
http://www.jigsaw.org/
http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/archive/cl1/CL/doingcl/jigsaw.htm

The Jigsaw method is basically a method of teaching that bring collaborative learning into an easy-to-implement format that can also be used in a very flexible way.  So the class needs to learn about a certain topic, say something broad like the Civil War for example.  The teacher would first divide the class into diverse groups of about 4-5 students each.  Then the teacher splits that topic into 5 different sub-topics with a student from each group focusing on a single topic.  For example, the topics could be:

1. Reasons the Civil War began.
2. Who were the big names involved?
3. Major conflicts during the Civil War.
4. Which side won the war and how?
5. What was the result of the Civil War (what happened afterwards)?

So each group would be learning about the entirety of the Civil War as each member of the group researches their assigned topic.  If there were only 5 computers in the classroom then each group would be given some time on the computers to research their assigned topic.  While that group is doing research, the other groups could be working on their presentation or working on other subjects.

The fun part comes next.  Each "subject-matter-expert" meets with students from other groups that researched their same sub-topic to collaborate their material.  When they come back to their group they share what they have learned.  Each member of the group then needs to write a report about the Civil War based on the sub-topics presented in their group.  A great advantage to this style of learning is that it necessitates each student pay attention to and respect the presentation of others in the group regardless of whether Johnny is thought of as a nerd or Susy looks weird otherwise their own grade will falter.  A possible disadvantage is that this does take some time and preparation on the part of the teacher to make sure everyone is staying on task even it isn't their turn on the computers.  In addition it depends on the fact that there are even computers in the classroom.  These days, however, that isn't too much of a stretch.