For our final summer class, we were each required to research a certain program that helps organize your life, the assignment being called "Organizing Your Online Life". I was assigned the program Evernote. I had heard great things about this program before beginning this assignment, but never had any hands on experience with it. I was a little unprepared to look at it from a teaching perspective, because I had only ever seen it used as a note-taking program, which is more closely associated with the student role.
My experience with researching was pretty basic. For learning to use any technological program, I find it easiest to find a YouTube video explaining in detail with visuals. I was actually able to find a 40 minute video going through all of the basics and all of the possibilities with just a basic Google search. (Video at: Evernote 2014 Tutorial --If you're at all interested) I was able to learn very quickly some of the tricks people had found with using this program, as well as the basic functions that most people use it for.
After having done the research, I found that Evernote seemed to be more of an organizational tool, rather than a hands on classroom tool for students. One major drawback I noticed with Evernote in comparison to Google Drive, was that there is no function for collaborative work, unless you buy a Premium subscription, which has a monthly or an annual fee attached to it. I think if Evernote itself could offer all of the perks of the Premium membership, I would be fully on board to use it in my classroom. You can share all different forms of documents with students, like webpages with and without images/ads, documents, lists, presentations, images, edited images, sound clips,...it's amazing. But the application seems much more geared towards individual organization rather than collaborative work, which I really enjoy about google docs.
Not to say that the basic application does not come with its perks! You can get a browser add-on which allows you, like I mentioned before, to clip web pages with and without pictures or ads, so it's easy to save any web pages of interest in one, organized place, separated into folders and neatly stored. Also, because Evernote is an online program and is compatible with basically any device, you can access your saved documents on any device you may have!
I really would watch the tutorial video, to see how Evernote could help you organize your own personal life, but as far as use in the classroom goes, I think it may just create more work for you as a teacher, and as Kaitlynn had mentioned, it becomes exhausting trying to spread yourself out across so many different online applications. When do the use of programs like this become counterproductive??
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Monday, July 21, 2014
Video Games: Thoughts from a Different Perspective
This is an interesting topic for me, which makes this assignment really exciting! This past year, I've had many conversations about all the benefits to be had through playing video games. I cannot claim to be much of a game player myself, but I have learned a lot about them through the eyes of others.
One game, which I have learned a great deal about these past couple years, is called Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm (SC2), which is a real-time strategy game, where you can play as a single player through a story line, but I believe it is best known for its multi-player game play. Here's a short preview video of just a cinematic that was released just before the game itself.
One game, which I have learned a great deal about these past couple years, is called Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm (SC2), which is a real-time strategy game, where you can play as a single player through a story line, but I believe it is best known for its multi-player game play. Here's a short preview video of just a cinematic that was released just before the game itself.
Basically, in the multi-player mode, you play as one of three races, Protoss (aliens), Terran (humans), or Zerg (bugs), each with various units, technology, and strategies. In the video above, Blizzard Entertainment created animations of a Terran vs. Zerg battle, which is personally my favorite match-up to watch. Each player is responsible to build buildings, which allow for the creation of units, which they want to make a particular composition in order to defeat their opponent. Along with creating an army, in order to be effective, a player wants to scout their opponent to properly attack and defend against them. This game requires macro play, which consists of building technology, collecting an income in minerals and gas, and constantly creating units, as well as micro play, which involves moving your units, usually your army to most effectively attack your opponent, or to avoid certain attacks, you need to move your army a certain way.
This game can range from fairly simple, to extremely complicated, meaning that there are professional Korean players making millions each year practicing and playing competitively...they're really really impressive. This is one of the games taken very seriously in South Korea, to a point where people will live in a gaming house, sometimes practicing upwards of 14 hours a day. You can watch their streams on twitch.tv and also watch tournaments of the game too. (There will actually be a tournament in Detroit this August!) Anyways...
Because of this huge range of skill sets, I will try to narrow down my discussion to focusing on the Terran race, which I am most familiar with, in terms of the James Paul Gee article "Good Video Games and Good Learning," which we read for class.
1. Identity: Players create a username under which they play other players around the world. They are matched up against players with a similar skill level, and can play games from 1v1 all the way to 4v4, where you have four players against four. Players usually in it the game for the long haul as they "ladder," which means they play game after game, trying to beat their opponents to gain points and move from the Bronze league all the way to the Grandmaster league (which is the top tier players in the region).
2. Interaction: After each game, each player will see a screen such as the one below, which shows their stats in comparison to their teammates and opponents. The graphic below shows a 2v2 game of the amount of resources collected throughout the game by each each player.
This feedback allows for players to see specifically where they could use improvement, whether it be income use, army size, APM (actions per minute), or the order they created their buildings and units. Players also have the opportunity to watch replays of the games, where they can see the perspectives of all players to better understand what occurred throughout the game, and what they may have missed.
