Exciting News

I wanted to post a link and inform all those interested in games in education that Purdue University (just an hour or so away from Oak Hill) has opened the Purdue Center for Serious Games and Virtual Learning Environment.  The Center is headed by Dr. Bill Watson.  I met bill at The Ackerman Colloquium a couple years ago.  Dr. Watson then spent several days in my classroom while we were playing Making History.  It is exciting to see what Purdue, Dr. Watson, and Dr. VanFossen (Ackerman Center) are doing with games and virtual learning.

http://seriousgames.education.purdue.edu/People/index.html

Summer Update

It really has been quite some time since I have blogged and in all honesty I really feel like I don’t have much more to say about Games in Education that I haven’t already said.   I am still a huge fan of games and still use them when I can.  I just feels like every time I think about posting it seems redundent to me. 

I did use Muzzy Lane’s Making History again this year.  As like every year I have used this game the kids loved it.  They always ask for more.  I now have kids taking my classes at the high school because they know I use games.  This is a double edged sword.  First, it is always nice for kids to desire to take my classes.  But I always want that popularity to really be based upon learning not just gaming.  Second, I really spend very little time during the course of a year in games.  Sometimes kids are a bit let down by that….but with the lack of gaming titles that translate well for educational use I do what I can.

I would also say that my teaching with Making History this year was by far the worst I have ever done.  More due to illness factors than anything else.  I had to leave school during the middle of the day during our game action.  I was at that point with my illness that I had to concentrate in order not to throw up.  After two class periods of that agony I informed the principal that I had to leave.   I didn’t think I could make the day like I felt.  So I got in my car to drive home and I had to stop for gas on the way home because I was running on fumes.  I was fairly certain I was going to puke at the gas station but I made it through.  I jumped back in my car for the 20 minute drive home.  Well, I made it about 3 minutes before I pulled over in a panic and barffed all over the road.  I just stood on my breaks, openend my door and let it go.

Anyway, I missed one and a half days of game play and when I returned to school I tried to salvage what lessons I could from the game play.  I know it was mediocre but it was better than me blowing chunks all over the USSR team as they invaded Latvia!!

I also used The InQuizitor this year as well.  I did post about that experience earlier.  But just to recap my students loved this quiz game.  More than I thought they ever would.  They asked for the InQuizitor more than I was cabable of putting quizzes together.  I would highly reccomend buying either of these two games if your budget has the funds. 

www. muzzylane.com  and www.3mrt.com

Finally, we are in the midst of planning our next student trip to Europe.  We will be traveling from Rome to Munich on Spring Break 2010.  Student travel is one of the most rewarding things I have done as a teacher.  Sure, it can be a tremendous pain but the rewards that come to students is incredible.  We started these trips 11 years ago and I have talked to many former students who traveled with us and they have expressed the positives of the trips to me.   Some students have studied over seas, some have majored in foreign language in college, and some have traveled on their own back to the areas we first visited.  It is a nice thing to see the fruits of our labor!

We are confused!

I have to admit that my blogging energies have been gone for quite sometime.  I still advocate the use of games in the classroom and I still use them.  I just haven’t been blogging about it much this year.  But the thing that has me worked up in recent weeks is our government, our big business, and the “solutions” to the problems that the same people have created.

1.  Blame George Bush, Blame Bill Clinton, Blame Barack Obama, heck Blame their mothers….I don’t care.  But as the leaders of this great country you have to take some of the blame.  It just comes with the job.  Blame Congressmen and Congresswomen, blame Secretaries and Fed Chiefs….blame them all.  They all deserve some.  But why are we trusting the same people who caused the problem try to fix the problem?

2.  AIG Bonus Money:  165 Million Dollars….taxpayer dollars.  Used to save a private business that is failing with executives that need retained.  Why do they need retained….they ran the company into the ground.  If they are the “best” then I belive we are in trouble!

3.  John Stewart vs. Town Fool Cramer:  Roll clip 212….if Stewart didn’t prove that there is a HUGE difference between those who are IN the loop and getting rich and the rest of use who are NOT in the loop and watching our retirement go away then I don’t know what else can be done. 

