A Reflection on Blogging

I found that blogging was the most beneficial way of communicating with classmates that I've ever experienced in an online course. I prefer the blogging because it requires you to break free from the stale environment of the management system discussion board  and jump from blog to blog. I feel as though people are more expressive in their blogs because there is a sense of a bigger audience versus just the people in your class. Blogging allows you to become an actual voice in technology education. Someone who by simply blogging has become a resource on the topic. I really enjoyed the interactions because they gave me insight to other perspectives on the course materials as well as validated some of my views with my peers. It enhanced my understanding of the course content because it made me discuss it. The power of discussion and inquiry are the foundations of education dating back to Socartes and Aristotle respectively.  

This course opened my eyes to a plethora of different resources that I have currated on my pearltress for future reference . The article by Carol S. Dweck was probably the most impactful on the way I approach curriculum design and teaching students because it instilled in me the importance of challenging students to focus on the process of learning versus set results. By practicing and taking risks in order to build skill they are generalizing and developing a habit of research, practice and great work ethic.  This skill set alone will allow them to courage and talent to topple any educational obstacle.

Another resource that really introduce me to one of my new role models in educational philosophy is the blog by Grant Wiggins. I read this particular blog on transfer and its importance in education as an overall goal, but was so intrigued that I continued to read his other blogs before I realized that this is the same Wiggins that wrote “Understanding By Design”. This book is the core of my new learning philosophy and I was truly inspired and satisfied to know that he had other resources that reflected more intimately on his concepts like his blog.

I am going to continue to utilize my blog as a way to express my philosophy on learning even after my tenure as a student in this course. This practice will allow me to define myself as a voice in Technology Education and possibly inspire other educators to do the same.

Week 6: Inquiry Learning

Inquiry learning is a process of education that focuses on the cognitive process more that simply producing results. So long have we been stuck in the stagnant puddle that is traditional 20th century education. This process of education focused more on teaching "What?" than "How?" and gauge a students capabilities by their ability to regurgitate facts. This process isolates may students because of on top of being boring, it does nothing to stimulate new ideas. 


Inquiry learning is like an ocean of relief, washing over the shores and cleaning the disease out of that old puddle. Students live in a world where they are literally swimming in information at all times. Inquiry learning teaches them how to stay afloat among this chaos and navigate there way to their learning goals by incorporating a structured process that forces them to make connections, practice,apply and reevaluate information to produce quality results. Its not simply finding an answer, its creating new ideas and providing a platform for further inquiry.






I plan to apply the eight principles of inquiry based learning to my area of focus, below is a breakdown of ideas and how i plan to apply the concepts.



Authenticity:

 I come from a background of teaching students video game design. I find that the best tactic for engaging them into wanting to do something as boring as video games is to first give them an example of a video game. Since Super Mario Bros is  essentially the archetype of what good game design is I usually start by showing it being played by projecting a game on the smart board. I then ask students to identify elementsof the game that make it fun. By identifying these elements I am planting seeds of what I expect from the games that they develop.








Deep Understanding and Performance of Learning


In order to gain a deep understanding for videogame design students must learn how to think in an abstract manner, that is, learning how to distinguish what an interaction looks like on screen from the logic behind making it happening. Students must learn the importance of the relationships between objects and how to use if-then statement and coding logic to simulate reality and create a game. This means I must provide them with tasks that require them to utilze these concepts in real  time, like having them build a simple game that introduces them to each concept in a simple way.



Assesment



The assessment element will be in the form of having daily performance goals, for example by day 3 having a three level game with different boss types. The goal will be general and as they race tp perform them, you add challenges that require them to dig deeper into how to apply concepts they learn into making a more professional looking product.



Appropriate Use of Technology


The very foundation of video game design is technology use, but traditionally ive limited what technology I used to the technology that I taught. Moving forward I will no longer limit my class to such constraints. I will discover ways to “extend” my content by use of a social interacting element like “Google Docs” or blogging so that students can continue to form conclusions about Game design even after they have left the physical confines of the classroom. I will also make use of
web 2.0 to create complementary material for my lessons.



Connecting with Experts



Due to my years with iD tech I have a few relationships with indie game designer.I could see if they are available to skype in and answer questions about the game design process and have them relate some of the tenants I teach to what actual game designers do when they are creating their art.



Success for All Students



One thing that will facilitate more moving forward is making sure students are active in each other projects or even having one whole class produce simply one game, with each student filling a role in the “game design company”. I think that students feel like they succeed most when it is among their peers and I want to provide as many opportunities for that in the way that I design my course. When they are not working on the same project I want them to have as many opportunities as possible to give each other feedback about their games.



Ethical Citizenship



I’m still searching for ways to add this component to a game design course. I feel like maybe the best and most natural avenue to awaken this concept is to have students understand the legal elements of piracy and copyright that they will have to address as they design their games.

