Let the Games Begin!

 

 

Our kids came back to school with a number of gaming, virtual, and web-based options last week. Quest Atlantis is offered to our 5th and 6th graders, Gamestar Mechanic to all 6th graders, a half-credit game design elective to interested 9-12th graders, and Conspiracy Code – a US History class is taught entirely through gaming. We also rolled out Google Apps to all 7-12th graders and began hybrid and fully online options for our high school students. Reflecting on the process, I can honestly say it was a lot of work! After the research, approval and planning phase we involved dozens of staff members over 3-6 months providing professional development or building curriculum. And, the start of the school year was nothing short of rocky with technical issues and general frustration with our in-school infrastructure.

Is it worth it? Absolutely! I’d do it again, with minor changes, but after only 7 school days we are (almost) sailing along! Students in Quest and Gamestar are excited, engaged, learning and playing both in-school and afterschool, and on the weekends. Our high school students are already producing creative work in the gaming course using Blackboard and Google Apps to research and share presentations. This week they are creating an HTML game, next week they’ll begin to use Kodu. Students in our fully online courses have made the transition from traditional to virtual schooling fairly seamlessly, and Google Apps offers our entire staff a great platform to experience the potential of 21st century learning and communication.

Our biggest challenges are professional development and infrastructure to support what we are already doing, and where we plan to go. The good news is, we have a detailed plan addressing both issues. I expect the coming months to include a great deal of reflection, revision, and expansion as we look to the future.

Quest Atlantis coming to OASD!

June 1st marked the end of our web-based Quest Atlantis professional development. Three teachers and I attended 4 two-hour training sessions and gamed in between as part of our “homework”. Quest Atlantis is a virtual world with a game-like environment where students and teachers complete quests, missions or units in various curricular areas.  Netiquette  and social justice awareness are woven throughout the curriculum; math, science, literacy, social studies, and environmental issues comprise the quests.  The content is very good, the “game” is engaging, the space and learning are complex, and the scaffolded instruction and curriculum can be customized. My initial reaction as an educator, after 10-12 hours in world, is that it’s fabulous. The teachers in my cohort expressed similar feelings.

All of our fifth graders (with parent permission) will be questing 50-60 minutes each day for 5 weeks. Our team is meeting in early July to talk about curriculum integration, developmentally appropriate units, assessment, and logistics. Administrative support has been great, and we anticipate similar support from teachers and families if we decide to expand to 4th grade in the second year of implementation.

Pedagogically, educational virtual worlds as encompassing as Quest Atlantis potentially offer exactly what researchers and educators deem necessary for 21st century students: multimodality, problem-based learning, collaborative spaces, scaffolded instruction and discovery, embedded literacy skills and assessments, and engagement.

Oh, did I mention over 50,000 kids all over the world have played this (extremely inexpensive) game? Check out the link if you’re interested in learning more.
Quest Atlantis

Personally, I’m really excited about the learning ahead for our students….and participating staff.

Building a Culture Supporting Educational Games

Yesterday marked the final day of our Elements of Game Design curriculum build. The two teachers I’m working with seem as excited as I am to offer kids the opportunity to design, build, playtest, and share games. The semester long course will have them working in teams to solve problems using games as the mediator for high-level learning. After reviewing and discussing the history of games, they’ll build three protypes of games beginning with a board game, then using Kodu, and finally move to ARIS where they’ll design a game for others to play on a mobile device. We’ve loaded the course into Blackboard for a web-enhanced first experience, with the intent to move it to a hybrid course once we work through a couple iterations and get feedback from the kids. Criteria and assessments are built in, along with plenty of discussion, reflection and even a couple weeks where students will create a simple TED Talk, taking a stance on the value of gaming.

The course is rich in multimodal learning, socially-constructed learning, complex problem solving, and self directed work with scaffolding by the teacher. We’re also forming a gaming club around the course open to all interested students. I do believe this course has the potential to change culture within our high school. An (outstanding) art teacher helping design the curriculum is hoping to offer a second follow-up course in another year that concentrates on the aesthetics in game design. The Tech Ed teacher teaching the course is personally and professionally challenged and excited about his work.

