INF541 ASSESSMENT TASK 5: Critical reflection

Sadly, my engagement with INF541 has not been the same as with previous subjects.  Juggling an (unexpectedly) increased load at work, study, and family life this session has been quite difficult.  The content has been intriguing and I am disappointed that I was unable to connect more closely during the past couple of months.

Game based learning, through readings completed, have shown numbers of applications through problem based learning, connected learning, social and emotional learning, new media literacies, and 21^st century learning.  A recent report by the World Economic Forum (2016) actually discusses the positive use of educational technology (pp. 28-29) in social and emotional learning, and more specifically, the importance of strategy games within the curriculum and inquiry based learning (pp. 10-12).

The reflection on Module 1.1 provoked exciting ideas.  I could see so many possibilities to embed game-based learning (more specifically, Minecraft) into my teaching and learning.  On top of the usual Prezi presentation and written work, the group work assessment task for my Certificate II students could expand and allow them to create their 21^st century school library in a virtual environment.  It would foster critical thinking and collaboration (21^st century learning skills and also touching on SEL) within the group and provide demonstration of their digital devices competency for their VET outcomes.  An amazing opportunity to allow students to provide a ‘walkthrough’ of their perfect school library! Guidance from Gee’s article (2014) would be useful to ensure appropriate introduction and crafting of lessons around the curriculum in place.

It was quite enjoyable to identify GBL classroom applications against the General Capabilities of the Australian Curriculum. I surprised myself at how easily these ideas developed after consideration and reading from the modules.  High hopes were also had in this second INF541 blog post to immerse myself in Minecraft and investigate my personal thoughts around teacher reluctance (particularly in senior secondary) to take on GBL. After the readings undertaken this session, I’m still convinced that the two key factors aresocial constructionism and infowhelm. I believe there is still scope there to mount some action research but it will realistically have to wait until after my MEd studies are completed.

Social inclusivity and social and emotional learning are more prevalent pedagogies for educators to instill and incorporate in their everyday teaching.  They sit quite nicely alongside participatory and personalised learning as pedagogical constructs, and resonate with me in my current school, where our new school motto ‘Learn Thrive Connect’ drive this within our student population.  Dweck’s Growth Mindset theory is part of our positive psychology focus for Semester 1 and I can see great potential in embedding GBL as part of this focus.  I also see Jenkins’ New Media Literacies (2006), particularly those of Simulation and Collective Intelligence sitting strongly alongside this way of thinking.

Not being a gamer, the week of Ingress didn’t overly capture my interest.  At first, I was eagerly downloaded the app and searched avidly for portals in my immediate environment. I even stopped into a portal at the back of my children’s school as it was on the way back to the car after drop off.  After that, the fun wore off.

It was an excellent way to engage INF541 students in the possibilities of game based learning in the curriculum, however, and my mind fired with examples of subject areas where this could engage students.  I could see applications for outdoor education (particularly for orienteering and geocaching), geography (getting to know your local area through portal visits), PE (getting out and about rather than sitting on the couch at home),  team building (choice of team – Enlightened or Resistance?), Ethics (why choose a particular team? What are the morals and ethics around your choice?), written application to join a particular team (English – persuasive text), and even library orientation!  There was even connection back to 21^st century learning skills (the 4Cs) and a SEL core competency (social interaction) when reading through the Agent Protocol listed on the Ingress site.

 

 

References

CASEL. SEL Competencies. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.casel.org/social-and-emotional-learning/core-competencies/

 

Gee, J.P. (2005). Good video games and good learning. Phi Kappa Phi Forum,  85(2), 33-37. Retrieved fromhttp://dmlcentral.net/sites/dmlcentral/files/resource_files/GoodVideoGamesLearning.pdf

 

Gee, J.P. (2014). Games as well designed teaching and learning. P21 Blogazine, 1 (8). Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/news-events/p21blog/1511-gee-games-as-well-designed-teaching-and-learning

Korodaj, L. (2016, March 5). INF541 Blog task #1: are digital games being overlooked in ‘digital education’ reform? [Blog post]. Retrieved fromhttp://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/emusings/2016/03/05/inf541-blog-task-1-are-digital-games-being-overlooked-in-digital-education-reform/

 

Mojang AB. (2016). Minecraft. Retrieved from https://minecraft.net/

 

New Media Literacies. (2006). Create Circulate Connect Collaborate. Retrieved fromhttp://www.newmedialiteracies.org/the-new-media-literacies/

 

World Economic Forum. (2016). New vision for education: fostering social and emotional learning through technology. Retrieved fromhttp://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_New_Vision_for_Education.pdf

INF541 Blog task #2: how might games be used to develop a more socially inclusive classroom or workplace using Gee’s viewpoint?

