Playing Games for Education!

Tag: reflection (Page 2 of 2)

Following an exercise plan

October 27, 2020 / / 0 Comments

I had been rowing for a few weeks when I decided that I should try something more structured than the 30 mins (10 min intervals with a 2 min rest) of rowing at a moderate pace of 23 strokes per minute (spm). I started using one of the workout routines from concept2.com to add more interest into the workout because it had started to become pretty boring. Having some set times and spm to aim for throughout the workout added some dynamics that helped keep me focused and engaged while rowing.

 

Here is a sample of one of the routines from the concept2 website

  • 3 minutes at 20 strokes per minute (spm), comfortable effort; 1 minute rest.
  • 3 minutes at 22 spm, harder effort; 1 minute rest.
  • 3 minutes at 24 spm, comfortable effort; 1 minute rest.
  • 3 minutes at 24 spm, harder effort; 1 minute rest.
  • 10 minutes steady state rowing at your choice of power and stroke rate. Make note of what pace you settle on, because you will use it in your next workout.

I liked how the site gave 5 workouts to do and repeat. It also has you track the resistance you use and your stroke rate which I hadn’t been doing at first. I knew I was going faster than when I first started but writing it down has been a good exercise to see exactly how or when I am improving. 

 

Stretching is your friend.

 

I have found that doing some dynamic stretching before and after rowing has helped me avoid pain or injury so far. But I will say that my hands still hurt after most sessions so I’ll have to try and relax my grip somehow. I also do some stretching in my rests between rowing intervals which I think has been helpful. I also sometimes jump on the rowing machine for 5-10 mins to give myself a brain break during the day. I can definitely see the benefit of these small sessions to help get resettled with better focus.

 

I’ve been thinking about doing some follow along rowing video workouts but that will have to wait until I’ve done a few rounds of the exercise plan I’m working on.

 

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!

Music Blog #1

October 24, 2020 / / 0 Comments

In my EDCI 306 class each person is tasked with learning a new instrument. For beginners the professor suggested to try the recorder, ukulele, or guitar. I tried playing a friends acoustic guitar and it felt really large and clumsy for me so I tried strumming my partner’s electric guitar and that felt a bit easier to handle. I decided to email my prof to see if I would be able to use the electric guitar instead, after I got the green light from them I was ready to go!
First I started looking at chord charts and lists of songs for beginner players. I also started playing the guitar using the game Rocksmith which was a bit overwhelming but had some great lessons on tuning, chords, picking/strumming, shifting and basic things like how to hold or sit with your guitar. I was really excited to learn guitar so it was easy to fit in the 10-20 mins each day for the first week, then things started to fall apart a little.

After the first week or so I was becoming more and more frustrated with my guitar practice. I was sure that I had tuned the guitar well, or well enough for my purpose, but when I went to play a chord or tried shifting it just didn’t sound good. I would start my practice sessions by going through my chord chart trying to place my fingers on the right frets and strumming a few times before switching to another chord. I liked to end my practice time by trying the “play a song” mode in Rocksmith. I would only be playing a small amount of the notes in the song, but it seemed like a fun way to get familiar with the instrument. While the “play a song” was supposed to be a fun ending I would often get really frustrated because the game would often tell me I was using the wrong fret so I would make adjustments within the fret and would still be missing chords or notes in a song. The combination of having the beginning of my practice time with the chords and shifting sounding off, and the Rocksmith game telling me I wasn’t playing notes/chords properly really started to wear on me. Eventually I started to dread playing the guitar and was feeling pretty hopeless about the goals I had set for myself.

 

One fateful Thursday night I was practicing because I knew I was going to be meeting with some fellow students who were also learning the guitar the next day. As I was strumming I heard, and felt, something weird. Next I felt a combination of confusion directly followed by horrible realization, as my stomach dropped to the floor as I saw that I had just broken the high E string on the guitar. So it was 11 pm, my guitar was useless, and I needed it for a 1 pm class the next day. After taking some time to decide if this just sounded like a made up excuse I elected to email my prof to let them know what had happened. I was a little worried that this would come across as a “the dog ate my homework” situation but I was feeling so discouraged that sending the email seemed like the only thing left to do.

 

My next post I’ll be writing about the email I got on Friday morning, and the turn my musicianship journey has taken.

 

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!

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