The White Witch Taunts Us

Our fifth grade classes recently finished reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. They just received this message from the White Witch:



Made with Blabberize
Image by Ethan Trewhitt

Our students will play a BreakoutEDU game called Revenge of the White Witch, created by Edie Erickson.

Pokemon Go: Problem or Opportunity?

Pokémon seems to be an enduring attraction for students. This past year, I noticed quite a few of my students with Pokémon cards. I've purchased a few of the guide books for our library, and they are constantly checked out. If you are unfamiliar with Pokémon, the creators’ Parents’ Guide provides a good overview.

Pidgeotto in my living room

The newest incarnation is Pokémon Go, an augmented reality game played on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. The game shows players or “trainers” on a map of their local area. Walking around the neighborhood, players will come across wild Pokémon which can be caught using a Pokéball. I have only started playing, but one feature I love is that I can take a picture of a Pokémon with the real world as a background! My understanding is that I can help my Pokémon get stronger and evolve into new forms. Eventually I will be able to join a team, battle other Pokémon, and take control of a local Pokémon gym where I can continue competing.

In the couple of days since the free app was released, I have immediately noticed people playing in my area. Taking my dog out, I saw three boys walking by my house with their phones out. “Looking for Pokémon?” I asked. “Yeah, it’s great! I’ve already walked two miles today!” one responded. On top of the existing popularity of the whole Pokémon franchise, players now have the chance to bring their gameplay into the real world, a powerfully appealing opportunity.

Pinsir near shopping area

So what does this have to do with education? Thinking back to those Pokémon cards, I know that I have reacted to their presence at school primarily as a potential problem. I saw them as a distraction at best and the source of student conflicts over trades or theft at worst. But shouldn’t I treat student enthusiasms as an opportunity instead? Can I find a way to connect students’ interest in Pokémon with more traditionally educational topics?

No doubt many of our students with mobile devices are out there right now catching and training Pokémon. And I doubt the fervor will die down before they come back to school in August. They’ll be excited to show their classmates their best Pokémon and possibly trade and battle each other. Is this going to be a distraction to the learning experience or something we can leverage?

I’ve started to think about ways we could help students connect Pokémon GO experiences with our curricula. They could learn about sampling a population by tracking how many Pokémon show up in a certain area over a certain amount of time. Each Pokémon has different abilities which parallels the idea of animal adaptations. When the game allows for trading, supply and demand is going to become an important dynamic. This game also encourages exercise as players are motivated to go out in search of more Pokémon.

How else could we leverage Pokémon GO for student learning? Please share your ideas on this Padlet.

Power of Code

TRS-80

When I was in eighth grade, circa 1983, our school got its first computer: a TRS-80 in the Media Center. A friend of mine and I were given the opportunity to use it. We were handed a book for learning the programming language BASIC and just dove in. In high school, our computer classes were programming classes: BASIC and Pascal were the two classes I took.

Fast forward to the school where I work today. Through our Digital Conversion initiative, our students are fortunate to each have a Macbook throughout the school year. Their experience of using computers is vastly different from my student days. It is a fantastic tool for accessing information, producing media, practicing skills, and communicating amongst students and staff.

While my students are using the computer in amazing ways, I have not seen anything about learning computer programming like I did as a student. The focus is on using a variety of web sites and applications, not creating them with code. Students produce a lot of cool media projects with iMovie, ComicLife, SketchUp, etc., but they don’t have any idea what is behind the applications and web sites they use every day.

Through a 3D GameLab quest line this past October, I learned some of the basics of Scratch, a kid-friendly programming language and web site created by a group at MIT. I was attracted to this tool partly out of nostalgia and partly because of the fun factor. Making a cartoon cat or robot or shark move around the screen at my command is a heady and extremely satisfying experience!



For my students, I saw this as a powerful tool for doing new things in new ways. We could go beyond creating a Keynote presentation or Paintbrush picture. Students could make something that moves, talks, interacts. So my first thought was that Scratch would kick our media production up a notch. My fifth grade students are already learning the basics in preparation for creating a project that shows the creatures that fill various niches in specific ecosystems.

