Kate and Sam’s Update!

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We have finally uploaded and labeled all of Sam’s footage for the movie. We then ordered the clips to create a meaningful and coherent story of her day. After a lot of discussion of the clip placement, Sam chose different songs to pair with each clip or group of clips that add more emotion to the footage. We have already discussed certain editing techniques and transitions that we want to use and we are really excited to start putting it all together on Final Cut Pro next week! Wahoo! 🙂

Video Games, Education, and Playing Portal

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The Gee article was very interesting to me because it presented ideas that seemed like they should be obvious through an unexpected, but very relatable, template. Normally, most people don’t connect video games and education. Video games are more likely to be viewed as a hinderance to education than a model. Students sitting in front a screen day after day, not doing work, frustrates and concerns many. However, it also proves the point that, to a lot of people, video games are driving, even addictive. Since most teachers would probably love it if students found their classes driving and addictive, why not examine the principles that make video games this way?

What I find interesting is that these principles–interactiveness, understanding, customization, and so on–seem so basic, so self-explanatory. Of course we should be making lessons with these considerations. Reading them, I think back to one of the first things I read for an education class, an essay in which Freire condemns the “Banking System” in schools. Gee points out that video games–where the user is actively participating and making decisions, not just taking in the directions and information the game has to offer. I’m not making an argument that everything in schools should become virtual, by any means. I just think that he makes a very good point about what we could take from the way games are designed. I remember in elementary school and middle school, we did these sort of historical role-play units where we’d have to go down the Oregon Trail or come on a ship to Plymouth or something. I don’t think we really learned a lot with these because most of the game actions were based on luck (a die roll, for instance), and most of the “assignments” involved drawing pictures, but the idea behind them, of a game acted out in real life, was good, and we all loved them. If they could be redesigned to actually feel relative to students and teach important concepts, I think they’d be a really interesting tool and embody the ideas Gee proposes.

To fulfill this week’s assignment of playing a video game or doing an interview, I tried playing the game Portal at a friend’s house. Now, video games are a little out of my realm. I loved computer games as a kid, but only the ones that let me creatively design and customize thing–I liked kid pix, and I liked all the “tycoon” games, where you would design and run a zoo, or an amusement park, or something. I didn’t really care about Sims once the virtual people came to life, but I loved choosing their appearance and designing dream houses for them to live in. I think this makes sense, because I always liked creative projects, and the games let me pursue them on a much larger scale than I could in reality, since my mother had no desire to fulfill my dream of painting every wall a different color. So, I wasn’t really expecting to like Portal. But it was actually really interesting. The game is essentially a series of puzzle that you must get through by blasting portals–one to enter, one to exit–into the walls. You go into it knowing nothing, and must retain knowledge about what has worked in the past, and well as basic principles of gravity and physics. The levels become progressively harder–I got through about half of them before deciding it was time to stop replaying a dead-end and do other work. Another interesting component of the game is that throughout it, a female voice on an intercom is giving you false instructions and trying to discourage you, only to praise you when you solve the puzzles anyway. Before you begin, she will say the the puzzle has been proven impossible, they are sorry, and you should give up now. Then, if you succeed, she says that the previous statement was a lie, and well done. I don’t think this is something we should bring into the classroom. However, I do think it is interesting in that it shows how much people want to prove themselves. When confronted with a supposedly impossible task, we want to solve it. So, the idea could be toned down for the classroom–students should not be told they will fail, but they should be given interesting tasks and challenged to find ways to complete them.

Overall, I think this article really made me look at video games in a new way–it helped me see them not just as distractions or stress-busters, but  as successful learning devices. If we can bring the same inventiveness, involvement, and forward momentum to classroom lessons, we could surely achieve our own version of that success.

Beating the Game

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I loved Gee’s article on video games and learning. I hadn’t realized that every new game has to teach you how to play it through the experience of playing the game. I’ve played many video games in my life, and whether or not I enjoyed the game and continued to play it often was a result of the quality of each game’s early tutorials. When they feel too cumbersome and don’t feel situated in a meaningful context, I (and others, I imagine) give up before even making it to the actual gameplay.

