Week 6 Reflection

Week 6 Reflection

A topic came up in several places over this week.  On our Twitter chat, we talked about how when computers were first showing up in schools, often only the top students were exposed to them.  I read in some blogs that some students are being encouraged to experience learning as described in Thomas and Brown’s A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change.  However, often, this is done for gifted students and not for all of the student population.  I was wondering if, like technology, this will grow to eventually encompass all students.  I included this thought in a blog response. 

I have enjoyed learning more about Minecraft this week.  I was able to watch the recordings of “Intro to Minecraft” and the “Why MInecraft Inspries Me.” I have not started playing it myself yet, but plan to.  I love building things with Legos.  I like to use plans to follow the given plans to make whatever structure the kit is made for.  I am wondering if I will have the patience to learn how to use Minecraft and enjoy it.  I’ll have to find out.  It seems that I lack attention span when playing many serious games.  I would like to try Minecraft to be able to use it with my students.  My daughter will make a great teacher for me.

In addition to the reading assigned I shared a resource that I found.  Alana Brown wrote a blog at http://www.chipdizard.com/dare-to-make-a-chang/.  She is a chemistry teacher. This blog is about her classes being very successful with the new culture of learning it has.  The students are more in charge of their learning. She also has other blogs that give more teaching advice.