3D Game Lab: Mechanics of Game Based Learning

How might a teacher apply even ONE characteristic of games and game environments (choice, progress bars, etc.) to a typical unit or module of instruction?

As I've gone forward with this, albeit with much frustration on my part, I have thought about how to gamify my classroom in a better fashion. I already do some choice in the classroom, but I think I am going to add more options via a project selection board. I will give the students options on how they can show me what they have learned, including the option to take a test.

I will do this at the start of each unit using a choice board model, and I think I can streamline a lot of the activities including taking a test using various online options. We'll see how this works: it might allow me to do what I love about teaching, which is encouraging the students to be engaged and exploratory while minimizing the amount of time students spend stuffed into chairs and taking notes while I lecture. I hate that version of the classroom even more than I hate all the paperwork that goes along with teaching.

(The above picture is a sample choice board for a math unit from http://daretodifferentiate.wikispaces.com)

Politics Aside...

So, it should come as no surprise that I (and probably every other teacher in the world!) did something with the election today in class. I found a chart at Microsoft Office on-line. Then I went looking for a good map that showed the results. We resized everything so it fit, and using our interactive white board, students filled in the chart with information from the map. Technology issues aside (I somehow turned on Microsoft ActivMark in our Board software, so the pen wouldn't work... I felt like an idiot!), the activity went quite well. The students were involved through the whole thing, and showed a great knowledge of the geography of the United States. The chart has the full name of the state, but the CNN map only had the postal abbreviations. The class handled it with nary a stumble!

Some information about the activity:
We have also discovered that the activity works best in Microsoft Excel 2002 and higher. Earlier versions of Excel seem to get stuck on the chart, and won't load. Last note: If you can see alternate text that says, "Group Box ###", just ignore it. It doesn't go away when you remove the alternate text for a web browser, and deleting the text messes up the macros. And, if you're looking at this well after the election, be aware that the CNN map link may not work...

Making Brownies

For the last 2 Fridays, I have asked people to support the staff at the Red Cross call center by making a baked item. The first Friday, we had brownies made by the Gourmet Foods students, and last Friday, the students in my Functional Academic class baked. And of course, the teacher in me just couldn't pass up the opportunity to make this more of a learning experience. And so, I created a "How Many Different Kinds of Brownies" can you make activity. We've done some logic charts, and solved a few word problems based on the same concept.
The worksheets for the lesson are on the wiki. Scroll down to "Logic", because that seemed to fit best as a topic header.
One worksheet has the problem (You have 2 brownie mixes, 1 kind of icing, 2 kinds of add-ins... How many different kinds of brownies can you make?). The other set of worksheets is a data recording sheet, and a data collection mat with manipulatives. We cut out the manipulatives (pictures of the items they can use to make the brownies), and put them in the slots on the data chart, then recorded the information on the data sheet. It worked fairly well, and I think the concept has some possibilities.

Masters of Disaster---LIVE!

Hm... Okay, maybe that headline is a bit kitschy even for me, but I couldn't resist. This afternoon we had a tornado warning while we were at school. To help make that a little more understandable: A tornado WATCH means the conditions could possibly produce a tornado, and the National Weather Service is keeping an eye out. A tornado WARNING, however, means that a tornado has been spotted, either on the ground or in the sky near you.
We were puttering around in the classroom, packing things up for the summer. I have one student that enjoys looking at the weather, and often does this if he has the opportunity. He was doing that while I was looking up something for another student, so he leans over to me and points at the scrolling bar on the Weather Channel homepage. And I see it: bright red, scrolling slowly, TORNADO WARNING. He has seen it too, and wants to talk about it, but I needed to stop him so the other students wouldn't get scared. I simply said, "If it was for this area, we would be in the safe room, in the position that we practiced." He nodded, lost interest, and went forward. I can honestly say it wasn't more than 3 minutes later that one of our assistant principals came on the PA system and said, "All instruction will cease." I never thought I would hear those words out of the mouth of a principal! He requested that all students & staff report to their assigned safety locations, and then the school lost all power. Now, our school is a Red Cross shelter site, and has generators (I know this because, 3 years ago, before I ever knew I was teaching at this school, I did the shelter survey... it was one of the first things I did for the Loudoun Chapter!), so the hallways had lights as did some classrooms. We stayed in the room for about an hour, and ultimately dismissed all students by 4:15 p.m.
But, I was very proud of my students... they knew exactly what to do, and although they were scared and had some high-pitched voices going on, they did what they were told to do. I have to attribute at least SOME of the ability to what we've talked about in class with the MoD adaptations.