4.  Let’s put some of this in perspective.  The school corporation that I work for has an annual budget of around 12 million dollars.  That pays everything…and I mean everything.  Salaries, benefits, paper, pencils, transportation etc….  The 165 Million dollars of taxpayer money used to pay huge bonuses to AIG employees is enough money to run an this school corporation for 13 years!  Sure with inflation etc…it may end up being 10 years.  But schools have been cutting teachers, increasing class sizes, dropping elective courses like music and art……all while AIG is stealing taxpayer money to pay bonuses to failed leadership. 

How Pathetic!

It has been a while…

Well, it has been quite some time since I sat and blogged my happenings as a teacher and coach so before the New Year hits I thought I should post an update.  During this school year I have starting teaching AP World History which has been great fun.  I love the challenges that teaching a classroom full of motivated studetns provides.  I also continue to teach my regular world history survey course. 

In my daily activites of teaching there are a couple of activites that have become common.  First is that of blogging.  I have talked before about the value of blogging with students and I continue to be a large supporting of this outlet and tool for self expression and educational reflection.  Blogging has become a steady source of activity in my classroom and I feel it offers incredible benefits.  It also saves a couple of trees here and there.  Second, I continue to be a large supporter of the use of games.  The InQuizitor is a game developed by 3MRT that I have recently started using.  I also continue to be a supported of Making History by Muzzy Lane.  Both games are mainstays in my courses.  Making History has become something that kids expect to play when they enroll in world history.  It no longer is “new” ….it is just what we do.  The expectations are different but students still enjoy the fact that their aging teacher likes a good computer game.  Who can’t enjoy a good round of Civ or Age of Empires?  I also am becoming  firm believe in web based games.  I know Muzzy Lane is working on this aspect and has been for some time.  I do think this avenue has potential.  It will be much easier on the classroom teacher to use games in the class if the game is web based versus installation of games on individual machines/servers and then the tech problems that sometimes come with that.  Textbook companies are getting much better with their use of technology to aid instruction and a lot of what publishers are offering is web based. 

I have mentioned in this blog about the pace of change in education….or better the lack of a pace of change.  That issue still plagues us.  Since I started using games in my classroom nearly four years ago, there has been some growth.  However, the growth has not been what I would have expected in our digital world.  What are the causes?  Cost, hardware, software, inexperience?  I don’t really know for certain only time will tell what form games in education will take…..Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

InQuizitor

Right now my classes are starting Ancient Greece in world history.  One thing we have been working on is designing a quiz for the InQuizitor.  Having students write questions is always a difficult task.  I normally find that the questions that kids write are way to simple but we tried anyway.  We now have constructed a 40 question quiz over ancient Greece.  Most questions are ok….I did do some editing but I essentially wanted the quiz to be theirs.  Tomorrow we will play The InQuizitor and our ancient Greece quiz. 

Once we have done that our plan is to share the quiz with our 6th grade world civilization teacher.  She is going to cover ancient Greece in a couple of weeks.  I certainly hope the quiz is good enough for her kids to use and is beneficial to her class.

Textbook Adoption

This is the year for social studies textbook adoption in Indiana.  As Department Chair of the social studies department I get to see all the materials.  I get bombarded with emails, mailings and information.  The exciting part of textbook adoption is the hope that the materials that are available will be more than new textbooks but the textbooks will be better than the previous crop.  Unfortunately it looks like this year that might not be the case.  Now I haven’t seen all the books and materials like the people quoted in the article and I will give my assessment when I have seen them all.  However, social studies books have become too “politically correct” over the last decade to include the stories of history that are essential for the learning of history.  What ever happened to the thought that we teach history to help us learn from our mistakes.  But if we don’t teach the mistakes then how do we learn from our history? 

I had the thought of asking history teachers to share their best stories that enhance the teaching in their classroom.  Then I could compile, organize, and post them for all social studies teachers to use.  Since textbooks aren’t helping us out we should probably just do it on our own.  Any thoughts?

