Serious Gaming

maybe I'm just not funsy wunsy enough.  A recent post about Bill Gates prediction in eSchool News about Gaming got me thinking. I always hated games. I was terrible at them in school. I always lost, couldn't compete, didn't get it, was the last one chosen. I still don't know which shape of pig skinned object they use in Basketball, or football. Yeah, one of those. On the other hand, I love Second Life--a serious game. No winning, no losing, no points, no score, no beginning, no end, no price for admission, no sell outs, no devastated cities with acres of parking lots for tailgating.  So we are going to gamify education? I'd venture the opinion there isn't much time for games. Let's not gamify education--indvidualize it, energize it, transform it.  Sure, games can have their place.  Things are going fast.  Funny that gaming is aligned with the Common Core standards movement. Like sugar. Sweeten you up and put the medicine down your throat. We saw the movies about WWII, if you don't know who won the playoffs you were a commie. That was then, --good thing I was not around for that one--we have entered a new aeon: post 2007. Things have changed. It is the diversity of opinion, experience, background, ideas, visions, perspectives, culture, language, belief that matters for us to survive and prosper in a new inter connected ecologically challenged world. Homogenious thinking ends in extinction. If you don't believe in evolution you won't. I agree, learning should be fun, but its not a game. We continue to infantize our youth.  There is so much work to be done. Wouldn't it be better to be productive? people are out of work because we have surrendered our ability to sustain oursleves to corporations. We let 'them' grow our food, produce our power, print our money, define health, make our decisions.

Sterling College, Vermont, an example of Place Based Education

We have entered the paradigm shift in earnest. I see two radically divergent branches in educaion crystalizing-- Common Core (GME--Genetically Modified Education) and what I might call, opt out or Maker Faire. It is no accident that Bill Gates supports Monsanto in one breath and the Common Core Standards in the next--they are the same vision-- a destruction of diverstiy and the marketing of sustenance; the hubris that humans can do it better than nature and the capitalization of life. We confuse the ability to create wealth with intelligence. I have no arument with the fact that education must change--but not from one factory to another.

I am all aboard the change train in education. But we must consider and be comfortable with chaos, with complexity--with the paradox of place based learning and global awareness and connectedness--hyper glocal. If we lose our connection to the earth we are lost.  I have a hunch that there is an inherent ethos in connectivism that is found in deep ecology. "Deep ecology argues that the natural world is a subtle balance of complex inter-relationships in which the existence of organisms are dependent on the existence of others within ecosystems."

danielmirante.com (account suspended, retrived from Google search images for Deep Ecology)

Flipping Assessment

I'm still flipping out with this metaphor. Partially its ironic because as a society we suffer from inversion. Even more than Plato's cave allegory, reality seems inverted in many ways. Flipping is a way of revealing this. I was thinking about this in terms of cheating on tests and how to detect it following up on an earlier entry on Stealth Assessment and Authentic Testing. In an unambiguous discipline where there is one right answer, perhaps it is easy to show you know the answer by cheating.  

In terms of motivating a student to learn, it is giving responsibility and creating an environment that has real world implications to their actions.  Their actions are a demonstration of their competency.  It is impossible to cheat. Knowledge is agile, not simply a competency. It results in action.  If you can authenticate that action there is no ambiguity.

As well as reversing the expectation of a test on a given date and time, a flipped assessment is stretched out, on going. The idea is assessment is more like a story revealing itself over time. The student is the author. A test can be too narrow, a missed opportunity to have us take ownership of our stories. The 'test' is not given by a teacher, but rather the role is to facilitate the student to self assess and create their stories. The process of life long learning is told in a collection of digital stories.

I flip the assessment in another way too; on myself, the assessor. I can see in the 'product' its quality and the growth that has occurred. I could do a better job. Its a situation of continuous improvement.  As a teacher, a facilitator, I have so much to learn.  I am my hardest critic, just like my students.

Flipping Assessment

I'm still flipping out with this metaphor. Partially its ironic because as a society we suffer from inversion. Even more than Plato's cave allegory, reality seems inverted in many ways. Flipping is a way of revealing this. I was thinking about this in terms of cheating on tests and how to detect it following up on an earlier entry on Stealth Assessment and Authentic Testing. In an unambiguous discipline where there is one right answer, perhaps it is easy to show you know the answer by cheating.  

