When I first learned the difference between gamification and game based learning I made the analogy of learning a language in a classroom versus being immersed in the country and culture where they speak the language. My understanding is that gamification incorporates components of the values that games bring, the "game" supports the learning. Game based learning allows the user to be involved in the learning process within the game.
I don't think I am very connected to what kids are playing and I do not play anything. It would be valuable for me to spend some time learning more about gaming. I have never really been a gamer. After watching "Gaming can make a better world", I think about games in a different way. I loved the constant comparison to how people are in games vs. the real world. The idea that gamers are super powered, hopeful, individuals is a powerful point. What are these gamers, our students, capable of if they are playing games that matter? I was inspired by Jane McGonigal's TED talk and the games she created such as World without Oil and Super Struct. I think an amazing project would be to have students not only play games that matter but also design these games. I think our next steps at New Tech would allow for something like this to happen. I can see this being a project that is rich in content, voice and choice, real world connections, and elements of gaming. I have used Desmos as a graphing calculator and I have explored a few other uses. I am looking forward to taking my use of this to the next level and utilizing more of its capabilities. I one of the videos I watched it talked about how math class was not called math but instead called code world. This motivated me to look at code.org. I would love to explore this in more detail but I believe there could be some great connection in the math classroom. I have used Kahoot before and the kids to enjoy this. I would like to use Quizizz with my students as a way to review and/or practice skills they are working on. The final way I would like to use games in my classroom is not through technology, I was inspired when I went to High Tech High and was able to go into the Puzzle Bus. The Puzzle Bus was similar to an escape room; however, it is mobile and incorporates academic content. The experience was amazing! It was so focused on collaboration, critical thinking and it had a variety of content. I would absolutely love to have my students create a break out room!
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I experimented with several different tools; each have things I like about them and also some things I struggled with. Ultimately I decided to use Edpuzzle. I like that you are able to take videos that already exist and make them your own. I also like the interactive component of it. I found this provided access to many videos that I already use in my classroom, I am just able to make them my own.
Pear Deck is something I have played with a little bit and I continued to experiment with it when working on my lesson plan. I love the fact that it allows students to enter in responses to questions. You can pick multiple choice, short answer, or paragraph responses. You are then able to display the responses. I like that you can put it on presentation mode where all students are on the same page, or you can let students go at their own pace. You are also able to export answers into google sheets and use add-ons such as Flubaroo to automatically grade responses. My one struggle with pear deck is that I have not figured out if you can do voice recordings for the slides. I looked at Visme a little bit; I plan to explore it more. This seems to be a more business focused; however, there were some really great visuals that reminded me our readings from Baggio in "The Visual Connection". I have seen some really great presentations using Adobe Spark and I plan on using this for several thing for the start of the school year. As our 9th grade cohort embarks on new territory we will have our syllabus presented using Adobe Spark. I like the clean visual appearance of this tool and it seems fairly easy to use. I know that I will have more experience with this tool so for this assignment I decided to go in another direction. I am excited to get to know the pros and cons of the tools and to effectively incorporate them into my practice. At the same time, as I was thinking about my flipped lesson plan, I struggled a bit. Although I see value and need for direct instruction at times, I wonder how this can be more student driven as I go into this new model. I would like to push myself to be innovative not only with the types of tools but also the implementation of them. Whenever using presentation tools I would like to make sure students are interacting with the material and there is a way to assess and provide feedback (one reason I really like pear deck). |