While I appreciate the connections Gee makes, I also think he may be overstating the connection between video game learning and academic/intellectual learning. Many of his examples have to do with strategies and decision making. Questions like, “should I make my character a wizard or an orc?” or, “Which troops should I advance, and where?” are complex decisions that have a lasting impact on the game-life of whoever is playing. Video games that teach you how to make these decisions effectively teach broader skills of decision making and  make people aware of the fact that their decisions will have lasting impacts while teaching them how to identify the structures that dictate their decision’s lasting effects. Many of the skills taught in video games, though, are simple motor skills. In my experience, much of the learning that happens in games has to do with wanting your character to do a certain physical action, and figuring out how to manipulate the subtle mechanisms of the controller to consistently produce that motion. Currently, I mostly play sports video games. These have no story lines and are exclusively about fine motor skills. These motor skills form the foundation of almost all games, including story based ones. Games that involve role playing and strategy combine motor skills with character, emotion, and story.

I think this is where the the learning potential of video games is strongest. Humans love having a feeling of agency. We like to see our thoughts and decisions affect the world around us. The physical manipulation part of every video game satisfies this. It gets us hooked. Then, as we work our way through the physical worlds of games, we learn skills,  practice making decisions, and get experience decoding complex systems of information. If we want students to do these same things in the classroom, it all starts with a feeling of agency, the feeling that connects us to the world around us. When students’ actions in the classroom affect the environment of the classroom, they cease to be an isolated individual temporarily placed in the classroom and become a citizen of the classroom.

A good game makes us feel like we’re immersed in the world of the game. When the user/game interface is too salient, we feel separated from the game and thus it is harder to invest in the game. The classroom should reflect this, allowing kids to take on the identity of “student” and immerse themselves in “the game”.

What happens, though, at the end of any story based video game? You beat it. All of the learning that happens in a video game has an end goal of beating the game. What does it mean to beat the school game? If we view the end goal of school as graduation, then the skills we teach in school will reflect that. Then we run the risk of making school too much of a game (something I think many of us can sympathize with regarding our high school experiences), and the incentive of winning may supersede the kind of learning we want to foster. No matter how we structure our “tutorial” at the beginning of the “school game”, no matter what skills we promote as the most desirable and useful, students ultimately want to beat the game, and will adopt whatever strategies are easiest and most successful. In the world of video games, that means cheat codes, but what does that mean in the classroom?

Is Gee an Advocate of Tracking?

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I agree with all the reasons Gee puts forth about how video games and the concepts used to play them are excellent strategies that should be used as teaching methods in the classroom. However, I was struck by the section titled “Pleasantly Frustrating” It is unclear to me what this idea would look like in the classroom. Gee explains, “Learners should be able to adjust the difficulty level while being encouraged to stay at the outer edge of, but inside, their level of competence,” (10). Would this involve some sort of mobile tracking system within the classroom? If so, I feel that this would be discouraging to many students who realize that they are not at the same level as others in the class. Even if the tracking system leaves room for mobility, not all students will necessarily be able to move up. Those who stay in the same group and see their peers move up will eventually feel discouraged. I do like the idea of constant feedback from the teacher, which would give students encouragement in their improvement process, but would the initial idea of being tracked discourage them enough to stop trying? My little brother loves video games and I often saw him get so frustrated with games that he gave up altogether.

Rather than tracking reading and writing groups, I think the better route is to have diversified peer groups, just as Nancy Frey and DOuglas Fisher depicted in their article. By including students of all different reading and writing levels in smaller peer groups, everyone is comfortable speaking and students will be able to learn from each other. Those who have difficulty understanding might feel more comfortable talking it out with other students. Also, hearing classmates explain concepts and ideas may resonate more with struggling students. In addition, those who are at a higher level benefit from helping classmates through reinforcement by teaching these ideas to others.

I am just curious what other people thought about this section and how you think Gee would implement this in a classroom.

Nancy Drew Video Games

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The Gee article for this week reminded me of a series of Nancy Drew-themed video games that I used to play on my computer in middle and high school. In each game, you are Nancy Drew and you get to solve a mystery. They have titles like “Nancy Drew and the Haunted Mansion” and “Nancy Drew and the Secret of the Scarlet Hand.” In the games, you control Nancy as she walks around the game world. There was a lot of reading involved because there would inevitably be a creepy library full of books or a bunch of old love letters that Nancy found hidden in a secret box, and some of the clues to solve the mystery were contained in the written text, so literacy was directly involved in the game in that way. Nancy also got to interview lots of suspicious people and talk to them throughout the game, so you had to listen carefully to what they said to pick out clues.

