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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AuthorJeremy Smith teaches third grade at Calistoga Elementary School. Archives
July 2020
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