Week 10 Reflection

This week we assessed the tool we created for Givercraft and to see how effective it was. I created a survey for my team. We heard from two teachers out of 5 from the experience. Both of the teachers said the tool was easy to access and find and their students appreciated being given memories during scenario 2. One teacher wrote out of 3 classes 75% of their students received memories from them. The other teacher explained how they changed the scenario and had their students create their own memory. The teachers used the tool and it shows through the students building structures. I couldn't find any evidence on the wiki page, except the quote I heard from Thomas. When reading my peers blogs this week, I noticed on Andrea's page she had a screenshot of the memory being used. She found the book, which appeared to be in the same voice as the ones we created and noticed the structure that went along with it. So, in our minds I think our tool was used and effective for Scenario 2. Thomas mentioned about assessments and how some teachers "have a bad taste in their mouth" after hearing this word. I think assessment is key to making sure your students are successful. I wrote to Thomas on his blog, that if a teacher doesn't know where their students are at, their strengths and weaknesses, they shouldn't be teaching. That's the whole point of teaching is to give students knowledge and teach them content, but make sure that they understood what they were taught. It doesn't mean to grade an excessive amount of papers after every activity. With our tool, we are assessing to make sure our tool was used and was effective and useful to the students. Some of my peers thought their tool was useful, but some of them didn't know if it was even used. One of the discussions was on badges. I'm wondering if students even like badges. I haven't really seen them use. They are fun to receive I think after a challenge, but not sure what the students think. Also do the teachers know how to distribute them to their students? Maybe for our upcoming teacher training, if this tool is going to be used in Survivalcraft we need to explain and show how to give the students a badge. For survivalcraft we were asked to create another tool or tweak the one we created for the next two books. We met on Wednesday for a twitter session and completely change our idea. We are now in teams and only creating a tool for one book instead of two. I think team work is important. I am on the team of Lord of the Flies. During our virtual training meeting we decided to change the scenarios for LOTF so it wouldn't be (school )inappropriate use (killing each other) during the scenarios. Thankfully the tool I created, will be helpful with the changed scenarios as well. I plan on creating chests with tools in them again for teachers to use and to give students who are having a difficult time to survive. I have been in survival mode. It's difficult and very frustrating at the same time, when you're dying all the time. I think with these chests the "non gamer" type will also enjoy being involved with the game and not get frustrated and want to quit. It will be interesting to see how Survivalcraft compares to Givercraft.