My favorite part of the games was that there would be a lot of puzzles to solve. The puzzles could be anything from organizing  a lot of objects in the right order to reading up on how to play chess and then having to beat another character at chess in order to “win” some vital information for the case. Solving these puzzles applies to many of the points Gee brought up about video games, such as co-design, distributed knowledge, well-ordered problems, system thinking, and skills as strategies. The puzzles also relate to the Frey and Fisher article about motivation. I felt motivated to complete each task because it was a do-able challenge and I could contribute to the outcome.

I always played the Nancy Drew games collaboratively with my younger sister. We would fight about whose turn it was to “be the mouse.” Whoever didn’t get to control the mouse that day was the secretary. We kept meticulous notes on each game and wrote down clues, observations, and numbers we had to remember like lock combinations. Sometimes we would have to identify specific objects, like in one game where we had to know the difference between various types of clouds (stratus, cirrus, cumulus, etc.), so the secretary had to draw pictures of all the different clouds so we could identify them later in the game. Taking notes outside the game helped us keep track of our thoughts so we could better analyze the game. I think this example shows that video games can be much more social than we assume. We often picture “gamers” as nerds with no people skills who sit at home playing video games all day to avoid social contact. However, video games can be a collaborative effort. Sometimes my sister would be better than me at solving a certain puzzle and she could teach me how to do it, so I learned new skills with her help. Three of my (female) cousins also played the Nancy Drew games around the same time that we did, so we had a LOT of discussions and debates about them: which game was the best, which was the scariest, which was the hardest, which had the best characters, etc. Video games can promote thoughtful discussion and engage various literacy skills.

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My friend Garrett LOVES video games. I think he could talk about them all day! So he jumped at the chance to share some of his ideas with me. I started by asking him very generally- “What do you like about video games?” He answered my question with a question-“Well what kind of video games, Sarah?” He explained that there are many different genres of games and said that each game has its own “feel” as well as its own set of goals and central features.

I asked him to describe the features that most attract him to his favorite games. He said that he loves science fiction and fantasy books and movies, and that the games he likes take these genres to “another level.”

I think he explained very well: “Instead of reading from a third party perspective, you’re a part of the story. You take on the role of a character and you preform that character’s action. It is a totally different feeling than just reading or watching a story unfold- you can be much more actively involved in it.”

He elaborated further on the different ways that video game players can become engaged in the storyline: “In some games, there is an overarching storyline that your character is following, but you can change the way that story is created and change the way your character achieves their goals. In other games, the emphasis is less on a specific character or story- it’s more about immersing yourself in a new world, almost like a second reality.”

He also noted that video games require practice and willingness to examine your mistakes and create strategies- “When you’re playing video games, you can watch replays, figure out what went wrong, and practice specific strategies to help you get better. It actually reminds me of playing lacrosse, or even of preparing for tests in schools. Really competitive video gamers wake up early in the morning and practice, because if they don’t other people will learn new strategies and they’ll be left behind.”

A lot of what Garrett said echoed the ideas expressed in James Paul Gee’s article “Learning by design: good video games as learning machines.” Gee emphasizes that the interactive element of video games is essential in motivating players and making them feel invested- concepts that can be applied to learning. He writes, “Good learning requires that students feel like active agents (producers) not just passive recipients (consumers)”(p.6). Gee also discusses the important learning skills video games teach- like devising strategies, practicing, examining mistakes, etc. I think video games provide a model of skills and aspects of learning that can be applied to school, especially the idea of making learning enaging and interactive.

 

 

Video Games: Interactive Entertainment

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After reading this weeks article on video games as learning machines by James Paul Gee, I interviewed a close friend who really likes to play video games. He uses them to relax and get his mind off of school. They are an enjoyable form of entertainment because they are interactive. He said that the aspect of video games that he finds most appealing is the story, which plays to his interests and emotions. I was intrigued by the role that the narrative played into my friends enjoyment of a game. His perspective made me consider video games as about more than just guns, explosions, and multiple lives. An understanding and appreciation of the narrative arc and complex rules of a video game is it’s own form of digital literacy.

I was also interested in Gee’s explanation of the shared knowledge between video game characters and the players. My friend said that he usually imagines himself as being the character in the video game as opposed to interacting with them through shared knowledge. He selects characters that can do things that he can’t do in real life. For instance, they have magical powers or elite skills. I think that Gee’s observations of players projecting onto their video game alter egos is accurate because it appears to be more fun to play when you imagine yourself, only better, in the game.