3. Production: As was discussed above, players are responsible for creating tech/buildings as well as units to create an effective army.
4. Risk Taking: Because you're playing a live opponent usually, often there is a lot of risk taking involved. The point system makes it a challenge, as you want to gain more points by beating your opponent, but if you lose, you only lose so many points and you can re-queue a game to try again. As I said before, you want to scout your opponent to know what they are up to, but this is not always possible, and when attacking blindly, you are taking a huge risk. But, once again, you learn from the risks you take. One even more important aspect of risk taking in this game has to do with the economic efficiency you reach for while playing. Each game, with the requirement to collect and spend resources, you want to effectively spend, which requires knowing what buildings, tech, and units to spend resources on, which resources to collect and how much at each base, and when to spend you resources collected. As you can tell, it gets complicated really quickly, and there's a lot to think about while playing in real-time (as it is an RTS). It's so complicated, that I know I'm not properly explaining it all, even with all the time in the world...
5. Customization: The game play is set into different leagues, so when you first start playing, you begin in Bronze league, and as you gain more points, by beating your opponents, you can move up into Silver league, then Gold, then Platinum, then Diamond, then Masters, and for those elite player, then Grandmasters. This allows for players to play at their level and progress at their own pace.
6. Agency: In this game, you are totally responsible for what occurs, and have the power to be in total control of your units. One example of this is the micro mechanics involved in using your army at the top levels. Below is a video of MarineKingPrime, the person (who introduced this game to and explained everything to me)'s favorite player, microing his Terran (blue) units against a larger Zerg (red) army, in order to survive an insane engagement against one of the best Zerg players, Startale Life.
7. Well-Order Problems: Because the players move up through the leagues, they are allowed to learn gradually the skills needed to play at the top leagues, and the game-play is tailored to their needs and skills.
8. Challenge and Consolidation: Similar to 7.
9. "Just in Time" and "On Demand": Although players cannot demand which league to be in, they are placed based on win rates and points, and can play against the computer at whatever level they may choose.
10. Situated Meanings: The game is learned through playing and watching others. So any actions or instructions are usually accompanied by images or run throughs.
I think from just these 10 aspects of video games you can see the relevance SC2 has, and there is a lot to figure out while playing and a lot to learn. This game is based on a lot of risk/reward quick decision making, and is extremely difficult, because of the multi-tasking involved while trying to make these decisions. I believe there really is a lot to learn from such a complicated game as this, and when you take the time to understand the economic ideals, and the mathematics behind cost/benefit decisions, this could be a tool used to gain knowledge and learn to apply some aspects from school to the game.
I know I just attempted to share a lot of information that may have been confusing. So if you have any questions, feel free to leave them and I'll do my best to answer!
Friday, July 18, 2014
The Question of Assessment...in particular The Smarter Balance Assessment
We had been discussing this idea of student assessment, as well as teacher assessment and evaluation a lot this week, and it has been difficult to understand where my beliefs lie in terms of these various forms of testing for both students and teachers. I suppose this post is supposed to focus on student assessment though, so let me begin there...
In terms of The Smarter Balance Assessment, I enjoyed taking it, but can see areas in which students may struggle. We had discussed, as a group, our problems when being given the test in class. One comment was that the preparation involved for taking the test was confusing and overwhelming and I would agree. Nobody needs to begin their test having to go through a list like this...
...without fully understanding what these options change. Perhaps, if students were able to mess around with these options before taking the actual test, this would allow them to truly find the best settings that fit their needs. I understand that allowing students to choose the settings that best fit their preferences is meant to reduce discrepancies based on overall preference and comfort with certain looks of the text, but this can easily be seen as too much to decide somewhat blindly.
Another concern was that the questions were so disorganized in terms of how to answer and/or respond to the problem posed. Although, I enjoyed answering these questions, as a future math teacher, I understand why a student, who is not prepared for a test of this format, would be easily thrown off and perform below their actual understanding of material on this assessment. Going into this activity, we were not prompted with much, other than to log in and pick a grade and topic...then try out a few of the questions. I found the questions quite interesting, and I think they may more accurately test the students' understanding of the material they were supposed to have been taught. I think with proper preparation and framing by the teacher, students would not be so thrown by the varying types of questions, because I believe that being able to switch from one format of question to another is a skill that can and ought to be developed. I just wonder how much time we, as teachers, have to spend on trying to prepare students for this type of test format, and whether we even want to be teaching in response to this particular test.
Just going through the 9th Grade math portion of the test, one thing I was concerned about was question 2 shown below:
It's difficult to read the question here, but it ask students to find possible centers for a tangent circle to the original circle, and asks students to show their work in the box designed for paragraph writing. If you're unfamiliar with the work involved with mathematics problems (especially geometry questions), which I doubt you are, you would recognize how difficult it can be to explain in words how you solved a problem. For me, the process of solving this problem required diagrams, equations, and drawing/erasing lines and values. How do I write all of my steps in one word processing box, especially under the pressure of a time constraint, and knowing that this is the 2nd of who knows how many questions...?
