Week 5

OK after 3 attempts - phew! Made the recording, uploaded it to youtube and then it disappeared. After the 3rd attempt uploading was a success, but found the first video in the youtube listings. Murphy's Law I suppose. 

Thomas you are AWESOME!!!  (I have no hard feelings from last nights challenge). You definitely gave many examples of what not to do as a student and a teacher. ;-)

Here's the video 

How are games providing new opportunities for differentiation in the classroom?

         Games are the new way to learn, stay engaged, “provide flexibility and allow students to follow their own interest” (Assolo).  Games gives students ways to show their creative side and provide different opportunities for students. I liked how the teacher told the student to build the “Alamo” (Assolo) in Minecraft. My favorite part was when he was explaining his project and it started to rain. He could explain relevant information with his topic.         

            That’s the whole point of learning right? It doesn’t matter what steps we take, if we understand the concept we are on the right track. Games in classrooms provide every student an opportunity to learn differently. I have learned a lot about Minecraft and think it’s amazing to use in the classroom. My dilemma is I teach first grade, now. This could change down the road, but for now I want to find resources I can use in my classroom.

            I think it’s amazing that, Levine coded his own worlds in Minecraft and helped create MinecraftEdu. I can’t imagine how many hours it took for him to code it. I wonder if he had any students that entered the world and destroyed it, like we had in Givercraft? My thought is maybe a few, but not very many.

            The way Levine, explained his expectations for Minecraft was spot on. “Are we going to treat our class’ Minecraft world as an extension of our classroom? Do the rules that apply in the school building also apply on our Minecraft server? (Granata). I think if we are going to use any type of game in the classroom, we need to set expectations with our students. I know when I enter Minecraft, especially with Givercraft it sometimes felt like a free for all and the students were out of control! This falls on the teachers 100%. We found most of the students grieving, were not prepared and their teacher didn’t explain the expectations to them.

            I like how in Minecraft students can build dioramas, present to their class and learn mathematical content. While I was reading about MinecraftEdu being used in the classroom, I wanted to find some resources I could use in the classroom with my students.

            I watched this video on the teaching channel and was blown away. Here is a teacher, who doesn’t use paper at all (that I saw in the video). The desks are complete whiteboards. He has the students get on planet turtle and dream box. While the students are learning the concept, he has the students who understand the concept sign into planet turtle and dream box. Then the students who need extra support, he pulls them to the back table. Do they use paper? NO. The back table is a complete whiteboard. How engaging and fun is that for students?

            Planet Turtle is a program teachers can use in their classroom for math interventions and enrichment. Teachers set up an account, they can choose the content the students will be covering that day. Students have usernames and passwords. They log in and play their game while working on the concept. The best part of planet turtle, is it provides instant feedback to the students while they’re playing. The teacher in the video explains how it would take a long time, to walk around the room and assess each child. With the program giving immediate feedback, he can spend more time with the students who need the extra support.

            My only concern for this program, is with MinecraftEdu, the teacher is in the program. With planet turtle the students are on their own, but they are the only one that is completing the activities. Like Lexia for reading.

            Side note, my students who use Lexia for a reading intervention in the classroom, love it. Any down time they have, they ask to go onto Lexia. I have parents calling and telling me, they play it every night. The best part, their reading scores have improved tremendous amounts.

            Dream Box, I started trying out the game in the demo. It is set up by the teachers and students can learn the math concepts. It’s a fun game students can access on iPhones, iPads, Itouches and laptops.

            Games are providing a fun learning opportunity for students. They are making the “school activities/worksheet, tedious/busy work” non-existent. Every activity students do in a game, not only keeps them engaged for many hours, but also is enriching their education. The videos that I watched, parents were thrilled to see their child’s scores improve and how their child was critically thinking.

Here are the links to the teaching channel video (AMAZING!!) math games (planet turtle and dream box) I’ve also included Lexia (reading intervention program).