Because Gee presented video game structure as a framework for classrooms, I asked my friend what he had learned from video games and if he had ever employed this knowledge in a school setting. He said that he has mostly learned obscure vocabulary words, such as lycanthropy, which is the ability to turn into a world (I checked on this definition after the interview and he was right!). Other than the expanded lexicon, he didn’t really call upon his video game skills or knowledge in high school, except in the occasional speech or debate anecdote.

From my interview, I didn’t get the sense that my friend wanted video games to cross over into academic territory because he uses them as tools for escaping from the stresses of school. Because I have very limited knowledge of video games, I don’t know if I would use their structures in a classroom. Although I’m not completely sold, I imagine that somewhere, there is a video game player whose experience at school could be significantly altered if his or her knowledge of video games was welcome in a classroom setting, and for that reason I think that it is valuable to consider this innovative mode of instruction.

Update: Amanda and Isabella

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This week Isabella and I finally made a decision about the concrete shape for our digital literacy project. Isabella’s vision for the project is a slide show about crew that contains pictures, videos, and her voice over. While I was on Spring Break, Isabella interviewed her crew teammates at Poughkeepsie High School and will bring in those interviews and photos of our team for our next meeting. In the mean time, we looked up photos and videos of famous rowing icons and coaches. Isabella plans to give some biographical information about these figures and talk about how they have inspired her. Because Isabella found most of the information about the rowers and coaches online, we talked a little about credible Internet sources. As she continues her research next class period, I hope to talk to her a little more about citation. I think I will show her some examples. My personal favorite online resource for citation standards is the Purdue Online Writing Lab.

While Isabella looked up inspirational rowers and coaches, I got a brief tutorial from Baynard on how to capture YouTube videos so that I can use them in iMovie. I used a program called Snapz Pro X. The program is really easy to use and is on all the computers in the Digital Media Zone – all you have to remember is control-shift-3. Here is a link to one of the videos I captured for Isabella’s project:

Rob Waddell

I’m excited to see how our project will take shape next session now that we have some material to work with. I hope that Isabella and I can work on her narration so that we know what she wants to say about each image and video.

Group Projects – Motivating, Most of the Time

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In Frey and Fisher’s article “Motivating Requires a Meaningful Task” they discuss the importance of productive group work as a classroom tool. I think that their observations about the delicate balance between too many group members (some students do not make an effort because “they know the work will be done by others”) and too few (“students begin to feel overwhelmed and give up on the task”) were right on track. I also liked the idea that the group size should change depending on the members and the class at hand and that the groups should consist of diverse skill levels. My only concern about forming the groups in this way is whether students of different levels would work well together. I remember that when I was in middle school, we were divided into reading groups based on our literacy skills and the students in the separate groups made fun of each other for the content and difficulty level of the books the respective groups were reading. The behavior seems (and was) petty, retrospectively, but I imagine that students today may conduct themselves similarly. On the other hand, when I worked in groups with peers of varying skill levels, usually in classes other than Language Arts, I always found that helping each other was rewarding and enjoyable.  In order for teachers to prevent riffs between students at different levels, I think that they should establish the precedent in their classrooms that all students will be working together regardless of individual achievement.

Another passage from the article that I found interesting was the section on the complexity of a task. Frey and Fisher write, “if students merely divide [a project] up and agree to meet again later to assemble the final product, it’s likely that the task was not challenging” (Frey and Fisher 31).  While that was not how I approached group projects in middle school, in my experience in both high school and college, that is definitely how group work is conducted. However, I don’t think that my group members and I approached a project in this way because the assignment wasn’t difficult, but rather because we had limited time in which we could all work together on the project. I am personally not a huge fan of group projects and regularly find them taxing, so I don’t think that they need to be any more challenging. I just wonder, after reading this article, if part of the reason why I don’t like group projects is that the assignment is not difficult enough to motivate my group members and I to want to collaborate. I will have to consider this point with greater attention when I am designing lessons for my future students and inevitably dividing them into groups.

Public Domain Resource

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Hey all,

Here’s another resource for public domain materials for podcasts, videos, etc. I find it tends to have more full/know music than free sound (though free sound is great for sound effects/background recordings). There’s a whole database of public domain music, podcasts, and live concert recordings if you go to the audio section.

The Internet Archive

 

Enjoy!

Emma