In the last couple weeks, I have been hearing a lot about the Hour of Code, a promotional event for Computer Science Education Week, December 9-15, 2013. Their site has tutorials that just about anyone can use to learn coding using different tools such as Scratch. They also have infographics about the need for more computer science students and the underrepresentation of women and people of color.

This promotion increases my motivation to get all of my students using Scratch, not just as a cool media production tool, but as an experience with computer programming. My hope is not just that many of them will be prepared for good-paying jobs. I think about the power of knowing the language that runs our information economy. We are surrounded by apps and web sites and video games. I don’t want my students to be mere consumers of these tools. I want them to help shape them.

Photo credit:
Flominator. TRS-80 Model 1 - Rechnermuseum cropped. [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Reflections on Summer Part II GamesMOOC

Jumping into GamesMOOC gear for the second half of the Summer session, I found a smorgasbord of ideas, examples, games, and worlds. We discussed the use of avatars, explored other game-related MOOCs, visited the GamesMOOC Minecraft server, and shared games that might be useful in education.

Our Wednesday evening tweetchats focused on the experience of using avatars. Rosie O’Brien Vojtek, one editor of the Virtual Education Journal, asked us to think about the Avatar Generation: folks who are very comfortable operating in a virtual world using a personalized avatar. These folks have a facility for negotiating virtual worlds and building and communicating in these worlds.

Avatars have some connection to the identities that we claim in “real life.” Introverts may feel more comfortable speaking up via their avatars. The “disinhibition effect” seems to free us up to behave in ways we wouldn’t in face-to-face encounters. Avatars may represent our sense of our true selves to greater or lesser degrees, depending on whether the player is trying to explore a different identity in a safe space or trying to represent themselves faithfully.

We ventured into a couple of other MOOCs, one of which was the rgMOOC (Rhetoric and Composition: The Persuasive Power of Video Games as Paratexts), a course taught in part by Sherry Jones. This course invited participants to engage with texts and videos that offered background content, explore a variety of games, and enter into discussions of what they found each week. The course had a clear structure within which participants had many choices.

The rgMOOC asked participants to explore the messages and assumptions of the games that we play in our society. In the GamesMOOC, we discussed other uses of COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) games in educational settings. Because I work with students who are under 13 who have access to a school-issued laptop throughout the school year, I have opportunities and limits in what we can use. The easiest games for me to incorporate are free web-based games that don’t require installation. Lure of the Labyrinth and Coaster Crafter are a couple games that I have discovered in the past. I would like to look more closely at several suggested games: Poptropica, the Mesoamerican Ballgame, Wallace and Gromit Sprocket Rocket, and School of Dragons.



Our tours of the GamesMOOC (et. al.) Minecraft server reminded me once again that I shouldn’t give up on trying to find a way to get teachers and administration to accept this game in school. Having a server that educators can explore seems like a good way to introduce the game to those who haven’t seen it. And the work that MouseyMoose and Giraffe619 did to create the Inevitable Betrayal village and castle reminded me of the many skills that children use in this world. Badges may be a good way to define and communicate to outsiders what children are accomplishing in game worlds like Minecraft. Massively @ Jokaydia seems to have a strong start on this with their Awards.

Now that the Summer Part II GamesMOOC has wrapped up, and my school year is about to begin, I need to think about how to bring these ideas and games to life at my school. I love the sharing and camaraderie of the GamesMOOC, but I need to find a way to bring it home. My first thought was to choose a couple of games to explore further and then share those with my local colleagues. But perhaps I need to take it further and get them involved in exploring those games. Perhaps I need to create a Mini Open Online Course for the teachers at my school that would expose them to some of the basics of how games connect with learning and example of games they could use.

Touring This Land

A Minecraft server has been set up to house several educational groups that explore virtual worlds: SIGVE, Games MOOC, Inevitable Betrayal guild, and others. Today, a tour was offered of This Land, the section that belongs to the Inevitable Betrayal guild.

