First entry
Well this is the beginning of my site and blog. My aim is to use this site as my 'explorers journal' and for my annotated bibliography for the course I am studying. I don't know where my studies will lead me, but I do know that I will have a greater understanding of educational technologies by the end of this degree. I look forward to sharing what I have found and implementing some of the new strategies and technologies that I come across. Hope you enjoy the ride!!!
WOW!!!
I really hope you guys watched this video. The ideas that Jane McGonigal has about gaming and how it can change the world are amazing. Many people tend to think of gaming as a sedentary activity and it leading to obesity or in the case of violent games, an increase in violence in the gamers. Let's now flip that and look at all the online collaboration and communication that is going on in games such as World of Warcraft. If you didn't watch the video, now is the time to watch.
Here is a link to Jane's site.
Here is a link to Jane's site.
This link is to the Quest to Learn (Q2L) site. This is a branch of a school in the United States which has moved to a predominantly game-based, online structure for learning. From looking at the overview of the schools core principles, it seems that the learning through play or Reggio Emilia approach, is the educational philosophy being adopted by this school. This style of learning is one that is used throughout most pre-school centres and primary schools and promotes the principles of respect, responsibility and community through exploration and discovery . From my own personal experience, games can definitely provide knowledge in these principles, but as an educator, my instincts lead me to think that although these principles can be found in games, it is the content of the games that needs to be evaluated to determine the educational value and merit of each game.
James Gee on Flexible Learning
This video sums up what we have been talking about in EDF6447. The approach to flexible learning is not a localised issue but one that is being adopted around the world. Here, James Gee talks about how flexible learning is also being associated with gaming and how habits of gamers are being used to mould how flexible learning modules are being created.
Educators using Games
While reading about the perceptions of teachers' use of gaming in education. I decided to do a search of teachers who are using gaming to educate. Tim Rylands was one of the teachers that I came across and his site is fantastic. Whether you are a teacher who just wants some websites to use in class or an in-depth look at how to use the game 'Myst' in English and other areas, this is the site for you. This site got me thinking about how I could use other games in the areas of Science and Maths to enhance the learning experience for my students.
GamificationWhat is gamification? From my investigations, gamification seems to be the use of gaming and game design to enhance usability of any digital media. It may be said that this may also be the case in education. The slide show on the right here shows how gamification is being used in industry. For gaming to be used in education, I believe that there needs to be an emphasis placed on learning how to use this technology while teachers are still in their pre-service stage. By educators knowing the content of games intimately, much like they do their subject content, the ability to integrate and extract the required information from games would be much easier. This would also make the learning intention much clearer for students and hence decrease cognitive load and increase retention and comprehension.
| Gamification: How Effective Is It? View more PowerPoint from Social Physicist |
My explorations in finding teachers who use gaming in education led me in many directions. One direction that I headed in was mentioned above. Tim Rylands was the first teacher that I found using gaming in education. I followed up this find with a conversation with one of my colleagues. This colleague led me on to James Gee, who is also mentioned above. While exploring James Gee's site and thinking about different curriculum areas, I came across an author by the name of Luke Cuddy. Cuddy has looked at gaming in a light that I previously had not given much thought to but had played on my mind. Luke Cuddy's approach looked at the philosophy in games and how this could also be used similarly to how Plato and Aristotle are studied. I was quick to pass on this information to my school's philosophy teacher who is very keen to integrate this idea into his course.
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Gaming and Educational Philosophy
During my undergraduate studies, and in this course, there have continually been references to educational theorists and developing a personal educational philosophy. One of the theorists that was mentioned frequently was Benjamin Bloom. Bloom's taxonomy was, and is, continually referred to when striving for students to think and much higher levels. It came as some surprise to me, that Bloom's taxonomy had been revised to include the digital revolution that is taking place around us. The figure to the left, shows Bloom's digital taxonomy where lower order thinking skills are at the base of the pyramid and higher order thinking skills are at the peak. This figure also shows some of the Web 2.0 tools that could be used to invoke these thinking skills in students. It is comforting for me to now be able to put a recognised theory to a personal philosophy that I had started to build.