Week 12 Creating our Presentation

This week we have been finishing up our presentation.  We are using Prezi.  We have discovered lots of features while working on it.  Last week we discovered how to add pictures and videos.  This week we figured out how to add voice over.  I ended up recording on my phone, emailing it to myself, opening the attachment, which put it into iTunes and into a file that I could upload to the Prezi.  I'm sure there is a quicker way, but this worked fine for us. 

We were able to meet on Eluminate and have our Prezi open to work on and discuss at the same time.  This made editing decisions much better and quicker than when we were communicating on our Wiki page.  It was invaluable to be able to see what someone was talking about as they said it. 

This weekend we each have something we are going to do and then it should be ready to be turned in!  It has been great working with our group.  I'm glad we found we could share the Prezi editing at the same time we were talking on Eluminate  Great program!

Game- The Devil is in the Details!

 

We started this week with the basic idea of our game down from meeting a couple of times last week.  This week we have been focusing on the details of the game.  There are so many options!

On Tuesday we focused our meeting time on Elluminate on figuring out what to use for our presentation.  We have decided to use Prezi. This is a new program for a few of us, so it has taken some research into the program.  We also discussed some of what program to use for our game and we are leaning strongly towards Edmodo. This is also new to a few of us. 

I was able to share a Prezi so that we all could edit it.  Another group member made a “practice” one to try things out on.  It doesn’t appear to be real easy to add/delete things.  This practice one has given us a good start. 

We met again after the Twitter session on Thursday.  We looked over our Prezi and then decided we should focus on our proposal that is due on Sunday.  We agreed to use what we had started already to begin with and to adjust it for the proposal.

Our group is doing a great job working well together.  We should have a great final product!

Game Creation Progress

Our Game Progress

We met Wednesday with everyone not really sure what to do or how to proceed.   We first tried to figure out what it meant to create a game based on The Hunger Games with the purpose of avoiding Panem.  We were confused because the the Hunger Games are part of being part of Panem.  So if we were to avoid Panem, there would be no need for Hunger Games. 

An email and tweet was sent out to Lee for clarification. We put that discussion on hold and tried to figure out what social media tool we could use for our game.  We discussed Facebook, Blogs, and using Edmodo. 

Lee joined our meeting (in Eluminate) and helped us understand that it was open for interpretation. This helped us in creating ideas for a game.  We came up with the goal of the game to be avoid being taken over by Panem.  In order to do that we would need to protect our resources so that we could be self sufficient. 

We brainstormed all sorts of ideas about levels, badges, and other possibilities. After an hour and a half we decided we would think on it and meet again after our Thursday Twitter meet. 

We met for an hour today.  We were able to flesh out more specifics of our games.  What each level would be and how the players would “pass” them.  We discussed what the players would actually do and the roll of the teacher.  We had to reign ourselves in a few times when we had wonderful ideas.  These ideas, unfortunately, would have drastically increased the complication of the game, and we decided we would not have time to do them. 

I feel like we really have our ideas narrowed down.  We plan on meeting again early next week after working on it over the weekend.   It feels so much better to have this fleshed out and knowing more what we are doing!

Week 9 Reflection

This week my group and I discussed on our Wiki page the different mechanics of games and which ones we felt we could use in our game. We had some confusion at first about what we were suppose to do, but we got it figured out. For some reason, a couple of our group were unable to open the link on game mechanics at first.  It seems to be accessible now.

This week I also finished up reviewing my 5^th game.  I really liked looking at the games and wish I had more time to play around with many of them.  

As usual, the blogs provided great resources and great ideas.  One recurring theme was how to best get students to learn.  I saw at least 3 different references that talked about (in different words) how to change from what to where and how.  There was some talk about different ways to ensure long-term learning.  Students must have an emotional response that will trigger the brain to retain it better.  One way this can be done is by building on previous knowledge.  I enjoyed reading the blogs, commenting on, and discussing the different ways to basically engage students in the learning.  That this is such a central theme shows how important it is.  It amazes me how much this important piece of learning/teaching is overlooked.

The text this week had some great information in it as well.  I just hope that I can remember this knowledge when I need it.  You almost have to be exposed to information many, many times for it to be put to use.  Some ideas I find are so inspiring, but are often are forgotten when it counts. 

Challenges of Changing Content from What to Where

Challenges in shifting content. 

So the biggest challenge I see is in the primary grades.  There are many subjects where exploring and finding information is a great way to learn.  However, students need to have basic skills before being able to do so.