There is an expectation that games in education should all be like Serious Games, where the outcome is a extension of the rote learning taking place in the classroom. Nothing could be further from the truth.

As discussed in INF541 Blog Post #1 (Korodaj, 2016), GBL and video games can effortlessly deliver on the General Capabilities in the Australian Curriculum.  In relation to social inclusion, the specific capabilities that address this in the classroom arena are personal and social, ethical, and intercultural understanding.

Social inclusion, as described in McDonald (2011), touches on four key domains of opportunity.  They involve societal participation through access to services, connections with family, friends and the wider community, capacity building for times of crisis, and the opportunity to have a voice heard.  Think of what a MMOG such as Minecraft could provide for a child who has trouble interacting with others in a ‘real world’ situation like the playground – an opportunity to engage with like minded individuals, crafting worlds that are of their own creation with their own input, at a time where they may not have control of circumstance in their own lives.

Elias (2014) suggests that a truly socially inclusive school is student-centred.  This supports pedagogical constructs such as participatory and personalised learning, something quite important in the digital world we currently live and interact within. Again, using Minecraft as an example, teachers can engage students in their learning through sites such as Massively@Jokaydia and the recent MinecraftEdu. Students are part of a safe community, actively engaging in rewarding quests and the ability to recreate famous battles, Wonders of the World, and much more in a co-operative manner (in the classroom and as part of a wider digital society).

Jenkins’ New Media Literacies (NML) (2016), coming more than 10 years after Gee’s article on video games and learning (2005), provide current day support to the notion of gaming to promote social inclusivity and skills for positive societal interaction (including the opportunities mentioned in McDonald’s resource sheet).

While Jenkins doesn’t support technology for technology’s sake in the classroom environment (2016, para. 2), there are specific literacies as identified by him and his team that can directly correlate to gaming use in the classroom:

Play: not only the literal sense can be addressed by GBL in the classroom.  Play allows students to experiment in a safe environment a number of actions or hypotheses, encouraging them to also take this behaviour into their everyday lives.

Simulation:  trying out complex ideas, situations, and systems with the ability to make mistakes.

Collective Intelligence: at a time where students contribute and participate in a wider digital ecosystem (be it through blogging, posting skateboarding videos, or social media), gaming and NML can be used to encourage a positive contribution to our wider digital ecosytem.

Negotiation: very closely tied to the ethical general capability, as well as the intercultural understanding capability, this NML through gaming encourages students to discern and respect multiple ideas and perspectives and live in multiple communities.

There has been concern in the media and fears amongst parents and the wider community in recent years about video games fostering violence in young people.  Banville’s recent article (2016) debunked that myth, with one of the researchers, Katherine Keyes, noting that children who played video games may not only be socially comfortable with their peers, but also comfortably integrated into their school community (Banville, 2016, para. 8).  It was also noted by the study that in support of the above mentioned General Capabilities and Jenkins’ New Media Literacies, some games reward cooperation behaviour that supported others (Banville, 2016, para. 6).

Despite the date that Gee proposed his ideas and wrote his article, his premise still stands well alongside current research and digital literacies in supporting the notion of a socially inclusive and participatory classroom.