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081002/LOCAL/810020479

 

What is going on at Oak Hill….

As always life has been incredibly busy and I have often find less and less time to sit down and blog.  My kids are getting older and active, our football team is 6-0 and playing some very good football, I am still teaching World History, and have added AP World History to my schedule.  As for my use of games in the classroom:  I will continue to use Making History this year.  I am also using the InQuizitor.  Both I have blogged about here.  I also have my AP kids blogging.  So like too many people in America I have a lot going on but it is all beneficial to me and my students.  I had a great moment the other day in my AP class when we were discussing Acient Egypt.  The topic turned to taxing districts that occured at regular intervals along the Nile.  Somewhere in the conversation it hit me that this discussion is not normal for Sophomores.  That the thoughts that the AP kids were having were pushing me to become a better teacher and to gain more knowledge.  That was one of those moments in teaching when I realized that the kid was making me get better….I like that.

Also, I have blogged here about student travel and the benefits of exposing students to the cultures of the world.  I have submitted the necessary paperwork to  our Board of Education for the approval of our next trip overseas. (it will be our 7th trip) I am confident that the approval will be forthcoming and I will take a new batch of kids to see the wonder of Europe.  These expereinces are beyond anything I can do in the classroom and are activites that I can not replicate.

Just wanted to post an update.  When football is over hopefully I can become a bit more regular with my postings.

Kids and Video Games

Here is an interesting story about kids, video games, and socialization. Finally, some mainstream people are seeing the kids that game are not building compounds, digging motes, and disturbed.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,423402,00.html

Start of School

We have finsihed our first week of school at Oak Hill High School. It was much like any other year. New kids, new faces but all in all the first week is awesome. I enjoy meeting the new students and finding ways to start making connections to build a solid relationship. One thing I did with my AP students on the first day was assign a two page essay about their observations of the first day of school. (I see them 6th period). The essay on observations was an idea I got from Tim Russert’s book. He addressed the topic when he had a teacher that assinged a similar type essay and one of the lasting impressions that he took away was that there was no right or wrong in obersvations. And like many things in history and observation…..your point of view and perspective has much to do with how you interpret events. The essay assignment was great and reading the essays over the next couple of days I was very excited as to the level of thought and writing my AP students exhibited. We also took 20 minutes or so to set up some classroom blogs. I am going to have them write many things via a blog versus pen and paper. It saves a few trees, is tremendously convienient for me ( I can read and assess from any hot spot in the world, and kids love it. With the tech savvy student, by the way was each one of my AP students, setting up a blog took them less time than it did for me to explain the blog. The speed of their world is different than mine……it is amazing. It has taken me 5 minutes to type this post….a 16 year old could text it in about 18 seconds.

On to our first full week of school which will hold many adventures. We will be building InQuizitor quizzes this week. We will also be starting our football season. This is my 15th year of teaching and coaching and I really feel I have exited the tunnel that seemed to be closing in on me for a few years…..I was getting bored with teaching the same subject for 15 years……to the same type of kid…..in the same school…..I was approaching middle aged 40 and wondered why I was doing this over and over again. I am not entirely sure I can answer that question but renewal is a wonderful thing and expansion is even better. And I am somewhere between the two.

Becoming a better Teacher

I spent the last 10 days becoming a better teacher.  The outcome of what I just did was not my original intention.  The last 10 days my wife and I spent in Italy.  Our goal was simply to have a good time and to visit the sites in and around Rome and Sorrento.  Rome, The Eternal City, is absolutely amazing and as a teacher of World History I can not imagine another individual place on this earth that has more impact on World History than the city of Rome.  We did all the major and most of the minor tourist sites over a 5 day period.  But while there I kept visualizing how I could use all this information in my classes.  From the ancient Roman sites to the amazing art of Michelangelo, Raphael etc… of the Renaissance and some more modern points of interest from Mussolini and WWII.  All of this was fantastic.  It was wonderful and it will make me a better teacher.  But just as interesting I met several teachers from Canada while in Rome.  We shared many good conversations over a pizza and a cold drink, which we normally needed in the hot Roman sun.  But it was eye opening to disucss how Canada educates its children and how the US educates ours.  The discussions that we had have had an impact on me and will continue to do so and I think the Canadian educators feel the same.  We had great talks about Socialism and Capitalism.  We had talks about how, why, and under what circumstances are students allowed to fail.  We discussed testing and learning and many other topics.  But as always it was enlightening to sit and talk with other educators.  Anyway, after leaving the city of Rome we did head to Sorrento for a couple of days.  We spent a day on the island of Capri, which is breath-taking.  The beauty is difficult to express in words.  After our time in Sorrento we headed back to Rome for our flight back to the USA.  It is always good to be home but the Eternal City will call me back.  When, I don’t know for sure but it will.

