Blog about how you incorporate gaming, gamification, game thinking into your class. How? What are your objectives? Consider the following:
Wow. This session's material on gamification was eye opening. It helped me to understand my son a lot better, for one. He's really into games. He plays Red Dead Redemption, Battlefield 1, and other "first person shooter" games of the sort. Unlike my third graders, he outgrew Fortnite. I always knew that games gave people a sense of accomplishment and a system of rewards that are not always so accessible in real life. They also provide adventure when this is not always possible in our day to day lives. My fear has always been that if kids gets too dependent the dopamine they get in video games, it would stifle their desire to get these feelings by venturing out into the "real world" and doing "real things" like learning to play the guitar, or playing sports, or meeting with friends in person, for example. I always saw it as a passive activity of consuming media rather than an active and creative "real skills" exercise that might help them in the "real world". So the speakers in the videos really helped me to accept that this new Generation G is here to stay, and that video gaming can be more positive than I thought. Gabe Zichermann helped me understand that the "real world" has changed, that I'm getting old and out of touch, and that the best thing I can do for my relationship with my son is to stop fighting it and enter the game world with him. I especially liked how Jane McGonigal is trying to find a way to use the positive aspects of gaming, (blissful productivity, social fabric, urgent optimism, and epic meaning), in order to solve the big environmental problems our world is having today. Can it be done? Can we really use video games to improve the world? I always thought it was a form of escapism from the world rather than a way to change the future. I hope she has great success. This topic makes me think of my capstone project and how it has turned my attention to virtual reality as a way to interact with the natural world. The Covid-19 pandemic made me consider this option. If kids CAN'T get outdoors and experience nature, then maybe the next best thing IS virtual reality, or, a gaming experience. This just might be the only way many kids ever do get to experience natural environments. The problem here is that the health benefits of being in nature are lost. A lot of hard core gamers don't look that healthy. Are human beings evolving in a physical sense to be more indoorsy, and is this ok? Another question is, when people turn to games and away from being outdoors, is this good or bad for the outdoors? I have read that it's bad because when kids don't know nature they won't be interested in defending it. But you could argue that it is good for the outdoors because kids are not out there stomping on bugs and and shooting birds with bb guns. Maybe the environment will be better off if we stay indoors and get all of our desires met in virtual worlds. One last topic: I'm struggling with Class Dojo. Specifically, I can't seem to get used to rewarding my kids with Dojo points, even though I know, even more now after watching the gamification videos, they love to feel rewarded. The games they play in class that give rewards, such as Prodigy and Freckle, show me this. Other teachers do Dojo points and seem to have great success. I've always just given verbal praise and corrections and it seems to work, but with that, the parents can't share the success or failure. (The Dojo points their kids win or loose at school are visible to them on their phones.) Am I out of touch? I just can't get used to pulling out my phone and pausing to give or remove points during the day. Am I right to say that I'm fostering intrinsic motivation by not relying on this points system, or is that just an excuse for me not getting on board with new technology?
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I want to give live, online math lessons from our My Math workbook to my students. I just spent 2 hours trying to set up my iPhone as a document camera and record lessons on Screencastify and/or Zoom. The doc cams are either sold out or too expensive on Amazon. Also, it would take a month for one to get here. I was unsuccessful in turning my iPhone into a doc cam. I tried three different apps from the app store that were supposed to do this. None of them worked for what I needed them to work for. The myriad of glitches, compatibility issues, bad instructions, advertisement overload in the free versions, and my own ignorance has made this night, if not a complete waste of time, then an amazing learning experience. I'm trying to keep my growth mindset intact. Check out the cool doc camera stand I WAS able to make with the left over wood from the kitchen table I made yesterday. Just strap an iPhone in under the swim goggle strap stapled on top, and record amazing distance learning lessons! The hardware was way easier for me than the software. Well, stay tuned as I add to this blog tomorrow. I will continue to read about flipped classrooms, and dream of the day I'll be able to figure out how to record a video to do one.
Next day: This morning I had better luck with iMovie. Here's a link to the video I made about the Nature Photo Scavenger Hunt. https://youtu.be/eCyFiTEuuEg The kids liked this project. I just sent the link out on Class Dojo. I announced we can make another video with even more participants if everybody, (safely), gets outdoors and takes photos. Yeah! Ok, my next project is to TRY to record a video of myself with a Wacom device (my wife's), connected to the computer. I'll try explaining equivalent fractions in the Khan Academy style. I will be doing this in distance learning. I love how this class is lending itself so well to me training up for the next two months of distance learning. Next Day: Success! Wow. Is it just me or is getting this kind of thing to work too difficult? I can't begin to explain all of the difficulties I had in, one, figuring out what to use, two, using it, three, making the pieces work together, and four, share the product. It makes me feel like we humans are still in the early stages of tech integration into our projects. You should just be able to say something like: "Siri, I want to do an online meeting with my students where I share a video from YouTube on equivalent fractions, have a whiteboard to do further explanations, and am able to show our workbook with a doc cam. Please give them all immediate feedback on their progress, and adjust the learning to their level. Oh yeah, please collect, grade, and enter all of their work into Illuminate for report cards." Good luck, right? Well, here's the practice video I was finally able to make on YouTube. https://youtu.be/pI1aIjPgB9s This link will work if you cut and paste it into the address bar. At least it did for me. It's a link to the short video I created on Adobe Spark about how teachers might use the app called iNaturalist into their science instruction. iNaturalist is a social media tool because students are able to share and discuss their nature observations with a worldwide community of scientists and naturalists.
