Double Entry #5

Quote:
"One concern I have for future game play is the lack of participation by all students. The gameplay was conducted as a whole class activity utilizing one computer, a data projector and an interactive whiteboard. Five students who remained actively engaged throughout the semester tended to dominate gameplay. Although the remaining students were engaged, they remained more passive and rarely offered suggestions to the student game controller. These students may have been more involved if I had three groups of four students playing the game at different computers."


Reflection:
While reading "Civilization III and Whole Class Play in High School Social Studies Class", I wondered about student engagement during this activity. In my experience, I have found that there are usually a few students who take command in a project. I would be interested in who the project went with several smaller groups of students playing. Would there have been a completion to build the biggest and best civilization? I think it is important to make sure that all students have the opportunity to participate in the game. I like the idea of using a game like Civilization to reinforce learning in a Social Studies class.

Each week as I read the articles, I think "OH! This would be cool to do with an !" I'm not having the same excitement about Business related games. I'm going to have to get additional certifications. As a future Business Ed teacher, I would like to find a way to offer reinforcement to core subject areas. For example, if the English class is reading a Shakespeare play, have students in a computer application class create a virtual tour of the Globe Theater. I just can't imagine how in actuality that would work.

I found this Prezi presentation about Civilization III being used in the classroom.
 

About Me...

Although I am having some difficulties, I really like Scratch. It is one of those programs that I could play with all day. I was trying to think of three things that I could tell you about myself using the available backgrounds, sprites and sounds. (All my pictures are currently on my other laptop.) One thing I was having difficulty with was getting the stage to change when I wanted it to. I looked at a few other projects on Scratch, downloaded and opened their scripts. Once I could see what other people had done, it made more sense. At first, I wanted to have my sprite glide cross the screen to the sound of a passing car for "I just want to get away...". However, I couldn't get glide right, so I made her plop down on a beach.  This is something I look forward to playing with in the coming weeks.

Double Journal Entry #4

Quote:
"Video games are a legitimate medium of expression. They recruit important digital literacy practices. Perhaps best of all, because they are an area of passionate interest for many young men, they are one place where you can see what they are truly capable of."

Reflection:
As educators, our focus should be on ways to engage all of our students. This becomes challenging when you are dealing with a mixed classroom of different interests and motivators. When we see that a particular group is uninterested in an assignment, we should try to modify that assignment to their interests instead of forcing them into a "box". Had Julio's assignments been focused toward his interest, perhaps his attitudes toward school would have been better and he would have had some success in his classes. With students having a wide variety of interests, how do we accommodate and reach every student?

I found this TED video about using video games to re-engage boys. I found it very interesting. Additionally, I read a few articles about gender specific education. I find the concept of separating classes by gender to be interesting. I plan to read more about this. I can only imagine the backlash that a plan like that would have in my area.

 



Source:

Steinkuehler, C. (2010). Video games and digital literacies. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(1), 61-63. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.fairmontstate.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/750429343?accountid=10797



Scratch Tutorials

After a bit of confusion about where to download scratch, I was on my way to changing, flipping and putting effects with my sprites. I really enjoyed playing with scratch and it was much easier than I thought it would be. I am definitely going to print the cards out for reference. Here is my tutorial file.
Learn more about this project

I've been trying to think about ideas for my game. I thought about doing a typing game like the one I shared previously. However, I not sure. I may want to do a shopping/budgeting game.

Double Journal Entry #3

Quote:
"A strategy commonly adopted by the entertainment industry involves developing participatory contexts that have elements of challenge, curiosity, play, and control (Cordova & Lepper, 1996). In contrast, the education and design community has developed many curricula and contexts to support learning but has not necessarily captured the interests and motivations of children. Instead of learning from the success of modern media and pop culture producers, educators have distanced themselves from those who are the most successful in engaging children."

Reflection:

In the article "Making Learning Fun: Quest Atlantis, a game without Guns", the authors provide further evidence that students learn best when they are engaged, motivated and entertained. The above quote caught my attention because it seems that educators have distanced themselves from the very thing that children seem to be most interested in. Virtual worlds offered great potential teaching basically every core subject. Within Quest Atlantis, students become characters who quest to help The Council of Atlantis restore its lost wisdom. Students use avatars to move through these quests and worlds.  The developers of Quest Atlantis took their cue from the entertainment industry. The result was an educational game that's usage rapidly spread through in-school and after school programs. The article mentioned that students were even completing quests of their own freewill as opposed to waiting for them to be assigned. That type of student motivation and engagement is what I want to strive for as a teacher.

My challenge is to find a way to work this type of learning into a business classroom. With this in mind, I began to search for what business related games are already available. Several of the games I found were simulation games that involved building a community, such as Virtual Restaurant. Here's a YouTube video describing this game:

Source:

Sasha Barab, Michael Thomas, Tyler Dodge, Robert Carteaux and Hakan Tuzun

Making Learning Fun: Quest Atlantis, a Game without Guns         

Educational Technology Research and Development , Vol. 53, No. 1 (2005), pp. 86-107

Scratch Game

I found Scratch difficult to work with. First, I had to resize my picture several times. It would have helped had it said, "Maximum Picture Size is..." Then I couldn't figure out how to join the Gallery or Share the game I found. But, I did lots of exploring and found Stop the Invasion, which is a typing game. I chose this game because my degree is Business Education and I think typing is a vital skill that should be taught at the earliest level possible.