Games In Education

It is hard to believe that I will be entering my 5th year of using COTS games in my high school history classroom. But as I prepare for the upcoming year it always lends time for me to reflect why I continue to use games and why I look for opportunities for even more.

1. Kids don’t love this stuff…….thay ARE this stuff. It never ceases to amaze me how streamlined technology and young people have become. Using a computer/game as a part of the educational process is such a normal process. I was shopping for my daughter’s birthday yesterday and there were two young ladies working in the store my old man guess is these young ladies were 19-23 years old. Anyway, while they were working, and they were very good moving around the store and talking to people including me, my wife and my mother in law…..then I would watch them retreat to the desk where one computer was being used to check out customers and the other was logged on to one of the gals facebook account. My point here is that these gals were doing their jobs and doing it rather well. They were helpful, pleasant, and an assest to the store. They wrapped gifts while I was there, showed customers how some toys and games worked. And they did all of that while networking with friends on facebook. The two entities have nearly become one.

Another story that explains the same world……I was sitting around a room of 15 football players and two other coaches. We were eating pizza and shooting the breeze. Of the 15 guys I would estimate 10 of them had their phones with them. And during our time together guys were texting and taking part in the real time conversation in the room. Some could say they were being rude but the setting was very informal and relaxed. But how these young men could effortlessly particiapate in two forms of communication was interesting. I text from time to time…but when I do….the world has to come to a stop. I have to concentrate to get it right or close to right. When I hit send then the world is allowed to start spinning again. I am so old (40).

2. Digital as a Second Language. I had this thought the other day. In education we are very concerned, as we should be, with teaching kids that English is their Second Language. ESL kids. But when are we going to become adequately concerened about teaching Digital as a Second Language? I am not talking about programming I am talking about teaching kids in a way that they live. Which is essentially my first point of this post.

3. Creation and Evolution. I used to be a teacher that played games with his studets but I have become a teacher that sees the value in creation of games as well. The cognitive process that all teachers are looking for is a higher level of thinking. To climb Bloom’s Taxonomy. That can be achieved in the creation of games or parts of games by students, and also by letting students evolve through the play of a game. Both scenariors lend themselves to pushing kids to think beyond their normal, everyday level.

4. A dawning of a new generation. This has been happening slowly over time but recently I sat on an interview team to hire a new teacher. The candidates that earned interviews had two subsets. Subset one was 30 plus years old with some life experience. Subset two were the younglings, right out of college and not experienced in life. But another big difference that was evident was the level of technology that the younglings talked about. Things that were talked about were blogging, youtube, and daily or frequent use of technology. They weren’t saying these things because they thought that is what we wanted to hear. They said them because that is what they are. The candidates that were older didn’t talk about technology in the same way.

Well, what does this next year hold for me? I will not be teaching Sociology. So my use of The Sims has come to a stop (for now). I will continue to use Making History. I have also added The InQuizitor to my use. I am also thinking about using a couple of other things but as always I have no money to spend from the school (budget woes continue) but if I find the right thing I will certainly buy it for my classroom. I will be teaching AP World History this year which I am very excited to do. I want to use some of the things I have done with my Gen Ed World History but do them at a deeper level. But as always teaching is a craft, an art, and a difficult thing to do well. Anyone can sit in a room to supervise kids but only those who challenge themselves can challenge others. So let the games begin.