In terms of motivating a student to learn, it is giving responsibility and creating an environment that has real world implications to their actions.  Their actions are a demonstration of their competency.  It is impossible to cheat. Knowledge is agile, not simply a competency. It results in action.  If you can authenticate that action there is no ambiguity.

As well as reversing the expectation of a test on a given date and time, a flipped assessment is stretched out, on going. The idea is assessment is more like a story revealing itself over time. The student is the author. A test can be too narrow, a missed opportunity to have us take ownership of our stories. The 'test' is not given by a teacher, but rather the role is to facilitate the student to self assess and create their stories. The process of life long learning is told in a collection of digital stories.

I flip the assessment in another way too; on myself, the assessor. I can see in the 'product' its quality and the growth that has occurred. I could do a better job. Its a situation of continuous improvement.  As a teacher, a facilitator, I have so much to learn.  I am my hardest critic, just like my students.

Flipping the Facility: Blended Learning in a Web 2.0 Classroom

I am very excited by the idea of flipping. The last 2 posts look at this in a way that takes it far from watching a video for homework.  The idea of a "Flipped Facility" is an attempt to communicate what is unique about my classroom in hopes of inspiring others and learning from my PLN how to deepen the experience and my own teaching and learning.

I think about my facility as flipped in the sense that the students have responsibility for the product and content that emerges from it.   I point out that it is a facility to show how our classroom is interconnected in a building and its related systems.  It is a web2.0 classroom because it is based on student created content.  There are faculty and programmatic structures in place-- but the learning activity is the production of content created from a student community --through design, productions, and media.  When I created my program, I envisioned a transformed learning community and encouraged the components that nurtured community and collaboration.   The facility would be a 100% student operated facility, including: a stage, the Box Office, costume shop, scene shop, videostudio, a recording studio--  Students take responsible, meaningful roles such as: Stagehands, Actors, Musicians, Technical Directors, Production Managers, Stage Managers, Designers, Directors, Dancers, Choreographers, Master Electricians, Master Carpenters, Master Sound, Master Props and Master Video, Costumer, etc. They do it all.  

Creativity and Innovation come from collaboration--NOT competition. Here is a picrture of the production cast and crew, along with the hosting crew from a visiting college production. Student Centric!

Giving students the responsibility of the various positions helps them take ownership and commit themselves.  This collaborative and cooperative team structure is one of reciprocal apprenticeships.  It creates Department Heads (Masters), Assistant Department Heads and crew in each area.  The teacher in all of us emerges in this scenario.  I am inspired by the Barefoot College  where their model is to find the teacher in everyone.  The apprenticeship and peer to peer model values the contributions of the newcomers as much as the students further

along.  As students take more ownership with their position and responsibilities they passionately dig into the subject area. The learning objective is to have the students become self directed learners following their passions.

In a design based, productivity focused learning environment, students are incredibly creative and highly productive.  They must collaborate in a high stress, constantly changing, diverse and technology saturated environment.  They create tangible, measurable and assessable events and artifacts that, over time, give full testimony to their talents, interests and growth.  It’s often messy, overtly dramatic; there is a tremendous amount of growing up going on--and not.  This is the part where the culture of the students, creates the learning environment --and you have to learn how to collaborate within it.

 

 

 

Flipping the Facility: Blended Learning in a Web 2.0 Classroom

I am very excited by the idea of flipping. The last 2 posts look at this in a way that takes it far from watching a video for homework.  The idea of a "Flipped Facility" is an attempt to communicate what is unique about my classroom in hopes of inspiring others and learning from my PLN how to deepen the experience and my own teaching and learning.

I think about my facility as flipped in the sense that the students have responsibility for the product and content that emerges from it.   I point out that it is a facility to show how our classroom is interconnected in a building and its related systems.  It is a web2.0 classroom because it is based on student created content.  There are faculty and programmatic structures in place-- but the learning activity is the production of content created from a student community --through design, productions, and media.  When I created my program, I envisioned a transformed learning community and encouraged the components that nurtured community and collaboration.   The facility would be a 100% student operated facility, including: a stage, the Box Office, costume shop, scene shop, videostudio, a recording studio--  Students take responsible, meaningful roles such as: Stagehands, Actors, Musicians, Technical Directors, Production Managers, Stage Managers, Designers, Directors, Dancers, Choreographers, Master Electricians, Master Carpenters, Master Sound, Master Props and Master Video, Costumer, etc. They do it all.  