Masters of Disaster Adaptations

For those who heard about the MoD adaptations that were created by myself & the Loudoun County, Virginia Red Cross can look here for the Intellitools Classroom Suite files. The first module, Disaster Safety & Preparedness are available here.
Please note: The current Classroom Suite files are in Version 3. They are compatible for version 4, but once saved in version 4 they will no longer work in version 3. I hope to have time this summer to port the older activities to Version 4 over the summer as well as create the activities for the Fire Safety module.

If you are interested in print activities, and can provide proof that you have purchased a kit (or several kits) for either your chapter or schools & other groups in your area, I'm happy to email you the PDF files. If you would prefer to receive a CD of the print activities along with the IntelliTools activities, please contact me. There will likely be a minimal cost for the purchase of CDs and shipping.
I'm choosing to require proof of purchase for the paper activities in order to protect the copyright on the MoD kit. Groups that use the computer-based activities will typically have students that cannot access the print kit at all and so need more assistance to get this important information to their students & clients.

I would also like to thank the parents who previewed the activities for me before they were released, IntelliTools, Inc. for hosting the files in their activity exchange, and Mayer-Johnson, Inc. for allowing us to use the Boardmaker-PCS symbols in the activities without charge.

We published a book!

A few months ago, my students started making a book. We actually made two: One as a concluding project for our amusement park research, and another about when we made ice cream during class. Originally, we were going to try and add translations of our English writing with the help of our advanced ESOL classes, but we ran out of time because of state testing. If we had waited, the students would not have been able to see their printed books, and since we have some seniors who helped, I decided that we could always add translations at another time.
We paid $12.99 for each book; I bought one copy of the set, and the librarians bought one copy of the set. The set the library purchased will be available for students to check out. I've also posted them to the blog, using a rather nice feature that MixBook does in creating a version using Flash. I will note that there is an issue with the ice cream book; perhaps the Flash version has a limit to the number of pages it can view. I don't know, but the pages about different ice cream flavors (licorice and bacon & egg with toast!) and how ice cream can be served are missing in this version. They do appear in the print copies we purchased.

http://www.mixbook.com/photo-books/travel/amusement-parks-391449?vk=xElW3WBar6

http://www.mixbook.com/photo-books/interests/making-ice-cream-353160?vk=8TkAEreXRB

RCT 3

Two of my students have started working on RCT 3 parks with me, and one student is using RCT 2 on his own. The parks in RCT 3 are working very well, although I am controlling the mouse in order to reduce the possibilities of information overload. As I said, the hardest part is getting the paths laid correctly. One student has made it all the way to the Tycoon level challenge in Vanilla Fields (the starter park), and another has made it to that section in the Splash-Water Park expansion. I asked the one student do to Splash because his research is on Sea World. We've also had some trouble connecting the slides to the pool complexes, but I don't know why. I think it might be the terrain being uneven. We'll keep working at it.
I will post some screen shots of the parks in a week or so; I neglected to bring the CD home with me this weekend, so I can't run the game.

Technology to Make the Job Easier

I have Mary Poppins singing "A Spoonful of Sugar" going through my head right now. Last week, the job coach that works with a lot of our students had the idea to label the shelves in the cafeteria kitchen so that the students could be sent to get something when they are working. She wondered if we could do it on the computer. And, as I mentioned, my duty this year is to provide tech support to the special education department. We looked at different label templates available in Word, and then the job coach and a student went back over to measure the front of the shelf.
The next day, the student came down with a list of items they had found by inventorying the shelves. I set up the template for him, and he started typing. The student already knew how to find clip art, and digital pictures, so only needed minimal assistance for that. In fact, he was able to get about 15 done in the period, with pictures, and ready to print. He only needed help when the picture wasn't clear.
The benefit to this, beyond the students being more independent, is that a lot of our cafeteria staff are not native English speakers. It will also help keep things organized on the shelves. Oh... and the student also learned a very valuable skill which he is starting to generalize to other areas.

Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 & Camtasia

Back in November, TechSmith was offering Camtasia 3.3 to teachers for free. Unfortunately, the offer is no longer available. I see lots of possibilities for Camtasia, though I could wish it was just a little easier to use. I think one of my problems is that I have a wide screen laptop, so when the software tries to set a region automatically, the measurements are off.
I then used Camtasia to record my screen while I played with RCT 3. I've never been really happy with the tutorials in the software, because they are very limiting, and in this version, require a lot of text to be read. It is hard to go back if you miss something, and there is no audio. In the past, I've tried to record the action on the screen using an S-Video hook-up to a TV with VCR, but it didn't work as well as I had hoped. I was able to produce a basic video that shows how to place a "ready made" ride, and some facilities. The version here is of low quality so it won't take forever to load: the original is 1 GB without audio. I just figured out how to do the audio, and so will probably try that next. Now, if only getting RCT 3 learned was that easy; as with the other versions, the thing I find hardest is placing the paths.

Pizza Crust!

I am still working on the more accessible tutorials for RollerCoaster Tycoon III, I decided to post our pizza making session today.
When the students chose the kind of bread that they wanted to research, I told them that as they finished, we could make each kind. I already posted, either here or on the wiki, or maybe both, the videos for pita bread (unleavened bread) and leavened bread. Today, we made pizza crust. I admit that we cheated a bit and used the Pillsbury refrigerated crusts... But, I don't think that really changed the experience of making the bread. After all, we measured and mixed and kneaded for the other two kinds of bread. We'll measure and knead when we make pretzels later... I think we'll do those in 2 or 3 weeks, because pretzels are a food you can easily find in an amusement park.
As usual, we took pictures. I did the work on the movie this time without help from the students since they dismissed due to exams.

Amusement Parks

Somewhere around 1999-2000, a video game called RollerCoaster Tycoon showed up. I remember first seeing it at an "educational" toy store that sold mostly videos and computer software. I purchased a copy, but found it too slow and too difficult for the students I had at that time to use. A year or so later, and I find myself covering for the 7/8th grade science teacher at my middle school who is on maternity leave. It was after state testing, and the 8th graders were antsy. In a few weeks, they were going on the annual trip to Six Flags for Physics in the Park, so I thought having them explore the science behind the rides might grab their attention. It did... We had two different software packages, a roller coaster simulator, and RollerCoaster Tycoon. I was surprised at some of the work that was turned in, and ultimately turned in the unit plan as the subject aligned lesson plan that my school required. Fast forward another year, and I was teaching technology education. On a cart. In 2 buildings. I decided to have the students do a unit using the software, and purchased 5 licenses of RollerCoaster Tycoon II. I created tutorials for the software, purchased several videos that showcased both the science around the rides, and why people went to the amusement parks. The students also had to create a PowerPoint presentation about a theme park they chose to research. Overall, the project was a huge success, and one group of students had the opportunity to present their projects at a student technology conference. Since that point, I have done at least one part of the project (usually the PowerPoint) with my students each year. The class is currently completing a webquest to find different things about amusement parks on-line, which we will turn into a simple slide show. Then, students will work on the research for an amusement park they've chosen (this year's parks are: Dollywood, King's Dominion, Six Flags, and Walt Disney World), and finish by creating parks in RollerCoaster Tycoon.
We'll be using 2 versions of the software: RCT II, and RCT III. For II, we have both expansion packs, and for RCT III, we have the waterpark expansion. Both groups of students have tried out RCT II on our older laptop, and we'll be doing RCT III together since it is only available on my laptop. I'll post a few of the files over on the wiki, feel free to take a look and/or use. The files that I've posted tutorials and such for are older versions and all matched to RCT II. I hope to get things created for RCT III soon.
Check out another post (in a few days) on an idea I had for making the tutorials more accessible to my students...

Masters of Disaster, Part 2

The Masters of Disaster activities that were uploaded to the IntelliTools Activity Exchange seem to be popular. I must admit that the more popular activities are the ones that are generalized to teach other skills, such as AM/PM Sorting or Peanut Butter Sequencing. I am hopeful that some of the more disaster-safety specific activities will continue to be downloaded (and they have been, just not at the same rate as the others). After several requests, I have also posted the ZIP files for the IntelliTools activities to my wiki. If I get permission from the Red Cross, I will post the paper-based activities as well.