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/differentiating-in-math

http://www.mhecdi.com/pt_about.html (planet turtle demo scroll down to watch the video)

https://www.planetturtle.com/g_login.html (What the login screen looks like for students)

http://www.dreambox.com/k-8-math-lessons (demo’s forK-8th)

http://lexialearning.com/product/core5-video

Resources

Ossola, A. (2015, February 6). Teaching in the Age of Minecraft. Retrieved February 11, 2015, from http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/02/teaching-in-the-age-of-minecraft/385231/

Granata, K. (n.d.). Teachers Take Advantage of Minecraft in the Classroom. Retrieved February 10, 2015, from http://www.educationworld.com/a_news/teachers-take-advantage-minecraft-classroom-60294258

Differentiating in Math Using Computer Games. (n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 2015, from https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/differentiating-in-math

Center for Digital Innovation - Planet Turtle - Serious Math. Intensely Fun! Grades K-3. (n.d.). Retrieved February 10, 2015, from http://www.mhecdi.com/pt_about.html

Planet Turtle. (n.d.). Retrieved February 10, 2015, from https://www.planetturtle.com/g_login.html

Try DreamBox - Free K-8 Math Lessons. (n.d.). Retrieved February 11, 2015, from http://www.dreambox.com/k-8-math-lessons

Lexia Reading Core5 Video Demonstration. (n.d.). Retrieved February 11, 2015, from http://lexialearning.com/product/core5-video

Week 4 Reflection

 

The badge for the game!

            This week was fun. We all were supposed to create a game that went along with our blog. I had a mystery sentence that didn’t fit in my blog. Only a few people found the mystery sentence. When I created my blog this week, it was after the Seahawks had lost in the Super Bowl. It was on my mind and how someone could have called such a bad call! I’m over it now. Seahawks aren’t even my favorite team, I’m more of a Bronco’s fan. I was rooting for them to win, because they’re basically our neighbor in Alaska. Anyways, I had a sentence talking about the bad call and how they should have won the Super Bowl. Where this was a fun mystery game to do and made people who played the game read my blog, I had a very difficult time giving the winners their badge. I think next time, I would have everyone write their email address in the comment box. A slight miscalculation on my part. Whoops! So hopefully with this reflection, people can save the image of the badge and upload it to their blog. If not, I learned a valuable lesson.  I played some other games that my colleagues made on their blogs. I enjoyed the Jigsaw puzzle Theresa created. I love making puzzles and to have one online, plus in the correct direction was so much fun. I played a hangman game, but was confused on how to play or win. Some blogs I read didn’t have games, so that was a little disappointing.  I liked reading about the different views and ideas from this week, but also having a bonus to play a game at the end.

            This week we explored issues we have had from parents on differentiation and gamification. I noticed that there was a theme from our views this week. Communication is key. Parents haven’t had any issues or questions and concerns on differentiation. They do have concerns and questions on gamification. I read about parent workshops, inviting the parents in to witness an everyday activity, get to know what their child is doing in the classroom. I also liked the idea of having the students pick the styles with their parents on how to present a project to the classroom. This gets the parents involved and also sees what their child is doing in the classroom and helps them prepare for their presentation.

            Parents only want what is best for their child. I don’t know of any parent that wakes up in the morning and says, I’m going to make my child’s teachers day awful and disagree with everything they are doing, just because… This doesn’t happen. When parents have a concern, there is usually background knowledge they do not know about. Especially when it comes to games. We see games in the community as a fun entertaining thing to do. We also see games that are the “cause” of violent acts of crime. This might not be the case, but a lot of parents believe the violent games make people enact violent crimes. I do believe it depends on the game, but MinecraftEdu is different than Minecraft. There’s a survival mode and a creative mode. With MinecraftEdu teachers are in the game and observing their students. I think if we were to do a parent workshop on the (online/gaming) tools we wanted to use in the classroom, there wouldn’t be so many concerns or questions. If we communicate and provide examples to parents, they will more likely be on our side and want their student to use these tools. If we leave our parents in the dark, they will always question our ideas. Parents grew up a certain way. Some of them grew up in boarding schools, religious schools… where no games or fun different learning tools were heard of. We need to remember how the parents we communicate with learned and what they grew up with. Yes, things are changing, but with change we need to give everyone a chance to learn about the new tools and become familiar with them.  

Week 4

Essential question: How do we prepare parents for differentiation, and gaming/gamification in the classroom?

            The answer to the question this week is quite simple and easy for me. What or how would you prepare students for differentiation and gaming/gamification in the classroom? Get to know your students! (prezi). Know their background, how they learn, which learning style works best for them, what their interests are, what are their hobbies and things they do not like. If you can find the answers to these questions, you will be prepared for your students.