This section was created over the course of four days by two girls, ages ten and twelve. It includes a village and castle surrounded by a huge wall with towers at the corners. The village has a variety of stores, a park, a jousting area, and more. The castle has a throne room, banquet area, kitchen, and a hall of bedrooms. Adults on the tour were rightly impressed by the detail, scale, and design of the project.



The leader of our tour, Kae Novak, pointed out the numerous professional skills that the girls had used. They had been asked to create an outpost for Inevitable Betrayal and went above and beyond in the scope and quality of this outpost. They met a deadline. They did research on different styles of castles, choosing one they had seen but building it with different materials.

The girls reported that one of the biggest challenges was to come to agreements about how the outpost would look. Apparently there were many conflicts of opinion, but the final result shows that they were able to get past those. This kind of negotiation in a group project is a crucial skill for the world of work.

One of the questions that arose after the main tour was, how do we recognize children for the skills like negotiation that they are developing in these virtual worlds? So often the larger culture and educational institutions see games like Minecraft as mere entertainment. But clearly children are practicing and developing many important skills in these collaborative game environments.

My first thought was to develop badges that kids could apply for. We could outline some requirements for the Negotiator, Research, Problem-Solver, or Designer Badge. Our two Minecraft creators could document the project that they worked on and share examples of how they met those requirements. This could be done with text and screenshots or a screen recording or a live interview with an adult who could award the badge.

I do wonder if the idea of getting recognition or credit for their learning is more important to us as educators than it is to kids. I suspect that the kids mostly just want to play the game. But the badges could be used to prove to schools and society the value of what is happening in these virtual worlds. If that value is recognized, schools might give more time and resources to allow students to play these games.

Coaster Crafter

One online game I recommended to fifth grade science teachers last year for their force and motion unit was Coaster Crafter. It doesn’t require any downloads or installations, it’s free, and kids can sign up for an account without an email account.



The game has a Design Challenge section that asks kids to fix some poor roller coaster designs. In the process, Brunette introduces relevant science vocabulary: velocity, gravity, acceleration, friction, momentum, etc.



Once Level 1 is completed in the Design Challenge, students can try the Coaster Challenge where they get to design their own coasters that meet certain requirements. Completing the Design Challenges also makes different design elements available in the Free Play section of the amusement park.



As a teacher, I might introduce the site by having us complete the Level 1 of the Design Challenge as a class. Then I’d let the kids spend some time working/playing through the site either individually or in pairs. I can imagine some kids getting stuck and a classmate helping them out. Eventually, I might have them do a screencast that shows off their favorite coaster design with a voice recording that explains the design using force and motion vocabulary.

By the way, I discovered this game site through Common Sense Media, a web site that offers reviews of books, movies, video games, web sites, etc. for kids, parents, and teachers. It’s a great resource!

The Avatar Generation

I participated in a tweetchat last week as part of the Games Based Learning MOOC, Summer session, Part II. Here's a summary with reflections that I created in Storify.

My First App

I just made a super-simple app for Android! It meows at you when you tap on the picture of the kitty. Amazing!

I am working on a quest chain in 3D GameLab that is teaching me how to design apps. We are using MIT's App Inventor. There were some technical challenges to overcome.

I found it important to follow the set up directions carefully. I had to search around my computer to make sure that Java was enabled. I couldn't get it to connect to my phone, so I used the emulator option instead.

If you want to see my super-amazing-totally-awesome HelloPurrKT app, use a barcode reader to scan the blue QR code at the end of this post

My Second App

In our second quest, we did a tutorial to create a PaintPot app: tapping and dragging on the screen lets the user color on an image. This time, I was able to connect my phone, so I could download the app directly to my phone. And it worked!

I went beyond the tutorial a bit, because I noticed that I could upload images for the buttons. I got these ones from Open Clip Art Library, my favorite place to get clip art in the public domain. The tutorial explained how to make buttons that would make the paint dots big or small. I used that to make lines big or small as well. I was very proud of figuring out how to do that.