Masters of Disaster

Last year, I learned that most of my students had no idea what to do in a disaster! Soon after that conversation, I read an email written by a parent of a kindergarten-aged son who uses both a wheelchair and a voice-output device. His class was studying fire safety, and she was worried that he would feel unsafe and left out as the class practiced "stop drop and roll", but gave him no opportunity to truly participate. What to do???? How do we get this information out? I decided that the easiest way to do it would be to adapt and modify or add activities to the Masters of Disaster curriculum.
And so, all last summer for several hours a week, I took up table space at my local chapter and worked on creating activities. Overall, we spent about 25-30 hours at the chapter creating activities, with another large amount at home researching. We created activities that could be done on paper, and also a number of activities for IntelliTools' Classroom Suite. Toward the end of the summer, I asked a group of parents who had children using Classroom Suite to examine the activities for me. These parents deserve a special thanks for taking time to look through the activities, and suggest changes or improvements. In addition, thanks go to a teacher at my school who was kind enough to look over the paper-based activities for me and the staff at my local chapter who gave me space to work. The activities are targeted at students with significant disabilities at the middle and high school level, or regular education & students with special needs in grades K-4.
Unfortunately, around this time, I had some computer issues that resulted in an upgrade to Vista. This has meant the project was shelved in fall as we decided how to approach this problem, as well as the release of Classroom Suite 4. It was decided to post the completed activities and then to go forward using Classroom Suite 4.
You can find the IntelliTools Activities in the Exchange by searching for Masters of Disaster. You can get more information about the Masters of Disaster curriculum at the Red Cross website.

Bread All Around Us: Leavened Bread

Yesterday, my students made leavened bread. We were lucky enough to be able to use a bread machine that our Family & Consumer Science department has available. The teacher for that class has been very supportive of the efforts we make to teach the students cooking skills; she has had several of my students in class, and always works to make sure they understand everything.
As with our unleavened bread, we took pictures, and so have a movie of the process. I thought it was much easier to make the bread this time, but I have no doubt that is because of the bread machine. There was so much less mess to clean up!
I am hoping that the students remember the differences between the two types of bread on Monday, because we'll play "Best Guess" as our drill, and finish our sentences for the first bread podcast. With luck, we'll get it recorded too!

Google My Maps

One of the last of my projects for my graduate class is a group work on a Google Tool. Each group had to choose any Google Tool, explore how to use it, and then come up with ways to use it in the classroom. My group is rather diverse: myself, a special education teacher, a librarian at an inner city school, and a guitar/history teacher in Southern Maryland. Given our unique make-up, it was a little tough to find a tool we would all benefit from... And then, somebody posted a website that was created to explore the assigned challenge of telling the same story 50 different ways. The website included a story that used Google's My Maps. I was convinced this was it, and fortunately, the others in the group agreed! I've spent the last few days learning how to create my own maps. The first one is rather dull, being just a list of places that I've visited over the years; the only interesting bits there are the few sites I included articles on, or photographs. But, my second map is far more exciting (at least to me!), and shows pictures of my trip to Seattle. I used the hybrid settings on My Maps to create a tour of Seattle using the pictures I took, and some wikipedia articles. I was even able to find a YouTube video about the Pigs On Parade. I can just imagine how this could help my students see and learn about places in the United States, or other countries. It gives the hook to get their interest, but also teaches to their strengths by providing visual and kinesthetic opportunities. My only issues are that, as near as I can tell, the Map program doesn't work with assistive technology such as screen readers, and text-to-speech, and I didn't really see a way to add a caption to photos I embedded. It is also rather time consuming to pull all the media files and articles onto the map. I think that for some large units, its worth the effort. It would certainly be a good project for students to complete to show off what they've learned. Here is a quick video about how to make a Google My Map of your own:

Unleavened Bread

Yesterday, we played Best Guess and then made unleavened bread in class. The bread was supposed to come out as "crisps", but even though we flattened the bread out pretty well, it wound up more like pita bread, soft and kind of chewy. I thought it was okay with butter, but not all of the students enjoyed tasting it. I was again reminded that cooking requires that the students use all of their skills to make a finished product: we read the recipe, we did math when we measured, and set the timer on the oven, and we have already been talking about how different cultures make different kinds of bread. Last year, we had done some hands-on work with equivalent fractions, and 3 of the students were able to tell me what we could use if I lost the 1 cup measuring cup: we could use 3 of the 1/3, 2 of the 1/2, and 4 of the 1/4. They didn't necessarily SAY it that way, but they picked up the correct cup when given a choice, so I think that means they know it! One of the students was the official photographer, and followed instructions beautifully when told to just take pictures of hands, not faces or bodies. Since she did such a nice job, I was able to put together a very quick slide show. Enjoy!