Creativity and Innovation come from collaboration--NOT competition. Here is a picrture of the production cast and crew, along with the hosting crew from a visiting college production. Student Centric!

Giving students the responsibility of the various positions helps them take ownership and commit themselves.  This collaborative and cooperative team structure is one of reciprocal apprenticeships.  It creates Department Heads (Masters), Assistant Department Heads and crew in each area.  The teacher in all of us emerges in this scenario.  I am inspired by the Barefoot College  where their model is to find the teacher in everyone.  The apprenticeship and peer to peer model values the contributions of the newcomers as much as the students further

along.  As students take more ownership with their position and responsibilities they passionately dig into the subject area. The learning objective is to have the students become self directed learners following their passions.

In a design based, productivity focused learning environment, students are incredibly creative and highly productive.  They must collaborate in a high stress, constantly changing, diverse and technology saturated environment.  They create tangible, measurable and assessable events and artifacts that, over time, give full testimony to their talents, interests and growth.  It’s often messy, overtly dramatic; there is a tremendous amount of growing up going on--and not.  This is the part where the culture of the students, creates the learning environment --and you have to learn how to collaborate within it.

 

 

 

Flip the Teacher

This is a follow up on my last post about flipping the model in ICT4E. I was thinking about Shafika Issac's asessment about how many teachers are needed in Africa--close to 2 million? I know its not just Africa. It is ironic that we are desperate for jobs--yet cannot find enough teachers.  We've learned so much about how people learn in the last few years.  This is in sharp contrast to how we still teach.  The graphic prepared by the National Training Laboratory, reinforces the paradigm shift into a user generated educational environment.

 

-- as Jackie Gerstein puts it, User Generated Education. Its no accident I am using her term 'flipped' as her work on the flipped classroom is a must read and points us in a fantastic direction. Then if it is true that we learn the most when we teach, we should allow our students to teach.  The idea of reciprocal apprenticeships offers us a powerful tool to address both the lack of teachers and the lack of jobs. Face it, the classroom model is verticle. Why not flip it? or turn it on its side-- make it lateral. Provide stipends to students who 'get' learning and who naturally love to share it. We tend to think that only a trained and professional teacher can somehow impart knowledge.  I long ago humbled myself to the deep knowledge my students had of technology, and I have been learning--about all kinds of things, not just technology--  from them ever since.  I ask my Freshmen as soon as they understand something to work with those students who haven't quite got it yet.  I have seen the trasnformation before my eyes as their understanding, not yet fully articulated, has to make sense as they communicate and share their understanding.

So why not apply this to an ICT4E environment? If our goal is to inspire poeple to become teachers to fill the gap, allow the students to become teachers as soon as they are ready. Coupled with a micro payment strategy you are raising the economic stability of these students, raising their status, and allowing students to self identify themselves as teachers.  In a few years you will have many interested teachers. 

 

 

Flipping the the ICT4E Micro Finance Model for Empowering the BoP

I participated in a brief online session with Shafika Issacs, Founding Executive Director, Schoolnet Africa, part of the HP Catalyst Series hosted by the New Media Consortium entitled "Developing STEM Learning Through Technology in Africa."

Listening to the challenges, espcially with providing access to women and girls, it occurred to me that micro finance might offer a sloution.  The gender gap in ownership of mobiles is quite stark, so much of the gains and advantages of this technology isn't getting to the BoP. Why couldn't we apply the lessons learned from Nathan Eagle's work in crowd sourcing language translation and health in a similar way for education? pay the students to learn.  It's not to suggest they need motivation, but rather access.  Pay off the phone and air time by answering questions correctly, and then move on.

Why not? If you think about investment in the long term, creating access and empowering young people to become educated, indeed self educated of sorts, would pay handsomely down the road. If you consider the vast amounts of money invested in ICT Development why not start the funding at the bottom and let it grow? What's the financial model? For participation in the program participants are asked to give back when they are successful. Yes, you have to subsidize the phone, the air time, the management of the system, an app, but really--this puts the device in the hands of the student immediately.

We ban the use of phones in class in the west. Its a lost opportunity.  There are some interesting examples of this technique in Sri Lanka for creating digital stories by Shilpa Sayura.  I think this might work in other challenging environments.