Playing Games for Education!

Tag: EDCI 336 (Page 2 of 2)

Seventh week reflection

October 28, 2020 / / 0 Comments

For this week’s class, a large amount of class time was spent in discussion groups. The groups were created using topic suggestions from students and then a vote to see which 5 subjects had the most interest. We were encouraged to change rooms and get involved in the conversation which was a bit awkward because I had to ask to change rooms but I’m happy that I was able to move around as much as I did. It was interesting to see how many people gravitate to certain topics. I was in a room with 8 people at one point, and the next room I went into only has 2 other people in it. I don’t often participate in a situation where there is a free flow between groups so you are free to visit any of the groups at any time. It was a really great exercise and since each group made a list of points that were discussed the class has a document to reference and some resource suggestions from Michael. One resource lead me to Trevor Mackenzie’s website where I read several of his posts about implementing inquiry and a Google slide presentation that made some good points on parts of the inquiry process. For example, in the slides Trevor points out that when you are using inquiry with a class students come up with questions about their inquiry project but teachers need to find ways to tie those questions to curriculum and learning standards.
We had some great take aways from this weeks class, but I find myself saying that for all the classes I am in right now.

With some guidance from Michael I have been looking more into using OBS and Twitch as a solution to streaming the charity event on Nov 7. After doing a bit more research I think OBS will be the best for having the video, audio, and customization I am looking for. I did a quick set up to see how much time it would take to set up and it was fairly easy. Now I have to create some templates for the different scenes I will be switching between during the stream. I will be using PhotoShop to make those templates but that is a story for another day.

 

Until next time!

Digging Deeper and Deeper

October 25, 2020 / / 0 Comments

I have been playing this game for a while now and I think I am starting to see how people sit and play for hours and hours and not even notice the time pass. Since I have many assignments, classes, work, and general life going on most of my time is scheduled and that includes time working on this free inquiry. Alarms and timers on my phone have been a life saver in this Covid-19 world where most of my time is spent inside at a desk. I have been feeling more at home in my little Minecraft world and after spending a bunch of time digging and pickaxing my way to iron and diamonds I resurfaced to go to my home base so I could drop off a few things. On my way up the mine shaft I had dug I heard the strangest noises. Confused, I started looking around expecting to see an enemy trying to attack me. But there was nothing so I figured I’d have a deeper look once I finished my trip ‘home’. When I went back to investigate the noises were in the same spot so I figured I should start busting down some walls and figure out what was going on.

 

And then, I found the zombies.

 

It was strange but so is this game so I cleared the zombies away and walked into the room they were stuck or hiding in. That is when I saw it.

Usually when I find something unfamiliar in this game I do a quick search for what it is before messing with it. Turns out this thing is a zombie spawner and its great for leveling, which is good I guess! The rest of the session I spent enlarging the room so the zombie spawner could do its thing and I’ll go back later for all the sweet low effort experience points. 

 

Until next time!

Fifth week reflection and Minecraft update

October 24, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Fifth week reflection and Minecraft update

 

There was no class in week five because of the long weekend so I took this time to start exploring some streaming software. I have been involved with the charity Extra Life for the past few years by helping my partner set up their in the person event. The two of us have typically been part of a bigger team that run various games for the 24 charity marathon but like most things this year it is going to be a bit different. This year instead of auctioning off seats at the game table and having a sort of revolving door of players there will only be 7 people playing for the entire 24 hours. In previous years we have streamed the 24 event with an extremely simple set up of one webcam and two microphones because all participants were in the same room. However, this year five people will be in different locations and two will be in the same room. The two people in the same room will each have their own camera and audio feed. To bring this all together I decided to use OBS as our streaming software since it is easy to connect it to Twitch, where the game will be streamed, and OSB has robust features with, what I hope will be, easy to manage menus. I have no experience using OBS but from the tutorials I have looked at it should be a great solution for the stream. 

 

For Minecraft this week I spent most of my time mining and trying to find iron, gold, diamonds, or any other materials hidden in the earth. I decided to just start digging down in a random spot and ended up finding a few pockets of usable materials. Eventually I hit an area where I couldn’t break any more of the blocks, no matter which pickaxe I tried to use on the blocks. I suppose I hit the lowest layer? 