What’s next? I’m working on setting up professional development for 3 teachers who’ll use Quest Atlantis with our 5th graders next year; Gamestar Mechanic will be integrated with our 6th grade science curriculum. While we don’t intend to teach everything through gaming, we do intend to make gaming a presence and opportunity to increase learning and ultimately achievement. Building a culture that supports and understands the power of simulated learning experiences and engagement in STEM and 21st century learning is a powerful step forward.

Screenshot from game created in ARIS.

Connecting Games and Mobile Apps

Next week I’m heading to the Global Game Jam in Madison to learn how to use ARIS, an open source mobile gaming App, to create and play games. The researchers at UW-Madison have organized a great event to help us (teachers, administrators, techies, anyone!) create and playtest a game on a mobile device in just a few days.  Using location-based learning, historical and visual sites, GPS/mobile technology and collective wisdom we’ll emulate what we hope to do with kids at our high school next year. It looks as if there are basecamps we’ll connect with around the United States, Europe, and South America. I hope to post late next week to talk about the potential in K-12.  Curious? Check out the link:

http://arisgames.org/global-game-jam-2011/

High School Lifestyle Class Integrates Video

Two high school mixed-age classes are in the final week of creating short video-documentaries based on content within their Wellness Watch course. Much of the coursework involved strength and phyical conditioning, but once a week students collaboratively researched an issue related to wellness such as Type II diabetes, childhood obesity, hypertension, post-partem weight loss or tobacco use, and then formulated a script to detail statistics, defining characteristics, and potential cures or management of issues. Students filmed their mini-movies using Flip cameras and edited their work in Sony Vegas software. I supported the (very talented) high school physical education teacher each week and walked everyone through the technology. The kids and teacher picked it up very quickly and once again the coursework focused on the content while the technology spaces (wikis, Flip cams, editing software) facilitated collaborative work.

The teacher and I talked at length about what worked well and what needed rethinking. We both agreed working together was a great way to roll-out  new technology initiatives as content expertise can take center stage while technical skill is comfortably built along the way. 

 I spent time talking with the kids to find out what they liked (using the cameras and the software, writing the scripts) and didn’t like (research-related writing, finding time to schedule filming) about the project. In the end we all learned a great deal. The phy ed teacher told me she is committed to beginning the project with a new class next week. This time – without me!

Making Progress – Game Design Curriculum

Working with a Tech Ed and Visual Art Teacher to write our Elements of Game Design Curriculum was definitely a good decision. We balance each other with a blend of technical, research/curriculum, artistic and (adolescent) developmental expertise. After a full day of discussion, playing with the syllabus, and looking at resources we have a solid framework built. By the end of the first morning it was clear keeping kids interested and challenged for 18 weeks was much different than the typical 9-week curricula I’m used to writing, but we aren’t lacking media to work with! We’ll meet for another full day in late February, and I hope to share the curriculum when it’s finished in May. For now I can tell you our framework includes Frontline: Digital Nation video clips for kids to reflect on the value and issues/concerns around gaming, background to situate games in society – including a look at the history of games, and time spent playing, dissecting and discussing elements of gaming through card games, board games, digital games, and physical games.

We plan to have students take a look at mobile games and placed-based learning, and build in a couple of 3-4 week sessions of conceptualizing, building, playing, modding, and redesigning simple games for a target audience. Gee’s 15 principles of “good games” will be tacitly woven throughout the curricula, and we’ve pinpointed a number of natural ways to offer formative assessments within our framework.

I’m equally excited about the culture we hope to build around gaming at the high school. One of our virtual (blended) courses will be taught entirely through a game, and we submitted a grant to purchase mobile devices to run App Inventor as part of our plan to begin a gaming club in the fall.

OASD is lucky to have visionary teachers, administrators and community support for important, exciting initiatives. I can only speculate on how much students will provide the creative ideas and talent to help us refine the curriculum and learning once we get it off the ground!

Human Resources RoundTable Discussion

Two weeks ago I was invited to present to Human Resources personnel from area industry, business, and public organizations (hospitals, schools etc). The topic, of course, was social media. My expertise with social media involves education much more than business, but unsurprisingly the implications for both include a great deal of overlap.

Just as in education, businesses recognize the participation-shift and societal push to use social media for production, communication and building knowledge.  Sophisticated technologies, fueled by a more-powerful, less expensive Internet redefine the world we live and work in.  Responsible use, intellectual property, privacy issues and integrity considerations, while remaining relevant to clients or customers, are realities in industry and education/academia. Access to online tools within “traditional” business models is as constrained as within “traditional” models of education. What makes us different in K-12 is most likely the pace we tend to move at and (more) limited access to resources impacting systemic change.