Best Guess!

I am always looking for ways to encourage my students to guess. Guessing is a very hard thing for them to do, because they do not ever want to appear wrong. And yet, guessing is something that we always have to do, because there is no way to always be correct. To encourage this, and sneak a bit of science into our classroom, I made a "game" called "Best Guess!". It was really simple.
I used 2 sheets of inkjet magnets from Avery (see a this post for where to buy the sheets). On one sheet, I made 2x4 sized name tags for each student, along with the two choices for today's round. On another sheet, I made a question prompt (today's is: The bread we made is ___________________), and a cut-out star shape with "BEST GUESS!" written on it. The directions were printed on a sheet of card stock. The directions were pretty simple: choose one of the words and put it next to your name. If you're right at the end of the block, you get 2 extra tickets in our weekly drawing (which is how they earn money to buy rewards at our classroom store).
Today's drill tells the students to look on the back of the door to find the game.
We'll see how it goes...

Expectations

I had to go over to the public library this afternoon to pick up our books for the Bread All Around Us project. I had worked with my school librarian to find the books, then to make my life easier, just did a reserve request at the library near where I live. I made it to the check-out desk with one minute to spare. The librarian found the books, and as she brought them over, she commented on the quantity. I explained that my class was studying different kinds of bread as part of our History/Geography unit this year, and that they were going to produce a podcast. Then, I shared I taught high school students with significant special needs, and so that was why the books were of a much lower reading level. In fact, many of the books were picture books. The librarian wondered if, maybe, I was expecting too much from my students. I told her that I didn't think so, and explained about the digital camera project (This Is My Life) from last year, and that the project was incredibly successful. More so than any of the staff that helped with the grant and project would have thought. I also told her about going to Microsoft.
So, are my expectations for my students too high? Maybe. But, they are living up to my expectations with the material they are producing. I see so much growth, and more independence in some of the students, particularly in using technology. I don't think my expectations are too high; what do others think?

Google Images to the Rescue

I think I may have mentioned that my class is learning about the foods of different cultures. Today, as we were taking notes, we reached the part about yeast making bread rise through leavening. At this point, I think I made the mistake of trying to help the students understand how bread rises by asking them if they knew about carbonation One of my students throws her hand in the air, and says, "Oh! Yes! I know that bread has carbonation because its on the back of the label!" It was extremely difficult to keep a straight face, and I'm afraid to admit that I didn't manage it very well. It took lots of explaining with pictures at Google images, plus shaking up some left over diet soda in a bottle before they understood that carbohydrates and carbonation were different! But, I know that every time I look at the nutrition label on food packages, I'll think "carbonation" instead of "carbohydrate"!
I've put a few of the supporting files for the first part of this project. In fact, the project now has a name thanks to one of my students: Bread All Around Us.

Podcasting Project

Podcasting and video are two elements of Web 2.0 that I haven't fully explored. With video, there are issues with student images and also equipment. I know that you can do video with a webcam (thanks to my email friends who reminded me of this!), and we can do video clips with our digital cameras. Of course, there is the old standby of digital still photographs in PhotoStory... And, I just learned today that you can take pictures that are in the Windows Photo Gallery (a Vista feature) and there is a "Make Movie" button on the screen. And so, I've decided to explore podcasting with my students.
My first step was to get the district policies, which also required assurance on my part that I knew how to use Audacity. My second step was to find a topic that might hook my students enough for them to get through the much more difficult pre-work and research before they get to put together the project. Since most of my students are teenage boys, and 3 of them are taking Gourmet Foods right now as an elective, I decided to have them explore food. My initial idea was exploring foods in different regions of the United States, but I'm worried that might be too broad. And then I remembered a wonderful project that the Family & Consumer Science teacher at a middle school I worked at did with the students (I helped my students with the project) on bread. Each culture, everywhere in the world has bread. Pita, white bread, matzoh, naan, pancakes, crackers, tortillas.
Now, I need to come up with how I want them to do the projects. As I looked at podcasting, I realized that the all of the poetry projects they completed could be considered 'screencasts' or 'videoblogs'. That really makes me want to come up with a way to have the students do this without the "picture" (screen, video etc). I'm just not sure how to make that happen.