Double Entry Journal #2

According to Gee, good games reflect certain principles. While playing Garden of Time, I found that it reflected the following principles that Gee listed:

• Interaction - Garden of Time provided interaction by giving the player feedback and new problems to solve. Once a challenge was completed, a new challenge was ready. This provided constant interaction between the player and the game.
• Customization - Although the story in Garden of Time didn't allow for the player to make decisions, players were able to create their gardens differently. Players could decide what items to place in their gardens and where to place them. They could choose whether or not to complete quests.
• Challenge and Consolidation - According to Gee's article, "good games off players a set of challenging problems and then let them solve these problems until they have virtually routinized or automatized their solutions." This happened in Gardens of Time by presenting the same scenes repeatedly. The hidden objects didn't change where they were. The more you played the scenes, the easier the objects became to find.
• "Just in Time" and "On Demand" - One thing that I liked about Gardens of Time is that it didn't give a lot of unnecessary information. It gave you information right as it was needed.
• Pleasantly Frustrating - Gee states that good games should be "doable" yet challenging. In the hidden object scenes of Garden of Time, I found this to be true. While finding the hidden objects wasn't hard, it was continually challenging and I still haven't found some of the items.
• Cross-Functional Teams - Garden of Time allowed for team work in a couple of ways. One way was being able to ask neighbors for assistance building or getting items that you needed. Additionally, you could visit their gardens and leave gifts or help people in distress.

My views on gaming

Explain how the information in each of the two videos and presentation changed or confirmed your position on the effects of gaming on young people intellectual and social lives.

The two videos and the presentation on the effects of gaming on young people intellectual and social lives confirmed my beliefs. I agree with the statement that violent video games do not make people violent unless they have a predisposed tendency to be violent. I would like to see research on this. Video games have a great potential as educational tools. According to the videos, IQ is growing each year. Traditional classroom education will no longer do. As educators, we need to bring our teaching styles inline with how students learn and what captures their interests.

Teens, Games and Civics

"Teens, Games and Civics" was a fact laden presentation about teens and gaming. Three things I learned from this presentation were:

• 31% of the teens surveyed were daily gamers. Considering they included several platforms including cellphones, I thought this number would be higher.
• Top 5 Game Genres for Girls: Puzzle, Racing, Rhythm, Adventure, Sports/Strategy
  Top 5 Game Genres for Boys: Action, Sports, Racing, Adventure, FPS                    
• 63% report seeing or hearing "people being mean and overly aggressive while playing". This did not surprise me. Having played many hours of games online, I constantly amazed at the lack of civility in the gaming realm. The anonymity seems to lead people to believe that they can say whatever they want with no consequence.

I was surprised by the statistic "5% of parents of gamers say gaming has some negative influence/some positive influence, but it depends on the game." I figured this number would be higher with a greater percentage saying gaming had a negative influence. Additionally, I found it hard to believe that 90% of parents said they knew what their children were doing in games. I wander how many actually know and how many just think they know.

Question:
Why is there a higher percentage of boys who play games? Are most games geared toward boys?

Gamification

"Are Video Games Making Your Kids Smarter?" was a very interesting video. Being around the same age as the speaker, I remember the excitement when my cousins got an Atari 2600. Additionally, I remember playing Where in the World is Carmen SanDiego. Three things I learned in this video were:

• "Where in the World is Carmen SanDiego?" is the last number 1 educational game and it came out in 1987.  I think this is a sad fact. With research showing the benefits of gaming, why isn't there a greater push for educational games?
• Anatha Pia created a curriculum using gaming and over an 18 week period increased student scores a grade level. I found this outstanding. I wonder if his colleagues were supportive or thought he was nuts.
• Twelve weeks of juggling increased gray matter in your brain. I just thought that was interesting.

The speaker said two things that I wholeheartedly agree with. One was that "our world is too freakin' slow for our children". I don't believe children's brains are wired the same as they used to be. The other thing he said was about violent video games do not make people violent; however, they may bring out violent tendencies in people who are predisposed to violence. My sister and I had a similar conversation the other day.

Question:
I find the idea of using video games as a teaching tool intriguing. However, I struggle with how I'd work it into the curriculum of a secondary business class. (Another reason I think basic computer applications and keyboarding should be offered in an elementary setting.) How could I work gaming into a business education setting?

Your Brain on Video Games

I found this video full of interesting statements and statistics. I was not surprised that the average age of a gamer is 33 years old. This is the generation that saw the rise of Atari, Nintendo, Sega and Playstation. This generation grew up with advancing game technology. Three additional things that really caught my attention were:

• 90% of children play video games - This surprised me. I don't disagree with this statement, but I question its validity. Is this just in the United States? I would like to hear more about this statistic because I can't imagine 90% of the world's children having access to video games.
• Call of Duty: Black Ops logged 68,000 years of playing time in its first month - This does not surprise me. My husband heavily contributed to this statistic. Wouldn't it be amazing if that much collective time was put into something productive...like solving world hunger or cleaning my living room?
• "Screen time makes your vision worse" is just a myth. This didn't surprise me because action games are like eye exercise.

According to the video "Your Brain on Video Games", action based video games increase object recognition and improve your eyesight.

Question:
How can we make an action-based educational game that students would enjoy playing?