 

References

Banville, L. (2016). New Research Finds Video Games May Boost Academics, Don’t Affect Mental Health. Retrieved from http://www.gamesandlearning.org/2016/03/10/new-research-finds-video-games-may-boost-academics-dont-affect-mental-health/

Elias, M. (2014). How to become a socially inclusive school. Edutopia. George Lucas Educational Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/how-to-become-a-socially-inclusive-school-maurice-elias

Gee, J.P. (2005). Good video games and good learning. Phi Kappa Phi Forum,  85(2), 33-37. http://dmlcentral.net/sites/dmlcentral/files/resource_files/GoodVideoGamesLearning.pdf

Korodaj, L. (2016, March 5). INF541 Blog task #1: are digital games being overlooked in ‘digital education’ reform? [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/emusings/2016/03/05/inf541-blog-task-1-are-digital-games-being-overlooked-in-digital-education-reform/

McDonald, M. (2011). Social exclusion and social inclusion: resources for child and family services [Resource sheet]. Melbourne: Australian Institute of Family Studies. Retrieved from https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/social-exclusion-and-social-inclusion-resources-child

New Media Literacies. (2016). Create Circulate Connect Collaborate. Retrieved from http://www.newmedialiteracies.org/the-new-media-literacies/

 

 

INF541 Blog task #1: are digital games being overlooked in ‘digital education’ reform?

This post diverges somewhat from the questions posed as it explores my views around game-based learning (GBL) in relation to reasons for lack of adoption in the classroom and the school, and the link to acceptance (or not) of the digital in the teaching space.

Jennings’ article (2014) highlights the single most common fear that seems to be pervasive in schools today: the fear of ‘going beta’ and participating in the digital ecosystem.  Whether it be apprehension around new devices in the classroom, introduction of a new LMS, or using GBL in the classroom, it seems that being that ‘lone nut’ (Sivers, 2011) is a scary thought (FYI – this is the first time I’ve embedded a YouTube vid in my blog post – quite by accident after capturing the ‘share’ version of the URL from the site…).

From observations made in INF530 (Korodaj, 2015a), this fear tends to come from infowhelm (this Vimeo below was  embedded deliberately after tweaking the code behind the post…) .

InfoWhelm and Information Fluency from Global Digital Citizen on Vimeo.

This video has thoughtful questioning about whether our students need to learn and regurgitate information. So, perhaps the question to ask after watching this relationship between infowhelm and information fluency (one of five 21st century fluencies) – does GBL allow students to ask those big questions and still get to the learning they need to address in our seemingly prescriptive curriculum?

General capabilities overview – Australian Curriculum (ver 8.1)
http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/Static/img/Figure%20General%20Capabilities%20in%20the%20Australian%20Curriculum%20-%20Overview.JPG

From my currently little informed perspective (hope to change that by the end of the session), GBL is the perfect platform upon which to support the inquiry learning that underpins the Australian Curriculum.  It allows teachers to easily meet all General Capabilities that straddle our Curriculum, not just ICT but right across all seven capabilities:

• literacy: interpretation of rules, narrative sequencing and story mapping/creation of story.  An example of a game for this purpose would be Inanimate Alice (Korodaj, 2015b for a lit review if interested);
• numeracy: calculating just the right angle to knock over the Pigs’ latest hideout by bumping the TNT boxes in Angry Birds OR building the right contraption to help you fly in Bad Piggies (imagine 1st year Engineering students at uni having fun with that!);
• critical and creative thinking: recreating an accurate representation of the aqueduct system of Ancient Rome for study in History;
• personal and social: negotiation and bartering of goods in Clash of Clans (and also when it’s the next group’s turn on the computer!);
• ethical understanding: observing a safe digital presence when interacting in an online world with other classes/schools in a MMOG;
• intercultural understanding: whose voice isn’t being heard in this game?  Is diversity represented amongst the characters in a game? Inanimate Alice (2015) is also appropriate here as the main character lives in a number of countries around the world, and can spark discussion about why Alice ends up in the situations she does, depending on the country in which she is living at the time.

These examples have come from my head as I’ve crafted this blog post, but also come from a knowledge gained through readings in my MEdKNDI studies and personal observation through my own (minimal) gaming experiences.

The hypothesis that I would like to test during this session: that colleagues are reluctant to undertake GBL because it would require familiarisation of new skills on their behalf, in precious time outside of the classroom they don’t have.  I believe that, on top of the “gaming is a waste of time” societal construct (as mentioned in Module 1.2 – the influence of social constructionism), there is a fear that their teaching will suffer from the “infowhelm”.   This is regardless of the need for Connected Learning as part of our place in the digital world.

