Games Based Learning MOOC
Thoughts on Webinar
by exquisite.corpse on Oct 20, 2012 at 09:41 PM}
The Wow in Schools & etc webinar got me thinking about not just games but the effects of good andagogy/pedagogy. What I really loved was the level of excitement in learning (kids running down the halls to the class space) and the sense of accomplishment/competency/resilience that students experienced.
The last couple of weeks I have had some dove-tailing themes go on in a few of my classes. In my courses looking at the International Criminal Court, including the case against the president of the Sudan RE the genocide in Darfur, many students explored the DarfurIsDying website by playing the game on their own. Many talked to me before or after class about how far they got in the game, and some bragged they beat it. I reminded them that the game was assigned as extra credit to explore the difficulties of surviving in Darfur, and that age and gender played a part in survival expectancy. and many explored the issues/cases by doing research outside of class on whether or not Lubanga was convicted and when, and what was the current status of Joseph Kony. For my reading class, several shy and quiet students were suddenly very animated when I allowed them to bring up their favorite songs on YouTube (as content experts about what the main topic/point of the song was, as we had been doing more quietly with reading assignments. It took them awhile to understand that we were looking at more univeral meanings of songs, not what the songs meant to the students, but the fact that they had connected so deeply with these songs is something worth exploring. We are getting ready in nearly all my classes except for reading to create avatars and explore Dia de los Muertos in the three days of celebration set for Oct 31-Nov 2. The curator would love to have multiple student logins on the Smithsonian Latino Virtual (Music) Museum island, so be sure to check out:
Smithsonian Dia ...
Also, this week our college had a presentation on Bridges from Poverty and I kept thinking about the relationship of social class to poverty.
These are cursory thoughts, so if you have some further insight, please post! Thanks so much to the Academy, lol, for voting me Bard this week. I look forward to passing on the torch as we have a lot of great contributors here.
~~XQC
The last couple of weeks I have had some dove-tailing themes go on in a few of my classes. In my courses looking at the International Criminal Court, including the case against the president of the Sudan RE the genocide in Darfur, many students explored the DarfurIsDying website by playing the game on their own. Many talked to me before or after class about how far they got in the game, and some bragged they beat it. I reminded them that the game was assigned as extra credit to explore the difficulties of surviving in Darfur, and that age and gender played a part in survival expectancy. and many explored the issues/cases by doing research outside of class on whether or not Lubanga was convicted and when, and what was the current status of Joseph Kony. For my reading class, several shy and quiet students were suddenly very animated when I allowed them to bring up their favorite songs on YouTube (as content experts about what the main topic/point of the song was, as we had been doing more quietly with reading assignments. It took them awhile to understand that we were looking at more univeral meanings of songs, not what the songs meant to the students, but the fact that they had connected so deeply with these songs is something worth exploring. We are getting ready in nearly all my classes except for reading to create avatars and explore Dia de los Muertos in the three days of celebration set for Oct 31-Nov 2. The curator would love to have multiple student logins on the Smithsonian Latino Virtual (Music) Museum island, so be sure to check out:
Smithsonian Dia ...
Also, this week our college had a presentation on Bridges from Poverty and I kept thinking about the relationship of social class to poverty.
These are cursory thoughts, so if you have some further insight, please post! Thanks so much to the Academy, lol, for voting me Bard this week. I look forward to passing on the torch as we have a lot of great contributors here.
~~XQC
