Session+6+-+Friday

THINKING OUT OF THE (X)BOX
Presenter: Ewan McIntosh Robyn Focus on the final Product vs Process

The more you spend in terms of getting the process right, the summative assessment at the end will take care of itself.

Process = ingenious

Do any of us keep a 'learning log'? Where we ask ourselves what we have recorded what it is that we want to know about next. It might be part of our blog. Are we getting feedback?

We can use this method to give feedback to students when they write on a blog: 2 stars and a wish method = 2 things that you have done well and one are in which you could improve

Dr Kawashima's Brain Training (comes with Nintendo DS) Literacy and Numeracy

71% of gamers are married 66% of gamers have children

One of the differences between school and gaming is the number of levels - games have hundreds of levels - school might have A, B, C, fail. The steps between levels are small in games, so it is easy to 'improve' to go up a level. When students get far ahead of their friends, (in games) they cheat - they tell their friends how to get to where they are. In other fields we call this collaboration. At school it is not allowed.

Guitar Hero - you have a plastic guitar connected to your computer and the tv

They had a Battle of the Bands with Guitar Hero - students brought in their own PS 2's

Nintendog - a dog training game. Training it, feed it, buy it clothes so that you can win the dog competition, decide what to do with the money. Enterprise and collaboration. 6 year olds. How was it used? The students work out what they will buy and what they will sell.

Myst - the world's best selling CD-Rom. The graphics and the sound on this game are great. This is a very cheap game (about $15.00).

Classroom observation: Look at the classroom in this video clip. What is traditional, what is hi-tech, pedagogically and what do I like?

YouTube: Myst exile in the classroom Tim Rylands http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5xFMmK5Ujs

Other good resource sites: Visuwords - online graphical dictionary

The Punctuation Pyramid - you can download free versions

KimP'sBlog http://kpericles.edublogs.org/2007/06/14/thinkijng-a (not finished)

Thinking about Samorost Used De Bono's thinking hats to help the students think about the game (e.g. discussion about drug taking = Black Hat thinking)

Ewen McIntosh's edu.blogs.com to get the full list of links etc Look at October 11, 2007 's entry

The appeal of this is that it is not 'schooley' - so the students are really motivated to write and to share and to self improve.