Chapter 7 focuses on the social aspect of gaming. Players spend a lot of time in the game tyring to reach the next level. Most players today play with groups of people online. They form groups with whom they play the game. Some of the players spend more time interacting with their group members about a video game thatn they do communicating at school in small groups. In some video games, such as EverQuest, the players need each other to help them make it through each level. He shows how much information and knowledge can be gained through collaboration, communication, and networking with people in the classroom as well as connecting with others on the internet.
Again, we point to the fact that states MUST find a different way to assess student knowledge. They also need to consider that in today's very connected world, why should students memorize the formulas to calculate area, volume, and/or surface area when they could very easily find the formulas online in just a few seconds. We are stressing the importance of communication and collaboration among the students but yet we assess them in EXTREME isolation. The writer points out that learning is not only social but also distributed. In other words, more and more we let other people and even some technologies do some of our thinking for us. Again, why does the government think that students need to have all of the answers locked in their brains while they themselves will instantly turn to a computer or an intern to find the answer?? Do as I say, not as I do.
Kelly, Heather and John
Thursday, April 22, 2010
VIDEO GAMES Chapter 6
Chapter 6 focuses on how video games allow the players to choose to play the "good" or "bad" character. By doing this, the content in video games either reinforces or challenges the players' taken-for-granted perspectives on the world. One of the downsides of video games is that sometimes the player gets so "caught up" in the different perspectives that they begin to have trouble distinguishing between the real world and the game world, such as the Grand Theft Auto series.
Cultural models are images, story lines, principles, or metaphors that capture what a particular group finds "normal" or "typical". These models only capture a partial view of reality and they must be taken in the context of the situation. People can apply their own cultural model to any and every situation. Cultural models can be applied to video games as well helping the player see different aspects of the "problem". He gave the example of the 2 video games created after 9/11 both with the same "plan" but handled in very different ways.
Cultural models are images, story lines, principles, or metaphors that capture what a particular group finds "normal" or "typical". These models only capture a partial view of reality and they must be taken in the context of the situation. People can apply their own cultural model to any and every situation. Cultural models can be applied to video games as well helping the player see different aspects of the "problem". He gave the example of the 2 video games created after 9/11 both with the same "plan" but handled in very different ways.
VIDEO GAME Chapter 5
This chapter deals with a double-edged sword. To be able to learn, students need overt information. However, they often have a hard time handling it. So, they need immersion in actual contexts of practice, but they often find these experiences confusing unless they have overt information and guidance. Hmmm. Instead of choosing one over the other, we need to practice both in school. As students are immersed in experiments and problem solving, teachers should assess their progess and then give out overt information at the time the students need it. Then, the information the students learn will be useful to them. We know that students don't learn information as well when it is presented/taught out of context, so why do teachers continue to teach in isolation? Students need to see real world connections with the information they are learning. On the opposite hand, there needs to be a major shift in what information the state feels students should know and then how to assess the students, ie, box-and-whisker plots. I have an extremely hard time making a real-world connection to box-and-whisker plots that the students would find relevant.
Another key point made in this chapter concerned fundamental skills. In video games, players get to practice basic skills at the beginning of the game over and over again so they will learn them well. This is essential for game play. Players must be able to perform fundamental tasks well in order to master harder tasks later in the game. In school, students rarely get to practice a skill over and over again before moving on to harder skills. This is a key reason why students struggle with reading, writing, and math in general. Instead of immersing students in meaningful situations where they can practice a few fundamental skills over and over, we move them along through curriculum at a rapid pace. Our students end up mastering very little due to mile wide, inch deep standards. Sure, we expose them to tons of skills, but if students cannot apply them in real-world settings, have we really taught them anything?
Kelly, Heather and John
Another key point made in this chapter concerned fundamental skills. In video games, players get to practice basic skills at the beginning of the game over and over again so they will learn them well. This is essential for game play. Players must be able to perform fundamental tasks well in order to master harder tasks later in the game. In school, students rarely get to practice a skill over and over again before moving on to harder skills. This is a key reason why students struggle with reading, writing, and math in general. Instead of immersing students in meaningful situations where they can practice a few fundamental skills over and over, we move them along through curriculum at a rapid pace. Our students end up mastering very little due to mile wide, inch deep standards. Sure, we expose them to tons of skills, but if students cannot apply them in real-world settings, have we really taught them anything?