 

As this is a short update I’ll leave it here for now.

 

Until next time!

Photo of tree in field
Photo Taken By Carla Scott

Third week reflection

October 1, 2020 / / 0 Comments
Photo of tree in field

Photo Taken By Carla Scott

This week we took a break from a typical class and had guest speaker Jesse Miller join us. Their presentation was about social media in education, and safety concerts around that. Miller was also speaking to broader digital identity, rights, and literacy among students and school staff members. 

It was a great presentation partially because I had never really spent time to really think about topics they brought up, like how schools handle cell phone policies. I supposed I aged myself a bit by saying that, but when I was in secondary school students having cell phones was very rare. Having never been on the receiving end of this debate the idea of cell phones being confined to bags all class never bothered me. When Miller talked about teachers including a phone break in class it made me think of all the times when I’m feeling stuck, or can’t focus so I check my phone or watch a couple quick YouTube videos to have a sort of brain break. There are also times where I am on a roll and head down for long periods of time, but I think using timed breaks can really help maintain focus. There have been many times where I am dreading the start of a project because I foresee it taking X amount of time and its really daunting, or I don’t even know where to start. When starting is the hardest part I try thinking “I’ll just try for 20 mins and then take a break” I’m not sure why the promise of a break has this effect on me but it can be really amazing what is produced in that time. That was a bit of a long explanation but I think what I am trying to say is the promise of “free time”, even 5 or 10 minutes, can be really motivating.
I was also really interested in the conversation about boundaries and expectations being a way to empower students. I think this is a great idea and I’ve used a similar technique at summer camps with children. We set up “camp rules” that we make as a group so everyone has a say in what we want to put into and see from campers and leaders. This activity always results in more community accountability as the children seem to feel more like they are an important member and decision maker rather than a person that has to follow a list of boring rules made up by the leaders.
Now, I’m off to play some more Minecraft!

Second week reflection

September 27, 2020 / / 0 Comments

I know it is only the second week of this course, and third week for some other courses, but I have to say that I am already finding due dates to be an issue for me. I suppose it is more about the amount of assignments and keeping track of which is due when, or when which assignment’s due date changes and then recording the new due date. This is definitely gearing me up for a high level of organizational skills.
This week we looked at copyright and open education resources which was really exciting! I think it is pretty amazing that teachers freely share lessons and activities with others, there are some sites where a contributor can price their content and that is totally understandable. I was also impressed with how much (free or priced) lesson content for teachers is available. I suppose I had always thought of lesson planning as a job teachers did outside of class on their own or maybe with a fellow staff member or two. Knowing that there are collections available is a bit of a relief and gives an almost collaborative feel to the lesson planning process. Even just seeing what is being used in classrooms at different levels is intriguing. 

It was nice to chat with some of my classmates about the movie “Most likely to Succeed”. I like that we had a chance to voice what excited us and what we found to be problematic about the movie. It was really nice to hear others opinions about it even when I had thought about an aspect differently than a classmate.
Hopefully I can start posting these blogs a bit earlier in the week.
Until next time!

EdTech Inquiry

September 1, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Work in progress no longer!

For my group EdTech inquiry I worked together with Amy to search out apps that a teacher can use to connect with families and aid in a student’s learning outcomes. After looking through our options there were two apps that caught our attention so we decided to focus on Seesaw and Class Dojo. 

 

We picked these two because there were some differences in the approach that each takes but both allow communication between teachers and parents with privacy from the student.

I really liked the way that you could share what is happening in class with families and send confidential comments on students behaviour, class work, and progress.

 

But for now, I’ll let myself and Amy do the talking in this video of our presentation to our learning pod.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaC7o2EfKAE&feature=emb_logo

I think the biggest take away from this inquiry is that there are so many options for teachers that you need to first understand your use case for the app. Seesaw and Class Dojo are great resources for apps that a teacher can use to connect with families and aid in a student’s learning outcomes. They also have other functions to help teachers with class management, digital portfolios, and different modalities of information delivery.

 

Lastly, here are the slides from our presentation.

Thanks for checking out our inquiry and I hope you found some useful information for your future, or current, teaching career!!

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