The last confusing aspect of this exam that I remember from class is the issues with navigation throughout the text. The arrow navigation buttons would not allow you to move onto the next problem without having entered some answer to the current problem, which I would think most students are not used to, having taken the ACT and GRE myself, knowing that this is not the case for those tests. I wish I had gotten to try out this function myself more, as I think I was too focused on answering the problems...but this would also require some preparation for students in order to efficiently navigate the test.
Ultimately, I think the Smarter Balance Test, at least the math section, can be an effective tool for measuring a student's mastery of certain grade level's math content. My only concern is that it would require a lot of preparation, in order to get students comfortable with the changing format of the test, and the ways in which to navigate the test.
I'm wondering whether those of you who took the English portions of the exam experienced similar issues as those of us who took the math portion.
In terms of The Smarter Balance Assessment, I enjoyed taking it, but can see areas in which students may struggle. We had discussed, as a group, our problems when being given the test in class. One comment was that the preparation involved for taking the test was confusing and overwhelming and I would agree. Nobody needs to begin their test having to go through a list like this...
Another concern was that the questions were so disorganized in terms of how to answer and/or respond to the problem posed. Although, I enjoyed answering these questions, as a future math teacher, I understand why a student, who is not prepared for a test of this format, would be easily thrown off and perform below their actual understanding of material on this assessment. Going into this activity, we were not prompted with much, other than to log in and pick a grade and topic...then try out a few of the questions. I found the questions quite interesting, and I think they may more accurately test the students' understanding of the material they were supposed to have been taught. I think with proper preparation and framing by the teacher, students would not be so thrown by the varying types of questions, because I believe that being able to switch from one format of question to another is a skill that can and ought to be developed. I just wonder how much time we, as teachers, have to spend on trying to prepare students for this type of test format, and whether we even want to be teaching in response to this particular test.
Just going through the 9th Grade math portion of the test, one thing I was concerned about was question 2 shown below:
It's difficult to read the question here, but it ask students to find possible centers for a tangent circle to the original circle, and asks students to show their work in the box designed for paragraph writing. If you're unfamiliar with the work involved with mathematics problems (especially geometry questions), which I doubt you are, you would recognize how difficult it can be to explain in words how you solved a problem. For me, the process of solving this problem required diagrams, equations, and drawing/erasing lines and values. How do I write all of my steps in one word processing box, especially under the pressure of a time constraint, and knowing that this is the 2nd of who knows how many questions...?
The last confusing aspect of this exam that I remember from class is the issues with navigation throughout the text. The arrow navigation buttons would not allow you to move onto the next problem without having entered some answer to the current problem, which I would think most students are not used to, having taken the ACT and GRE myself, knowing that this is not the case for those tests. I wish I had gotten to try out this function myself more, as I think I was too focused on answering the problems...but this would also require some preparation for students in order to efficiently navigate the test.
Ultimately, I think the Smarter Balance Test, at least the math section, can be an effective tool for measuring a student's mastery of certain grade level's math content. My only concern is that it would require a lot of preparation, in order to get students comfortable with the changing format of the test, and the ways in which to navigate the test.
I'm wondering whether those of you who took the English portions of the exam experienced similar issues as those of us who took the math portion.
Understanding Education Through the Eyes of John Dewey
In John Dewey's piece entitled My Pedagogic Creed, one is quick to notice the direction of his attention in terms of education. I found it interesting how he believes that education begins almost at birth, and I would agree. As humans, it is in our nature to constantly be taking in tons of information from our environment. From there, our brains make sense of this information and turn it into useful pieces of knowledge, understanding, or awareness. It's important to me to recognize everyone as a learner, no matter where their skill set may lie, and I think Dewey clearly points this out in the first section of his text. We are natural learners, eager to take in and make sense of information, but how do educators fit into this learning process?
Dewey continues on to say "...the only true education comes through the stimulation of the child's powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself." Here, I believe he is referring to the difference between passive and more active learning, or at least my understanding of both types. At birth, the way we are acting as learners is more passive, more innate, while in social situations, we must consciously assess the situations, or pay close attention to details expressed, and learn to act accordingly, often in a way that is deemed "acceptable" by the society that we are in. Dewey describes these two different sides of the "educational process" as the psychological (basic learning from your environment) and the sociological sides. This sociological side incorporates how the child, as an individual, works with and among those in their society in order to increase social welfare. One thing I never thought about, was how these two sides were dependent on each other. For example, the individual must have some understanding of their surroundings in order to learn to function in a social situation with others. In other words, in order to learn to function with others in a society, the individual must have certain actions developed in response to the constant intake of knowledge of their environment and themselves, for others to respond to, and for the individual to learn from those responses. It actually seems like a somewhat circular model of learning.
