Literacy

Coming from a math background I found this article to be filled with tons of useful information because I never knew a lot of it.  It is funny how as we are reading we take advantage of some things that authors intend to put on the page or not.  After reading through everything the one thing that really stuck with me was the structural changes of text in children's books.  I was amazed to read about the child that could figure out that the mom or women was screaming in the book merely because of the font size chosen by the author.  Font size, colors, and even shapes have such a big impact on children when reading.  This makes me want to think about all of these things while writing my children's book for this class.  It also appeals to me because of the importance of pictures and other graphics.  When making notes for my students in math I am going to include way more pictures in order to facilitate what is being communicated to the children.  When students are being read to I feel they should be able to communicate what is on their mind but to a certain extent.  Sometimes when you are being read to you create this imagery in your mind of what you think the scenario looks or feels like, but once a fellow classmates calls out, this may change or ruin your imagery of the topic.  I think a better method would be to give students a pad of paper to write or draw illustrations that come to their mind when they are being read to.  I definitely see a great benefit to having students participate when being read to, but there are other ways than having them call out or even raise their hand and maybe change a story for someone else.  Just some food for thought.

Second Life in the ELA Classroom

I proposed this idea of using second life in the ELA classroom to an English teacher and she responded by saying, "What the heck is second life".  After explaining this concept to her she was unsure how she could use it in her classroom, but she said that in terms of multi-modality, she could see this being very beneficial for creating a classroom environment outside of the classroom.  She was very confident, as am I, about the collaborative benefits that Second Life can have.  Once students enter this virtual world their imagination will let loose and create a whole other side of the student that may have not been present before.  Some students never come out and participate in class for a number of reasons, but once they enter a virtual world, they may come out of their shell and really begin to explore new environments that enrich their learning.  Second Life can be used in the ELA classroom by holding class discussions outside of school or even extending yourself to answer questions for homework, etc.

Second Life Screenshot

Used SmartBoard tools to take screenshot.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/43439166/Second%20Life.notebook

Gamestar

When used properly, gaming can motivate, teach, and encourage students of all levels to succeed or work harder.  If you can really implement gaming and use them to their fullest extent, you can motivate poor performing students, or even help bright students ask important relevant questions about their worlds. 

I do feel that gaming can and should be infused into every subjects lesson planning, but as a professional you need to ask  “Is a computer game the right choice in this situation?”. I would first start with thinking of the learners, their needs, or any disabilities they have.  It is important to know if your students can draw inferences from experiential activities.  One of the most important points is to make sure you have a proper structure so students can stay on task.

After doing some research online and with these websites, teachers are using games in a number of ways and with great success.  Most teachers recommend playing the game first, using the exact technology that students will be using to avoid any problems down the line which will through the whole class out of whack.  Working kinks out prior can be all the difference when using something like a game.  Considering time can be crucial to how much they get out of this gaming experience. Although some parts of some computer games can be completed in 40 minutes, it would be much more beneficial to use 3 or 4 40 minute classes.  Spend the first time learning how to use the game, the second just playing around with the game, and the third and fourth playing the game with good instructional design.  Educators should take outcomes into account.  Make sure that the games are linked to state standards/common core, and be able to justify your teaching methods to administrators before implementing.  

4 important things to get right when using gaming in the classroom

It has to work right and well.  Technical problems are disastrous in games in education. Short classes and limited technical support make technical problems a serious issue. 

It has to be fun. It doesn’t get boring.  A guiding mantra should be “if it’s not fun, why do it?”.  This is why we always think about the game first and then educational potential.

It has to be challenging at different levels of abilities.  Some students are naturally interested in technology and games, others are not.  As much as something which is very difficult can cause problems, so can something which is very easy.  Levels of difficulty help alleviate this situation.

The game needs to be accessible for different types of players. There should be something in the game for everyone.

Philosophy of Using Gaming in the classroom

It is my position to incorporate gaming into my teaching methodology.  Gaming will support students in becoming active problem solvers and innovators of the 21^st century. When used properly, gaming can motivate, teach, and encourage students of all levels to succeed or work harder.  My goal is to use gaming to help students learn to reason about their world.  The use of gaming will help students to understand many of the unintended consequences associated with using digital media, which will lead to a stronger sense of digital citizenship. 

Enhancing Learning Through Edmodo

Students can collaborate in real time, just like they do with Facebook, with their classmates and teacher. Students will have opportunities to reflect on pieces of writing, use the embed feature to publish student work for portfolios.  Edmodo can be linked to twitter and students can receive messages or important announcements.  The Poll feature can be used as a springboard to discuss questions on class/homework. You can also use the embed feature considerably more to bring other tech tools into your classroom environment.  It allows you to embed Google forms from your docs, which can be great for surveys or quizzes.  Anyone can embed their google calendar, wallwish, glogter, and other student made media project, like YouTube videos.  This is such a great tool.  Another educational social networking site that is exactly like this and maybe better is MyBigCampus. Very cool, check it out!

Game Scenario/Script/Powerpoint

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/43439166/ELA%20Game%20Scenario.pptx