Trolling for learners: Game based learning

About eight years ago, a couple of buddies of mine started playing this new game called World of Warcraft.  They would spend hours upon hours questing through a virtual landscape in search of the next big battle or item they could use to level up their characters.  Their obsession with the game at the time was so extreme that they would spend much of their workdays discussing their plans for playing when the workday ended, play it from the time they got home from work to the time they went to bed on the weekdays, and spend twelve to eighteen hours a day playing the game on weekends.  They even bought and sold characters or special items from time to time.  At the time, I considered it to be a complete waste of time and money.  Recently, I was introduced to another group of gamers who try to leverage this type of environment, and possibly the obsessive behavior it may be stimulating, to engage student on a completely different level.  I find their approach fascinating and am very encouraged by their innovative approach to teaching and learning.  This generation of learners, digital natives in a very real sense, challenge teachers in ways we have rarely seen.  In some ways, they seem smarter and eager to learn when you meet them on their playing field.  It makes me want to create a warrior troll and go on a learning quest.

Longing for bygone technology and days

My daily use of technology involves a variety of work and personal routines.  At work I am constantly checking email and a variety of websites related to my work.  In the past, I used electronic manuals while troubleshooting and maintaining aircraft.  Recently, I started incorporating blogs and wikis into our local professional development program.  In my personal life, I also use email for both school and family communications.  I also use Skype from time to time to talk face-to-face with family around the world.  I have found that since I started using a smartphone, I seek more opportunities to connect to Wi-Fi hotspots to watch movies, listen to music, and access the internet.  I have also discovered many apps which are companions to some of my commonly used websites. 

            Sometimes I actually feel too connected to everything and everyone.  When I reported to my new duty station, I was issued a Blackberry so I can be easily reached and access my work email.  Facebook updates, email updates, text messages, you name it and I get it on my fancy new phone.  I am old enough to remember driving home from work with only the radio to keep my attention.  If I needed to make a phone call while driving, I would have to stop and use a payphone.  Many kids today are unlikely to even recognize a payphone.  My generation seems to be the crossover generation.  Like generations before us, we have seen technological advances come in leaps and bounds.  Sometimes I long for the days when we were less connected and less distracted.  It is nice to get away and unplug for a little while by going camping or doing some other outdoor activities.

Wikis - Online Collaborative Workspaces

Use these links to explore the examples in the video.

Wiki Spaces

 

Training-4-Sharing Project

 

Instructional System Design Project

Asynchronous and Synchronous Learning Tools

Web-based Resources for Education

Here are a few links to sites I have come across while researching topics for many of my classes.  I have found value in each of them.

1.  This site is chocked full of information about online learning environments and educational technology.  You may find some definitions and explaination of technologies that you have yet to understand.

http://worldwidelearners.wikispaces.com/

2.  The ISTE site is useful resources related to professional develepment.

https://www.iste.org/

3. Facebook can be useful for more than just social networking with friends.  If you "Like" ISTE's page, you can receive updates with links to a variety of interesting topics related to education.

http://www.facebook.com/LikeISTE

4.  More recently, I found the Hawaii Society for Technology in Education site.  This group is a partner with ISTE and provides an more localized focus on the use of educational technology, opportunities to network, and some resources.  You may be able to find an organization like this in your locale.

http://www.hste.org/ 

EDUC 630 - DB 4 Using Storyboarding for Learning

A story board is one step in the process of building a presentation.  It is not a process that every student is ready or able to use.  Thorsen (2009) affirms this by stating, “Young students, or students who are just beginning to learn how to write hyper-media presentations, will not be able to respond to every design principle.”  As a result, teachers may need to dedicate extra time to help younger or inexperienced students to develop their skills.  This may be but a minor hurdle to overcome but could be beneficial for the students in the long run.   Storyboarding allows the student to assemble information using graphically.  This aids in linking concepts and identifying their associations.  Students who are more visual learners may begin to grasp those concepts quicker enabling them to more readily translate what they have learned into a written format. 

            I remember using a similar tactic when I was in elementary school to help us learn about sentence structure.  It was called diagraming a sentence.  We would write a sentence and then create a graphic representation of the sentence which placed each word in a specific location on the graphic according to its purpose.  Nouns, verbs, adverbs…all had their proper place.  It seemed to help me understand the importance of each word and its function in a properly written sentence.  Consider the old Schoolhouse Rock cartoons which came on Saturday morning television.  In their own way, these were very advanced storyboards which were intended to help teach children concepts related to math, grammar, and government.  Not only were they graphic representations of concepts, the explanation of the concepts were set to music.  If you have ever seen these cartoons, you may just remember how a bill becomes law, why the number three is the magic number, or the function of a conjunction.  Think about how those cartoons, moving storyboards, help you to understand the concepts they were trying to teach.

References

Thorsen, C. (2009). TechTactics: Technology for Teachers (3 ed.). Boston: Pearson

EDUC 630 Discussion Board 3 - Presentation Software as Learning Tools

Video Transcript

            Presentation software can be a valuable and powerful learning tool.  PowerPoint seems to be one of the most popular versions in use today.  With a little bit of instruction and practice, a very professional looking presentation can be created in a matter of minutes.  PowerPoint, like most presentation software, is probably most frequently associated with slide presentation related to instructional delivery.  However, it can be a useful learning tool as well.  Thorsen (2009) points out the benefits of using presentation in this manner to help students “see relationships among facts.”  She goes on to say this is helpful for two reasons because “when students organize isolated facts into a presentation, they remember the facts better” and “when students see relationships among facts, they often generalize and come to understand some problem or process more deeply.”  I have seen this in action in the classroom when I was doing some observations to complete my bachelor’s degree.  I had the good fortune to observe in a special education reading class.  Instead of writing book reports, the students put together presentation using PowerPoint.  They used the local resources on the school’s intranet and other online resources accessed through Wi-Fi to conduct research about the book or story which they read.  They used the presentation software to organize the notes and pictures they found during their research.  Their final project consisted of a five page presentation that summarized what they read and captured their thoughts and reflections.  The obvious benefit of being able to graphically organize their thoughts wasn’t the only thing the students gained from approaching a book report in this manner.  They also honed their research and computer skills.  By exploring both a local intranet resource such as a library database and conducting web searches, the students were able to see how much information was available about their subject.  They also learned the finer points of accessing websites and manipulating data and media to make presentations.  It has been my experience that there can be a variety of gains from innovatively using technology when possible and applicable in the classroom. 

 

References

 

Thorsen, C. (2009). TechTactics: Technology for Teachers (3 ed.). Boston: Pearson