In the next section of his piece, he explains that schools and educators act as a social institution, which sets the stage for the "social situations" mentioned in the quote above. This is where the teacher fits into the equation, and I believe that my current teaching philosophy follows fairly closely with Dewey's. He states "...that education which does not occur through forms of life...is always a poor substitute for the genuine reality..." For me, this means that we must incorporate and use the knowledge and information around us in order to really teach and learn. As stated before, we are constantly accepting information from around us, and I believe in order to educate, it is our job as teachers to make our content relevant to students. When content is relevant, students will connect with it, forming some deeper understanding being able to form a relationship between the information provided and how it affects them, as well as how they can use it in their daily lives. As a math teacher, it may not be that students will need to be able to pull the pythagorean theorem out at the grocery store, but they could recognize the appearance and usefulness of triangles in the structure of the store, or the effectiveness of wet floor signs to remain standing. Being able to see the pervasiveness of mathematics in their current and active lives, they will be able to interact with the subject as if it were a social situation, in which it is in action throughout their day, changing the way they see the world and how they interact with the world.
As a side note: I've noticed that I've been using knowledge and information interchangeably, and that makes me want to define them more precisely. I never considered myself talented in the art of defining words...but here's my attempt. The difference between knowledge and information is the way it is compartmentalized. Knowledge is acquired with more cognition than information perhaps? Or maybe knowledge is gained from information?
I wonder...what is the difference in your opinion between knowledge and information?
This reading really helps to support my motivation in finding ways to relate math to everything in my students' lives. Whatever they may be interested in, there is a way to connect math, and I believe that if students and people can recognize this, they would understand the importance of mathematics and the beauty of understanding it. Just as reading and writing allow you to connect with others and reflect on your experiences, mathematics allows you to connect and understand your world. My goal as a teacher is to present this idea to students in a meaningful and relevant way...
Dewey continues on to say "...the only true education comes through the stimulation of the child's powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself." Here, I believe he is referring to the difference between passive and more active learning, or at least my understanding of both types. At birth, the way we are acting as learners is more passive, more innate, while in social situations, we must consciously assess the situations, or pay close attention to details expressed, and learn to act accordingly, often in a way that is deemed "acceptable" by the society that we are in. Dewey describes these two different sides of the "educational process" as the psychological (basic learning from your environment) and the sociological sides. This sociological side incorporates how the child, as an individual, works with and among those in their society in order to increase social welfare. One thing I never thought about, was how these two sides were dependent on each other. For example, the individual must have some understanding of their surroundings in order to learn to function in a social situation with others. In other words, in order to learn to function with others in a society, the individual must have certain actions developed in response to the constant intake of knowledge of their environment and themselves, for others to respond to, and for the individual to learn from those responses. It actually seems like a somewhat circular model of learning.
In the next section of his piece, he explains that schools and educators act as a social institution, which sets the stage for the "social situations" mentioned in the quote above. This is where the teacher fits into the equation, and I believe that my current teaching philosophy follows fairly closely with Dewey's. He states "...that education which does not occur through forms of life...is always a poor substitute for the genuine reality..." For me, this means that we must incorporate and use the knowledge and information around us in order to really teach and learn. As stated before, we are constantly accepting information from around us, and I believe in order to educate, it is our job as teachers to make our content relevant to students. When content is relevant, students will connect with it, forming some deeper understanding being able to form a relationship between the information provided and how it affects them, as well as how they can use it in their daily lives. As a math teacher, it may not be that students will need to be able to pull the pythagorean theorem out at the grocery store, but they could recognize the appearance and usefulness of triangles in the structure of the store, or the effectiveness of wet floor signs to remain standing. Being able to see the pervasiveness of mathematics in their current and active lives, they will be able to interact with the subject as if it were a social situation, in which it is in action throughout their day, changing the way they see the world and how they interact with the world.
As a side note: I've noticed that I've been using knowledge and information interchangeably, and that makes me want to define them more precisely. I never considered myself talented in the art of defining words...but here's my attempt. The difference between knowledge and information is the way it is compartmentalized. Knowledge is acquired with more cognition than information perhaps? Or maybe knowledge is gained from information?
I wonder...what is the difference in your opinion between knowledge and information?
This reading really helps to support my motivation in finding ways to relate math to everything in my students' lives. Whatever they may be interested in, there is a way to connect math, and I believe that if students and people can recognize this, they would understand the importance of mathematics and the beauty of understanding it. Just as reading and writing allow you to connect with others and reflect on your experiences, mathematics allows you to connect and understand your world. My goal as a teacher is to present this idea to students in a meaningful and relevant way...
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