Blog Post 5: Back To The Drawing Board

I feel as though I am still progressing toward my learning goals, but the content this week has broaden my goals indefinitely. I feel as though I need to make them more dynamic and open ended in order to leave room for inquiry and expanding on thought. Often times, because I am a product of an stagnant education system, where scores and “final answers” were the goal of education, my perception on what makes an effective goal is tainted by that fixed nature.

The resources this week are rooted in “The question process”.

 I think back to the 90’s where a kid asking “Why?” after everything was seen as an annoyance. We live in an age now where we are so complacent with what is given to us and our drive for exploration is killed by ease of access to instant information. We have to take that the same persistence that we have for getting to the next level on Candy Crush or Flappy Birds and apply it to learning and becoming overall better people.

 Growth learning isn’t something that is applied to specific subjects, it is a mindset that can make you an overall better person. This information is pushing me to reorganize how I teach video game design, instead of giving students fixed goals like “A game with three levels” I will instead challenge them to push their skills to their limits with goals that stimulate growth and challenge them to keep working on their products to perfect them by challenging them to identify the reasoning behind glitches, etc.

I feel like the only way to verify if you have a growth mindset towards information fluency skills is if you are constantly trying to find new ways to locate, identify, and curate quality data from the Internet. An educator must actively stay in contact with people and organizations who are pushing the envelope of learning development. The community of fellow educators and educational philosophers is the most fertile grounds for growth and thus it is essential that you stay rooted in this community through social networking, blogs, and web 2.0 content.

Letting Go #4

"The point of school is not to get good at school but to effectively parlay what we learned in school in other learning and in life." - Grant Wiggins

Week three's content really challenged me to to reconsider how I approached content design. Often times, when you are teaching students how to use technology, you give them a step by step process on how to perform particular tasks. For example if I'm teaching a child how to create a platform game, I show them each step in order, hoping that they will apply these steps correctly in there own games. Often times when I do that this I notice that the next day, many will ask me to show them the steps again. The information did not effectively transfer and they needed me as a guide. 

I now see that developing lessons that focus on teaching students "How to think" vs "What to do" will probably be the most effective way to transfer the skills that they need in order to become proficient with the development software. Instead of a step by step foundation for lessons, I should instead create a more dynamic core, teaching them concepts of video game design and and how to plan instead of training them to follow a set pattern and stay in pocket with a limited number of steps.

The key to making this dynamic core is going to be to teach students how to ask the right questions so that the answer that the receive requires them to utilize a skill that will connect the step that they are trying to learn to the overall goal and concept. This is why inquiry leaning's focus on connecting the dots between different sources of material and stimulating a student's independence is enriching. It causes students to approach issues in a manner that is "outside of the box". The classroom for so long has been this box and technology is the means to escape out of it.

It is the job of the modern educator is to utilize instructional technology, web 2.0 tools, and social networking in conjunction with broad learning goals in order to enhance a student's ability solve their own problems. Enriching them with  problem solving and analytical skills that they can utilize in any situation regardless of the course or the limitations of confines of a classroom. 

Blog Post #3 : Bursting The Filter Bubble

"Learning how to organize and identify quality information on the web is the first stepping stone in separating the sheep from the Shepard. Sheep are slaves to their "Filter bubbles"(Google it) only absorbing information tailored for them by an algorithm designed with the main goal of classifying them and selling them items tailored to their online activities. A Shepard realize how the Web is organized and have the skill to burst that bubble and find the non biased truths that are hidden like jewels in the the earth. They poses the skill needed to sift through the soil and find the diamonds of quality and accurate information on the web and hold it up so that they may share their glow with the world." - Hassan J Kariem

I feel as though I am an effective searcher. The information rich word that we live in has provided me with an abundance of outlets to find data on any subject that I please. Its as simple as pulling my smart phone out of my pocket an going to google. The danger in the simplicity and ease of this action (googleing) is that we become so reliant on search results that we sometimes forget to challenge what we see and do a background search on the source we are receiving the information from. As an educator i myself in the past have been as guilty as a student of being so reliant on what the filter bubble provides for me. I feel as though the most effective way to burst this bubble is a combination of paying attention your search results and going past that first page of search results, using web curation tools, and identifying quality resources that have to do with the subject that you are searching.

Blog Post #2 Week 1: My thoughts

The four resources shared a common theme of utilizing information to enhance teaching and learning. They all seemed to tie into the idea that an instructors job should constantly be to push the bounders of innovation and imagination, in the delivery of content and organization of thought. We now live in a world where we are constantly tied to the “information matrix” where students and instructors alike have already developed tech savy habits. 

People check their social networks on their smartphones at a moments whim, stream videos on their personal computers, and google answers when confronted with a dilemma. An instructor should then make use of these actions by delivering their content through them and guiding students in how to use these tools effectively to produce QUALITY results. 

These resources were like the sticks that Karen Lierman mentioned in her article , they lit a fire in my drive to take all of these tools and theories that I’ve learned through the course of my Master’s journey and set ablaze a path to create fertile ground for my personal and professional growth. I feel charged!

Blog Post #1 FRIT 7234

This is my post to verify that i completed the introduction in the discussion baord. I am really looking forward to learning how to implement these tools!