Kelly, Heather and John
VIDEO GAME Chapter 4
In general, people rely on past experiences to think about new situations. "One good way to make people look stupid is to ask them to learn and think in terms of words and abstractions that they cannot connect in any useful way to images or situations in their embodied experiences in the world. Unfortunately, we regularly do this in schools."
In school, we often teach students using generalizations. They may be asked to memorize certain words or phrases, but the students may have no idea how to actually do anything with these words. Often times, students cannot even carry on a conversation with these school terms, because all they know is a dictionary definition. Students need to be in situations where they use the information they are taught. Otherwise, it does not make sense to them, and they may never know how or why they will need it.
The author points out that when speaking with teachers about video games, he often gives them a video manual or strategy guide and asks the teachers how much they understand. The teachers often get frustrated. They can read the words, but they can't visualize the information in a way that makes sense. This is what happens to our students when we ask them to read a science textbook, for example. It's all just words. "Good" students can memorize these words and repeat them on a test, but it still does not make "sense" to the students. This is why many school children can pass test but still cannot apply their knowledge to real problem solving. We've got to make what they are learning meaningful by creating real or imagined worlds where children can have experiences to use and apply what they learn. Just like you can't learn how to cook by reading about it and watching shows on TV, you can't learn to be a scientist by reading a textbook and memorizing facts for a test.
Kelly, Heather and John
In school, we often teach students using generalizations. They may be asked to memorize certain words or phrases, but the students may have no idea how to actually do anything with these words. Often times, students cannot even carry on a conversation with these school terms, because all they know is a dictionary definition. Students need to be in situations where they use the information they are taught. Otherwise, it does not make sense to them, and they may never know how or why they will need it.
The author points out that when speaking with teachers about video games, he often gives them a video manual or strategy guide and asks the teachers how much they understand. The teachers often get frustrated. They can read the words, but they can't visualize the information in a way that makes sense. This is what happens to our students when we ask them to read a science textbook, for example. It's all just words. "Good" students can memorize these words and repeat them on a test, but it still does not make "sense" to the students. This is why many school children can pass test but still cannot apply their knowledge to real problem solving. We've got to make what they are learning meaningful by creating real or imagined worlds where children can have experiences to use and apply what they learn. Just like you can't learn how to cook by reading about it and watching shows on TV, you can't learn to be a scientist by reading a textbook and memorizing facts for a test.
Kelly, Heather and John
VIDEO GAME Chapter 3
Lessons we can learn from video games about teaching and learning:
1. Learners must be enticed to try, even if he or she already has good grounds to be afraid to try.
2. Learners must be enticed to put in lots of effort even if he or she begins with little motivation to do so.
3. Learners must achieve some meaningful success when he or she has expended this effort.
Video games provide an environment where learners can take risks, but real-world consequences are lowered. Children cannot learn in a deep way if they have no opportunities to practice what they are learning. Yet, at the same time, children must be motivated to engage in a good deal of practice if they are to master what is to be learned. However, if this practice is boring, they will resist it.
Passive learning-rather than active, critical learning-will not lead to much power and empowerment in the contemporary world, however much it may suit one for a low-level service job. Learners need to try skills that are challenging, but not "undoable."
1. Learners must be enticed to try, even if he or she already has good grounds to be afraid to try.
2. Learners must be enticed to put in lots of effort even if he or she begins with little motivation to do so.
3. Learners must achieve some meaningful success when he or she has expended this effort.
Video games provide an environment where learners can take risks, but real-world consequences are lowered. Children cannot learn in a deep way if they have no opportunities to practice what they are learning. Yet, at the same time, children must be motivated to engage in a good deal of practice if they are to master what is to be learned. However, if this practice is boring, they will resist it.