This goes the same for parents. Know what their expectations are for their child. “Hear from them. We need to understand better the child’s culture and language and history and dreams. We need to know the stories that get brought home from school, and the parent’s perspective on what will work best in helping their children learn” (Tomlinson).  We also need to know, why the Seahawks didn’t win the Superbowl! I mean seriously, who called that play. We need to work as a team with parents. We can understand the students background, but if we don’t understand the parents or listen to them then we won’t know how to prepare the parents.

There might be a parent that had a difficult time at school. We need to “rebuild their trust that school is a good fit for their child” (Tomlinson).  Invite the parents in. Have a workshop where parents are involved in the daily classroom activities.

With this parents will get a more “realistic feel for what it’s like to be a student in the classroom” (Crowe). Provide examples for the parents during a parent night event in the classroom. Send home “information bulletins or newsletters from time to time, telling about goals for specific projects and how various procedures are working in class” (Boss). I like the idea of having a parent Skype with their child’s classroom when on a business trip. This doesn’t have to be a reason to Skype with the parent. If the parent wants to watch a lesson and can’t make the parent workshop, set up Skype so they can feel included. We are differentiating during this activity.

Provide “constant communication” with parents (Nishat). Give them insight on what is occurring in the classroom and leave it open to feedback for questions, concerns and comments. Provide a comment and answer google drive document. These are a few questions I found that could prepare parents well for differentiation or gaming in the classroom.

•    •       How are you finding out about what my child already knows and can already do?

•    What kind of information would you like me to provide as you learn more about my child?

•    How are you ensuring that my child is being challenged in his or her daily work and assignments?

•    If my child already knows a lot about a particular topic and has clearly mastered the associated skills, what other possibilities exist for him or her?

•    How is my child growing in this subject area?

(DGR)

    The only thing a parent wants and a teacher is what’s best for their child and student. We want them to be successful. If we prepare parents for differentiation and a gamified classroom we can do amazing things with our students. The even better part of this education style is we will have the parents confidence and support behind us.

Game

Find the part that doesn’t fit. Write it in the comment box to earn a badge! Make sure to write your comments about the blog and your reaction when you read the part that didn’t fit.

Resources

Tomlinson, Carol Ann. How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms. Alexandria, VA, USA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development (ASCD), 2001. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 3 February 2015.

Boss, S. (n.d.). A Parent's Guide to 21st Century Learning. Retrieved February 4, 2015, from http://www.edutopia.org/pdfs/guides/edutopia-parents-guide-21st-century-learning.pdf

Preparing Students and Parents for a Differentiated Classroom. (n.d.). Retrieved February 4, 2015, from https://prezi.com/7mlpxmahxslw/preparing-students-and-parents-for-a-differentiated-classroom/

Crowe, C. (2004, November 1). Responsive Classroom®. Retrieved February 3, 2015, from https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/article/wonderful-wednesdays

Duke TIP. (2008, October 3). Retrieved February 4, 2015, from http://tip.duke.edu/node/910

Nishat, A. (2011, January 1). Differentiated Instruction Demystified. Retrieved February 3, 2015, from http://www.aldeenfoundation.org/DifferentiatedInstructionDemystified.pdf

Week 3 Reflection

This week we talked about differentiation. I played in Minecraft this week and it was “survival mode.” The team that I was on was trying to get gold, coal, cooked food…etc We did pretty well. I do not like survival mode. I had a spider that stalked me into a house. My teammate Scott, was stalked into the house as well. Which made it so we couldn’t build. Survival mode is frustrating and I wish we could have creative mode where supplies is always available.

            This is a different way of differentiating the game and it does work for students to problem solve, work with partners or groups. It is also a way for students to learn how to work on a team. I think our class as a whole is starting to get minecraft a lot more.

            This week we talked about our steps we do for differentiating. From reading the required texts this week and my peers blogs, I found that we all assess our students. Some of us observe data in the beginning and pin point certain areas to work on, others assess students throughout and at the end.  One of the ways I enjoyed reading about this week was the students reflecting on their own work and lesson. Teachers always reflect on their lesson and what they could change and keep the same. I think it’s important for students to reflect on their own work and understand why they are learning it. I also read about leveled reading groups. In my reading class every day we break into leveled reading groups. It’s important students have classmates that read at their level in a group. It helps with comprehension and fluency. It gives student challenges and helps them be successful. I plan on using Tyler’s idea of grouping them with three different levels. Challenging the students, stretching their ability, working on comprehension and fluency.