In fact, the whole thing just makes me burst with pride. Even though it's just a little coloring app. I. MADE. IT. I'm sure the experience of making it is better than the app itself, but you can try the red QR code to download this one.

I would be very interested to hear if anyone was able to get one of these apps to work on their Android device.

Update 8/22/12: I changed where I was hosting the app files and posted new QR codes. These ones seem to work.

Download HelloPurrKT for Android

Download PaintPotKT for Android

First Thoughts on Minecraft

I've been playing around with Minecraft for the last three days or so - not to the exclusion of everything else in my life, but I can see how that could happen! Since I am so new to the game, I only have the beginnings of ideas for how to use Minecraft as a learning opportunity. Here are some of my first thoughts as a player:

Survival Mode

1. Unless you really like to figure out everything on your own, watch a tutorial about how to survive your first night.
2. Be prepared for the adrenaline rush of nightfall and strange creature noises.
3. My daughter and I partnered up: She played the game on our desktop while I used my laptop to research how to accomplish various tasks on the Minecraft Wiki. When we couldn't find charcoal to make torches and had to spend the night in a dark hole, just waiting for morning to come, this was the place that showed us how to make our own charcoal.
4. Making blocks of glass was one of the first things we did. That way we could have a protected view out into the night so we could see when it was daylight again.
5. Even when it is daylight, there may be a spider hovering above your front door. I wish I had a video recording of the first time this happened. Terrifying and hilarious!
6. Here's one of my first hidey holes with my crafting table and furnace - very important!

Creative Mode

1. In this mode, I had access to many different items rather than having to mine and craft my own supplies. It was fun to be able to use whatever I wanted as I built the beginnings of a home under a hill. (Not quite a Hobbit hole...)
2. This mode shows me what I could aspire to do in Survival mode. It shows me something of what is possible.
3. There are monsters about, but they don't attack, so that's nice.
4. Here's one room of my house under the hill:

Why Games?

Photo by Bjorn Hermans

So why am I so interested in learning more about gaming and education? Because I love games. And kids love games. Don’t we all love games? Tennis or chess or Monopoly or Castleville or Minecraft or Super Mario Bros. or Angry Birds?

What makes games so enticing?

If you think about all of those games, they all share certain features:

• Goals
• Rules
• Feedback
• Voluntary participation 

We enjoy participating in games when these four elements are well-designed and meet our personal interests. Some of us like really clear goals and some like more open-ended objectives. The rules need to provide just the right amount of challenge: if the game is too easy we get bored, if it is too hard we give up.

The feedback lets us know that we are succeeding with points, XP, leveling up, badges, etc. Or if we do something wrong, feedback comes in the form of fewer points, losing a “life,” starting a level over, or losing the game to an opponent. The great thing about games is that negative feedback usually leads to trying again.

Voluntary participation is a huge part of what makes playing a game fun. It includes the decision of whether to play the game or not. I think this also relates to the amount of choice within the game. We enjoy playing when we can choose how to participate.

How does traditional education compare with games?

http://capl.washjeff.edu/2/l/4040.jpg

You may have noticed that educational activities also include goals, rules, and feedback. Sometimes we make the goals clear to our students. Sometimes we provide scaffolding that makes the “rules” of our learning activities at the right amount of challenge for students, but not always. Too often we offer one level of difficulty which some students find to easy and others find too hard.

Some voluntary participation and choices may be included, but not nearly as often as mandatory activities, at least in traditional classrooms. Too often students feel trapped in school, forced to do whatever activities teachers put in front of them. Where’s the fun in that?

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3634/3424044473_bab8a257b8.jpg

Another big difference between games and traditional education is in the type of feedback. Usually when students complete an assignment, quiz, or test, if they do poorly, they get the feedback of a bad grade and that is the end of it. They just fail with little opportunity to try again. Also, there is a stigma attached to that failure that is lessened in games. In a game, you can always try again.