https://spark.adobe.com/video/O6FCoCyjHqsrq How can/Should social media be used to help you develop/collaborate/communicate as a professional? What are the critical issues to consider? One way I use social media is to communicate with parents through Class Dojo. It's a great way to share news and photos with parents. We can also privately send messages to each other. Honestly I do not use this app to award or take away Class Dojo points. I just can't seem to get used to using my phone to incentivize my students. I've tried to use it, but I always forget. I feel it gets in the way of our interaction. Other teachers love it and use it all the time. ANYWAY, another way my school uses social media is to communicate with parents on a district level. Our district office publishes a digital news flyer once a month to share stories. I just found out our district also has a Facebook account. I do not use Facebook, so when someone messaged me and told me I was "famous", I didn't know what they were talking about. Turns out a photo from Read Across America Day of my class was on Facebook. I quit Facebook a few years ago. I did this because never felt the need to share my stories or photos online. When I went on Facebook, the same few people were always sharing theirs and I got tired of it. I also felt guilty that I never shared anything. In addition, advertisements invaded the platform to such an extent that they became the majority of the content I was seeing. I got tired of that. Social media in general does not appeal to me because I feel it distracts me from being able to "be here now". I'm really interested in simplifying my life and finding comfort/inspiration/meaning in the immediate world and people around me. Is this because of my age? I was born in 1970 and grew up without social media. I don't seem to need or want it now. However, tonight's assignment was an eye opener. I had been looking for more ideas for my capstone project. I specifically am looking for more ways to integrate technology into outdoor education. I was struggling to find new ideas. Learning to hashtag on Twitter and Instagram showed me how to connect with other people who are interested in the same thing, worldwide. This is a powerful way to communicate and collaborate! I DO plan on using Twitter and Instagram to "join the conversation" on how to get kids outdoors and learning about the environment. What would you do if you were to come across an inappropriate post made by one of your students outside of the school. Do you address the post and, if so, how? Whom do you involve in the conversations? What considerations must you make in determining your course of action? As far as I know, my third graders are not using social media. They do interact online with other students in video games like Fortnite. In my class, they ALL LOVE the math game called Prodigy because they each have an avatar and can interact in online digital worlds. It fascinates them. The problem is that's all they want to do on there. They get in these rooms together and chat but don't do enough math, in my opinion. So I limit them on the Prodigy. If I ever did find out they were doing inappropriate posts out of school, I'd go to my principal and tell her. I'd feel uncomfortable dealing with that kind of situation without informing her about it. It'd be good to know if our school has a social media policy as described in this ICARE's readings. Since I'm doing my capstone project on outdoor education and how to integrate technology into it, I used an app called Seek with my students. It is a plant and animal identification app. It is amazing how many plants and animals it can identify. The app has challenges and you can pass levels after finding a certain number of plants or animals. It keeps a log of all the species you find. It gives you information about the organisms you find, and has a very cool range map that shows where other people have found the same species, all across the United States. The downside to this app is that it needs WiFi or a satellite connection in order to work. When we used it in my class, only a handful of students has smartphones to use it on. We did a scavenger hunt to see how many different plant species we could find on campus. The kids who were taking pictures with the iPads instead of smartphones could only snap photos. They could, however, once back in the classroom, point a smartphone with the Seek app at their photo and identify the species that way. Today I took the app outdoors and completed the "Connectivity Challenge" by walking around my block and identifying at least ten new species of plants. I found a Mediterranean Spurge, a Japanese Camellia, Silver Ragwort, Glossy Abelia, Saucer Magnolia, Wild Daffodil, Fortnight Lily, Oleander, Glossy Privet, Tsutsusi Azalea, California Poppy, Wolly Hedgenettle, Green Liveforever, Rosemary, Mission Prickly Pear, Cuban Oregano, Aloe Vera, Fiddle Leaf Fig, Western Sword Fern, Common Ivy, Italian Arum, Mexican Tea, Bermuda Buttercup, Heavenly Bamboo, Spider Plant, Larustinus Viburnum, Golden Pothos, and Hubei Anenome. Whew! It was great! It got me out of the house! It was a beautiful day and I might not have realized that unless I practiced with this app. While the kids enjoyed it, I think the format is not ideal for third graders. It is a bit mature for them. So I tried a different app for younger students called Nature Cat. It is designed for much younger users. It has nature challenges, but does not identify species. You take pictures of plants, animals, and "cool things" and put the pics into you journal. A good feature of this app is that you can write and record your notes about each photo. Tomorrow I am taking my class on a walking field trip up Oat Hill Mine Trail. We are bringing our nature journals, watercolors, iPads, and smartphones. I'm looking at how the kids interact with these different tools to help me decide how to design another study I'll be doing on our field trip in April. Wish us luck! This image was created by one of our high school students and shared in the school newsletter last week. While my third graders are not feeling this way quite yet, third grade is still a big step for students in our school as far as their online presence goes. They switch from iPads to Chromebooks. They get their own Gmail accounts. They log on to many new websites using their Google accounts. They are able to send each other gmails and messages through Google Classroom. Some "digital citizenship" issues that have arisen so far have been students discovering violent or sexual images despite our school's filters, students logging on to other students' accounts after figuring our school's password system (ces+student lunch number), and students using prohibited sites like YouTube during time when they should be doing schoolwork. Up until now, as the problems have been limited, I have dealt with them in a reactive way. I'm becoming more aware that I'll need to be more proactive in fostering digital citizenship. If our students are like I was when I was a kid, they have seen or done a lot more than they are willing to share in a classroom setting. I'm planning on doing the lesson I worked on for this week. I'm very curious to see what they share as far as being safe, respectful, and responsible online. I'm hoping that by addressing issues proactively, we can be better prepared to protect ourselves from questionable content, creeps, cheats, hackers, and haters. I think we set a good tone, one of empowerment, when we approach these issues by creating "superheroes" that fight to set things right. |
AuthorJeremy Smith teaches third grade at Calistoga Elementary School. Archives
July 2020
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