Social Media in 500 Words or Less!

Social media is appealing to the young because they can keep up with their friends and know what everyone else is doing, virtually all the time!! Older adults, like my grandparents, are using Facebook and LinkedIn to re-establish connections with friends and co-workers that they have lost track of over the years, with the exception of a Christmas card.  There is a ton of appeal in social media for all ages, it allows people to maintain contact, to admire from a distance, and to engage with people they may have otherwise left touch with. For me, I use Facebook the most, but I have started to also follow more pages than people, currently my favorite is Chris Powell (fitness and lifestyle celebrity) and the Healthy Eating for Life page.  I do follow my friends and my family members who are spread all over the country, but I mostly preview new baby pictures and see what people are up to. The problem is that what you put out there you can’t get back, so it has to be carefully thought out.

In the educational arena, I feel that Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) engage students in self-directed and group based learning that focuses on flexibility and customization (Johnson, Adams, & Haywood, 2011, p. 30).  This technology shifts the approach of teachers to the role of a guide; helping students to develop their learning goals, plans, and tools, instead of the leader, which could be considered a drawback.  This concept allows student to learn at their own pace and in a manner that best suits them, which are two huge advantages.  The 2009 Horizon Report stated that the use of PLE’s and social media in school is severely “hampered by access and filtering policies” and that the restrictions set up to keep poor content out can also block out some of the resources that are useful and engaging to students (Johnson, Levine & Smith, 2009).  Although I think some of these things have been resolved since 2009, the use of PLE’s is nowhere near where it should be. As someone who has always devoured material at an extremely fast pace, I was often bored in school and eventually began to despise going.  PLE’s promote learning at your own pace, which is a benefit for every single student, not just those who take a little while longer to learn or those who learn at a fast pace. 

I really enjoyed the time I spent on the Center for Teaching Quality site, this site was extremely interesting to me as a novice educator and I read through several of the blogs and some of my ideals about teaching that are based on my educational experiences were highlighted!

I joined the diigo group called Health Literacy and Patient Education Resources.  This group highlights an area that as a nurse, I am very interested in.  This group highlighted what I would consider “hot topics” in health literacy and provided me with some very interesting reading!

Reference:

Johnson, L., Adams, S., and Haywood, K., (2011). The NMC Horizon Report:2011 K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

 

Johnson, L., Levine, A., & Smith, R. (2009). The 2009 Horizon Report. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

Gaming

What do I think about gaming in the classroom?

I think that education is the most successful when the student buy-in and engage in the learning materials; this helps to facilitate a level of understanding that promotes their abilities to recall and use information later.   Prensky (2007) stated that “games, unlink traditional school study, also offer students be-a-hero goals that encourage players to persist in their efforts,” and that “the newest ‘complex’ games offer scores of hours of challenging problems of great complexity and sophistication—often much harder than schoolwork—that a player typically has to learn many skills to solve.”   The benefits of gaming in the classroom are enormous and although it does take some work on the part of the educator to tie them into the lesson plans as well as evaluation of the message the games are sending, the outcomes are worth the work.  “Research and experience have already shown that games can be applied very effectively in many learning contexts, and that games can engage learners in ways other tools and approaches cannot” (Johnson, Smith, Willis, Levine, & Haywood, 2011, p. 22).   Johnson, et.al, supports that games “enhance skills in decision-making, innovation, and problem-solving” which are huge areas of higher order thinking skill development that are often missing in the standard curriculum due to the fact that they cannot be assessed by or for standardized tests.    Online games also offer the opportunity to develop and engage in research skills, “writing, collaboration, problem-solving, pubic speaking, leadership, digital literacy, and media-making” (2011, p. 23).    When these types of activities are part of the curriculum, they become an integral part of the educational experience and offer a real opportunity for student buy-in into their education. 

Along the lines of gaming for education, there are also virtual reality and computer simulations also emerging as educational tools. Computer simulations and virtual reality offer something to students that have never been imagined before: the ability to have “hands-on” experiences with concepts and models.  These technologies offer the ability to get up-close and personal with objects that they can’t in real life such as historical figures, foreign lands, and things as simple as atoms, molecules, and bacteria for learning.   Augmented reality is an amazing technology that allows for visual and interactive learning.  It is an active technology that allows for learning and assessment and engages students in virtual interactions that bring objects too large or too small to a scale that can be manipulated in the student’s personal space (Johnson, Smith, Willis, Levine, & Haywood, 2011, p. 17).  This technology can be used in many areas of education, including chemistry, geography, and history. 

Several websites offer a variety of educational games that would be really excellent curriculum additions.    Knowledge Adventure offered several unique opportunities to engage students in learning activities.  “Bouncing Letters” was one of my favorites, it engages student in vocab/spelling practice as well as critical thinking and strategy.  This game is set up so that players can make word combinations using the letters the game provides, so it would be hard to use it on a specific vocab lesson because it doesn’t let the player choose which letters to use, but it does get the player to form words and use strategy to beat the levels.   “Math Man” is another pretty awesome game that is similar to old school Pac Man that engages students in math skill development.  The player eats a “?” and then has to eat the ghost that solves the question.  It is again a game that engages the player in strategy to eat the “?” first and then only eat the right ghost.    This site offers a variety of games in a variety of genre’s appropriate for elementary school aged students.  Some are better done than others, but the majority is educationally based.   One of my favorite simulation sites was the 3rd World Farmer game. It was so simple, but taught such an important lesson on economics, strategy, budgeting, and real life issues that I could literally not stop playing it. The graphic and interface itself could use some upgrades, but it provides such amazing lessons in a simple way.  Another worth mentioning is the Game Classroom  site. This site has a variety of resources for grades K-6 that are educational and engaging, but that aren’t what I think of as “games” in the traditional sense; however, still beneficial. 

References:

Johnson, L., Smith, R., Willis, H., Levine, A., and Haywood, K., (2011). The 2011 Horizon Report. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

Prensky, M. (2007). Sims vs. games: The difference defined. Edutopia: What works in education, Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/sims-vs-games