 Credit: Connected Learning Research Network and Digital Media & Learning Research Hub                http://connectedlearning.tv/infographic 

 

I plan to explore this myself as a “guinea pig”.  I am going to learn to live in the world of Minecraft from scratch, with help from my own primary school aged children, and try to find a relevant application to the subject I teach as a senior secondary level.  Can it be done?  Watch this space.

References

Global Digital Citizen Foundation. [Global Digital Citizen]. (2012, December 12). InfoWhelm and Information Fluency [Video file]. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/55495939

Jennings, J. (2014). Teachers re-evaluate value of video games. Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/teachers-reevaluate-value-of-video-games-20141110-11jw0i

Korodaj, L. (2015a, April 25). New way of working no. 5231 [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/emusings/2015/04/25/new-way-of-working-no-5231/

Korodaj, L. (2015b, September 4). INF533: Assessment Item 2 Part A: Digital Literature review & Part B: Critical reflection [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/emusings/2015/09/04/inf533-assessment-item-2-part-a-digital-literature-review-part-b-critical-reflection/

Pullinger, K., & Joseph, C. (2015). Inanimate Alice. Retrieved from http://inanimatealice.com/

Sivers, D. [Derek Sivers]. (2011, Feb 11). First follower: leadership lessons from dancing guy [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ

 

 

INF541: 1.1 Reflection

REFLECTION QUESTIONS FROM MODULE 1.1: What are the challenges you are aware of for playing games in your classroom? What are the behaviours you want to encourage and discourage?

While comfortable using ed tech, moving into the world of games-based learning is an area of discomfort for me.  It does not revolve around classroom management of students but more around the appropriate choice to complement assessment undertaken at a senior secondary level.

As mentioned in Module 1.1 ‘Playing games in the classroom’ (Big Think, 2011), the biggest challenge introducing games based learning is around the correct choice of game.  With the educational model used (particularly in senior secondary where it is about getting through the content) it is important that whatever is played can be appropriately monitored and ‘assessable’.

Having made this comment. there is great scope for using something like Minecraft (https://minecraft.net/) in the Certificate II in Information and Cultural Services course.  Students at various times in the year are to demonstrate understanding of WHS and foresee the physical space of a library of the future.  Minecraft allows students not only to do the dry research behind these topics but to graphically represent their findings in an alternate setting.

They can provide a 3D representation of that library of the future, or demonstrate their understanding of the required width between shelves for WHS purposes.  Instead of just showing their graphic representation on the screen, the audience can walk with them between the shelves, into the rooms, and be a part of that created space.

Some issues that can possibly arise from game-based learning (at this point in the session, with limited reading):

• Would all students be engaged?
  • Is there accessibility built into gaming for those with visual impairments with screen work?
  • What if the students just isn’t into gaming?

• Can they access from home (equity issues)?
  • As a classroom teacher, will this learning only take place during class time, or will there be an expectation that students will continue their game-based learning as homework?
  • What if students don’t have access to the game at home due to lack of connectivity or the correct device?

• How does it relate to VET competencies?
  • Students undertaking VET courses must complete activities that demonstrate proficiency in the identified VET competencies.  This is easy to do if the competency is ‘Use digital devices’, but can the teacher then tie in proficiency in a task that may only be performed in a virtual world (for example)?  Food for thought.

• Throughout entire subject or only for one assessment task?

• How does this then meet requirements for moderation process (ACT Board of Senior Secondary Studies: http://www.bsss.act.edu.au/grade_moderation/grade_moderation)?
  • There is currently great concern about presentation of portfolio and other work when it is in a non-print format (ie on a USB, hard drive, in the cloud).  How then is work moderated when class activities and possibly assessment is undertaken in a gaming environment?

• Research around this needs to be robust to convince others of its use in the classroom.

References

ACT Board of Senior Secondary Studies. (2014). ACT Grade Moderation Model – ACT Board of Senior Secondary Studies. Retrieved 5 March 2016, from http://www.bsss.act.edu.au/grade_moderation/grade_moderation

Big Think. (2011). Playing games in the classroom. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA7KuOyH3PQ

Mojang AB. (2016). Minecraft. Retrieved 5 March 2016, from https://minecraft.net/