Passive learning-rather than active, critical learning-will not lead to much power and empowerment in the contemporary world, however much it may suit one for a low-level service job. Learners need to try skills that are challenging, but not "undoable."
Monday, March 22, 2010
What would Google Do?
As we read on the next section of the book "If Google Ruled the World", we felt like the book started to restate a lot of the information from the first part of the book. We realize that the author is applying his principles to specific areas of business though.
One area he talked about was publishing. What will the publishing world look like if it doesn't start to embrace the ideas that Google has developed and create a community around ideas, aritcles, books, and more? How can publishers and authors share the financial risk involved with printing and selling printed material? How can they work to share their information for free since that is a big part of the post Google world?
Another area he discussed was advertising and the need for a new approach here. Advertisers no longer have a large captive audience. How can they still reach customers using the Internet?
Our favorite part was on restaurants. We liked the idea of restaurants allowing people to rate their entrees for others, allowing people to help develop menus, and providing feedback. We felt that having suggestions " You might also like...." similar to iTunes or Amazon would be really awesome. What a way to connect people!
Last we wanted to share the author's blog on the book. He is using this to have readers build a community around his book!
Posted By Laura Schwiebert, Angela Hicks and Staci Tatum
One area he talked about was publishing. What will the publishing world look like if it doesn't start to embrace the ideas that Google has developed and create a community around ideas, aritcles, books, and more? How can publishers and authors share the financial risk involved with printing and selling printed material? How can they work to share their information for free since that is a big part of the post Google world?
Another area he discussed was advertising and the need for a new approach here. Advertisers no longer have a large captive audience. How can they still reach customers using the Internet?
Our favorite part was on restaurants. We liked the idea of restaurants allowing people to rate their entrees for others, allowing people to help develop menus, and providing feedback. We felt that having suggestions " You might also like...." similar to iTunes or Amazon would be really awesome. What a way to connect people!
Last we wanted to share the author's blog on the book. He is using this to have readers build a community around his book!
Posted By Laura Schwiebert, Angela Hicks and Staci Tatum
Monday, March 15, 2010
What Would Google Do?
The last several chapters that we have read in our book have talked about giving people control to use things and figure out what needs to be changed to make these things better. If you don't listen to the people using your products, you will loose them. We think that this is also true in education. If students do not feel that they are a part of their learning process, you will loose them. It is important to ask students what they would like to learn and how they would like to learn it. This gives them a sense of ownership and they will make it their own.
Mistakes that are made are leaning opportunities. This is a message that we should be sending to our students. We do not expect them to be perfect-we are not. Everyday we make mistakes, sometime in front of our students, and do we expect them to not believe in us anymore because of those mistakes? No, that makes us human. Just like them.
One very interesting fact that we learned is that Google gives its technical employees the chance to use 20 percent of their time to work on new ideas, new products, and new business. Wow!! Can you imagine the amount of teaching and learning things that we could search for, find, and produce with 20 percent of our school year. We feel that is the greatest drawback to the teaching profession-no planning and preparation time. Everything must be done outside of the school day and by then you are exhausted from doing your job.
Google says that we should first find problems and then create the solutions to solve them. We think that the schools systems are trying to do this, but going at a snail's pace.
Group Member: Anglea Hick, Laura Schwiebert, and Staci Tatum
Mistakes that are made are leaning opportunities. This is a message that we should be sending to our students. We do not expect them to be perfect-we are not. Everyday we make mistakes, sometime in front of our students, and do we expect them to not believe in us anymore because of those mistakes? No, that makes us human. Just like them.
One very interesting fact that we learned is that Google gives its technical employees the chance to use 20 percent of their time to work on new ideas, new products, and new business. Wow!! Can you imagine the amount of teaching and learning things that we could search for, find, and produce with 20 percent of our school year. We feel that is the greatest drawback to the teaching profession-no planning and preparation time. Everything must be done outside of the school day and by then you are exhausted from doing your job.
Google says that we should first find problems and then create the solutions to solve them. We think that the schools systems are trying to do this, but going at a snail's pace.
Group Member: Anglea Hick, Laura Schwiebert, and Staci Tatum
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