Gamifying education

As I consider my teaching, I would like to design learning activities that are more like games. I would like to give students more choices, so that they have more of a sense of voluntary participation. I would like to set up activities that provide variety and scaffolding so that they are at just the right level of challenge. I want to set up feedback systems that recognize students for their accomplishments and encourage them to try again. I think 3DGameLab will provide the structure for these learning activities.

Credits

 My thinking about games in education has been influenced and inspired by Lucas Gillispie and Peggy Sheehy through NCSLMA and NCTIES conference sessions this school year. Gillispie’s blog Edurealms is a great place to read more about games in education.

A couple of questions for you

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Or you can go to http://PollEv.com and answer there. You will still need to enter the poll number and then your response.

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Game on!

Next week, I am starting an online class on game-based learning through 3D GameLab. I am really excited about finding ways to harness the motivation that is inherent in good game experiences and use it in learning experiences for my students. Check back if you are interested in seeing what I discover along the way.

The following infographic from Knewton gives a good overview of why I am interested in this topic.


Created by Knewton and Column Five Media

Exploring Prezi

I had heard occasional references to the presentation tool called Prezi, but I never saw an example until a recent visit to a site with suggestions for creating book trailers. The presentation by Michelle Harclerode swooped around from point to point explaining the steps of creating a book trailer.

I decided to try Prezi when preparing to speak briefly at our beginning of the year staff meeting. I wanted something visual to reinforce my words. Prezi had the added advantage of capturing our teachers' attention.

So what is Prezi?
This online presentation-builder allows users to create a canvas with whatever text and images are desired. During a presentation, users can click on various elements to zoom in and focus on those details. Or users can create a specific path that takes them from element to element on the canvas.  Their getting started tutorial explains the basics fairly well.

What I've learned about using Prezi

• Start with your big ideas and spread them around the canvas. Then add details to those main ideas.
• Practice with just text to start. Then add pictures to create visual interest.
• If you want a group of objects (text and/or images) to be seen at the same time, use a frame to group them.
• Be careful with how much zooming and movement you use: The right amount creates interest, but too much creates motion-sickness.
• Once your text and images are in place, set up just the first few steps of your path.  Then view the show to see how these elements appear.  You may realize that you want to change the grouping, size, or location of your elements.  If you like how the first few steps appear, continue to set the rest of your path.

My first Prezis:
Media Program comments: Talking points for beginning-of-the-year staff meeting.
Media Orientation: I used this Prezi the first time that classes came to check out books.  I used QuickTime to create a screencast, recording my voice as I clicked through the presentation.

Now you try!
I'd love to see your experiments with Prezi.  Share links in the comments.

Interacting with Electronic Text

As we get more and more information online, we need to be able to read and interact with electronic text more effectively.  Lately, I’ve been exploring two tools make that easier: Readability and Preview.

• Readability is a little application that pares web sites down to readable text without distracting graphics.*  That text can be saved as a PDF file which can be saved to a hard drive.
• Preview is a Mac application that allows us to annotate PDF files with highlighting and comments, etc.

Using Readability:



To save the text as a PDF, click on the printer button that appears on the left.  Instead of printing, though, click on the PDF button and Save as PDF.


Other ways to create PDFs:
Many educational web sites such as online encyclopedias and databases already have “Print” button that clears away clutter.  Three examples:

We can also copy text from a web site and paste it into a Pages document.  Then export the document as a PDF.


Interacting with PDFs using Preview:
We can open a PDF in Preview and then use the Annotation tools to highlight, comment, etc.

Potential uses:

• Teachers could comment on written assignments students turn in without having to print them out.
• Students could use a "talk to the text" strategy.
• Students could identify various kinds of words or phrases in a passage: proper nouns, similes, words they don't know, especially interesting words.
• While doing research, students could highlight the most important parts of the text before taking notes.

Share your ideas in the comments.  And let us know if you have a way of doing this with a PC.



*Is it just me, or is it ironic that we go to all this trouble to design attractive web pages and then cut out all those graphics to make them easier to read?