The example in the text A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change about students finding Iraq on a map helped me understand what exactly is meant by switching content from what to where.  The first group was asked to locate Iraq on a map and many couldn’t do it.  The next group was asked with access to a computer to find Iraq.  They were able to find, show it on Google Maps, and much more information.  With information being at everyone’s fingertips, it isn’t quite as necessary to memorize everything.  Being able to figure out where to find the information is more important.   Although, I do feel it is important that students have a basic understanding of things.  For example, they need to know, without having to search, that Iraq is not part of the United States.  Of course, there are methods of learning, though games for example, that could be used to learn such things.   A challenge is deciding what content should be known by a person with a basic education and which content can be changed to figuring out where to find it.

This, however, will not work for students just learning to read.  Of course there are many methods to learn to read, but students do really need to know basic phonics.  I am trying to figure out how to put learning to read in the new culture of learning context.  Any ideas?

Learning things by memorizing, often is not enough to put into long term memory.  (How often do you yourself, or someone you know, memorize something,  only to have it be gone later?)  John F. Kihlstrom states in his article “How Students Learn and How We Can Help Them: that in order for long term memory “What's needed is what is known as elaborative rehearsal, connecting up what we're trying to learn with what we already know.”   He explains the learning things based on earlier learning is a great way to help students learn things for the long term.  He also tells us that the more effort that is put into learning something, the more it will be remembered.  (So, if we had to look for the information ourselves, I think I would be more likely to remember it than if someone just told me.)

This all goes along with the famous Confucius quote “I hear and I forget.  I see and I remember.  I do and I understand.”  http://www.myrkothum.com/confucius-says-the-top-10-quotes-by-confucius/

So this is obviously not new information.  The challenge is to put it to practice. 

Week 8 Reflection

Week 8 Reflection

Learning about collective learning this week has been enlightening. Like others, I was a bit uncomfortable with the idea.  However, after reading our text , classamtes’ blogs, and researching some online, I’ve come to the conclusion that collective learning can be very powerful.  I found a couple of websites that gave good examples of collective learning.  I shared one of those sites in a couple different comments I made on blogs.  I was also relieved to see others, too, at first were a bit uncomfortable with collective learning. I am surprised at the different ways it is being used today.  One person talked about how Microsoft is using as an option to tech halp a community Ambassador, an expert that is not an employee, but able to help customers with difficulties.  So cool!

In the twitter session this week, I cannot get the ‘herding cats” analogy out of my head.  Such a funny idea! I feel like that sometimes when we are doing Twitter sessions when everyone is having separate conversations.  It has been so much better lately, as we all learn how to be better contributors and learners to the collective.

I was able to rate 4 games early in the week.  I need to pick out an do a number 5. It is much easier than I originally thought it was going to be.  Many of the games are simple games that don’t have avatars and such that would take a long time to play and be able to rate in a meaningful way.  These games don’t score as well on our rubric, but that doesn’t mean they are not valuable serious games.  Their purpose is just different than what our rubric calls for in a serious game for the classroom.   

Collective Learning

What struck me from this week’s reading was the comparison between what and how we learned in the past to what and how we learn now.  A huge difference is that in the past, the information we learned was static. It did not change.  Now, however, the things we learn are constantly changing.  Never before has it been so important to “learn how to learn.” 

The educational system has not caught up with this change.  Many classrooms are still structured to the old style of learning:  a lecture or reading of what you are to learn and then a test to see that you have learned it. In today’s world, students need to do so much more than remember certain facts or algorithms to solve problems. They need to keep up with all that is changing in technology to be competitive in today’s world.  The things that are up to date when they are in high school, may very well be obsolete by the time they are in college. 

When we learn how to do something, we learn by experiencing.  In A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change by Thomas and Brown, the authors talked about how we don’t read about how to learn a new program or app.  We learn by trying it out for ourselves with help from others who are more familiar with it.  This type of learning is possible in the collective.  In a collective, there is a wealth of information.   

“Collective learning is fundamentally a type of learning that happens ‘in the real world’.” Is the definition of collective learning from:  littlebylittlejohn.com/change11-position.../collective-learning-examples/‎

This site give several examples of what they consider collective learning.  One such example was IBM’s Innovation Jam.  They invited employees, partners, family members, and others from around the world to a massive open brainstorming sessions.  In two seventy-two hours sessions they heard form over 100,000 people during online, moderated discussions.  This led to breakthrough innovations.  This is a great example of successful collective learning. 

I like how Prof. Thomas N. Garavan and Dr. Ronan Carbery describe collective learning:   “Collective learning can therefore be conceived as an evolutionary process of perfecting collective knowledge.”    Evolutionary is a wonderful way to describe collective learning.  http://www.springerreference.com/docs/html/chapterdbid/319564.html