After a discussion of potential use and misuse of social media our group talked about possibilities for the future with location-based social networks and mobile devices. The group seemed interested in initiatives our K-12 district is involved with to prepare kids for a rapidly-changing future requiring new literacies. They also seem committed to effecting change within their own organization.  I left with a better understanding of what local organizations grapple with when considering the reach and implications of social media.

Slides from presentation:

Hr roundtable slides from daniherro

iTouches to Practice Reading Fluency

Second graders engaged in self-directed practices.

See post below for details (December 18, 2010).

Virtual School Taking Shape

Positioning our school district to offer virtual (hybrid and fully online) courses is a huge undertaking. Luckily I have administrative support, extremely interested and excited staff, and a small group of administrators and teachers ready to roll up their sleeves and help! Our superintendent and assistant superintendent realized the importance of offering students options in line with the digital, media-rich era they are enmeshed in, and simultaneously research and practice suggests sophisticated, rich ‘customized’ learning opportunities  can occur online. With an aggressive timeline to get 8 courses online in 9 months, and double the number the following year, I’ll briefly review the completed/in-progress steps we are taking via bullet points. Keep in mind the items below are the ‘big picture’ ideas; specific details would take a few pages to post!

September-January

• 2 months of intensive research of virtual schooling, administrative discussion and direction
• Florida Virtual School Leadership training (team of 4)
• Develop blueprint for designing our school
• Basic Blackboard Training (15 staff)
• Creation of Staff Informational brochure
• Administrative work-day with all stakeholders (business office, HR, tech support, C&I, website/marketing, principal, parent communication)
• Meeting to finalize courses for design (5) and purchase (3)
• Publish description for student programming planning guide
• Steering Committee established; monthly meetings
• Staff informational meetings

  February-July (in-progress)

• Initial website portal built; attach to current CMS
• Blackboard Administrative Support training
• Program planning guide/course sign-up available
• Policies written and posted – NUA, Truancy, Attendance
• Purchased courses loaded on Blackboard
• Parent, community informational meetings
• Blackboard Course Design Training (15 staff)
• Completion of Online Teaching Certification for involved staff
• Pilot (4th quarter) 2 courses; survey staff and students
• Final student registration for 2011-12 courses
• Upload enrollments, determine final staffing
• Finalize technology access for staff/students
• Administrative walk-though of courses
• Test website portals; review information
• Create cohorts for teachers to support effective course design and delivery
• Offer in-house options for Online Teacher Certification and Basic Blackboard training to prepare (future) teachers

iTouch to Practice Reading Fluency

Last week I spent time at one of our largest elementary schools with a fabulous Learning Resource Teacher (LRT) to see how our district’s iTouch pilot is taking shape. We purchased a set of 20 iTouches, a basic Mac laptop (to serve as the iTunes library and syncing station) an Airport extreme, a $500 Volume Voucher Card, and a Bretford card for just under $10K. The LRT and I met to work out the logistics of naming the devices, purchasing Apps, and the initial use of the cart in classrooms; and then she worked very hard to purchase and sync language, math, science, social studies and productivity Apps on all 20 iTouches. The screens are set up by grade level for K-1, then by subject area for our 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders.

The reading fluency lesson I observed involved approximately a dozen second graders using the voice recorder to read and record a passage, listen to it, and re-record if they weren’t satisfied. The classroom teacher worked with a small group in the back of the room, another small group of students were working independently at their seats, and those with the iTouches scattered throughout the room or hallway as they felt comfortable. The recordings were then organized on a Smart Playlist to make it easy for the teacher to listen to all of them ‘in one place’, and of course the students name, length of the passage and date were electronically recorded.

Eventually students will practice recording their own writing and move towards using many other features of the iTouches for learning. As we integrate this technology into our literacy blocks it is apparent the ease of use, efficiency of the digital tool, and access to additional tools for learning will benefit students and teachers.

The LRT showed me a how 3rd graders were using the camera function and Storyrobe and for simple digital storytelling, and math Apps to practice specific skills. After just a month of use, I am already impressed with the teachers, kids and possibilities for learning and assessment.