Hand Eye Coordination and Games

Here is an interesting video about improved hand eye coordination as a result of gaming.

http://www.science.tv/watch/f9c5228fde841714f523/Are-games-good-for-you?

Summertime, AP World History, Professional Development and more!

I have been on summer break for two weeks now.  That is one of the nice things about working at Oak Hill….we always end the school year before Memorial Day.  Some teachers don’t like ending so early but I do.  Anyway, next year I will be teaching AP World Hisotry for the first time.  I worked up my syllabus and submitted it to AP College Board and was approved.  I am looking forward to this.  I plan on using Making History, The InQuizitor, and Blogging.  Blogging will be a very frequent tool in my AP course.  I will use it for my essays as well.  I haven’t decided if I will make the student blogs public or not but I will certainly update this site with how things are going.

Another thing that I have kicked around for a year or so.  I have been approached many times about doing some speaking for professional development for teachers.  For those of you who know me you understand that public speaking is certainly right up my alley…..but doing professional development for teachers is a very dangerous area in my opinion.  Too many times in my 14 years of public education we have brought in outside speakers for professional development.  Some have “earned” a hefty speaking fee and their value has been…..well……hard to find even by the most dedicated teacher.  I certainly don’t want to be a speaker that has very little value to the classroom.  Is gaming in the classroom, using 21st century technology in the classroom, and an old, bald, father of three, football coach in demand for professional development?  I don’t really know the answer to this question.  I am considering this and welcome all comments or advice about possibly starting this venture.

Other activities of my last few weeks include a trip to the Indy 500 with my father.  This year was my dad’s 49th Indy 500.  Next year we will have to do something special to celebrate his 50th.  The first pic is of my dad, brother in law, sister and me on pit road prior to the running of the race.  It is an incredible experience to be on pit road on race day.  The second pic is of Scott Dixon’s car.  A few hours later Dixon and his car were in victory circle.  I have grown up being and open wheel racing fan and was certainly glad to see Dixon win the race.  He is a good guy and easy to root for.  Probably the most memorable moment of the race was when Danica Patrick marched down pit road to go and get Ryan Briscoe who had knocked her out of the race.  She was ticked off and wanted a piece of him.  She took some crap for acting like a bi***…..but that was crap!  Tony Stewart acts like that in BORECAR all the time and everyone thinks he is a competitor……so Danica….kept getting after it! 

Making History–year 4 continued

Well our game play sessions are now complete and I am in the process of debriefing my students and doing some assessments with them.  I certainly think that the excitement level of this years crop of students was possible an all time high.  I don’t know if they are hearing about the game now from other students in the building or not, some heard about the CBS story that aired a  year ago…..but whatever the reason I will take it. 

One of the things that has been going on in my classroom during this year is Professor Bill Watson from Purdue University has spent several days in my classroom observing, video taping, and interviewing kids that have played the game.  He also spent some time with me today asking me some questions.  I always love sessions like this because if makes me reflect a bit deeper than I think I normally would.  He asked me a lot of good questions but maybe the one that struck me the most was something to do with would kids learn from the game without the teacher.  Well the simple answer is yes.  They would certainly pick up some things with or without me in the room.  However, the better answer is they learn more with me in the room….or at least I like to think so.  I think the use of games in the classroom is only a portion of the puzzle that teachers need to assemble in order to attain best practices during the school year.  I like to think that me, the game, the student, and the material all play a vital role in the educational process.  The game does not, should not, or will ever replace the teacher in the room.  The art of teaching is not digital….it is human. 

I will share as much of the results as Professor Watson will allow on this blog.  Stay tuned through the summer for details on that.

Making History—Year 4

It is hard to believe but this is my 4th year of using Making History from Muzzy Lane Software in my classroom.  We started playing the game yesterday and the excitement level of kids is the same as every other year…..very high.  More chatter about history class happens because of this game than anything else I do during the year.  Heck….our computer lab has windows that look out to the rest of the media center….and I had kids watching from the other side of the windows….salivating…..wanting to come in and play. 

Was the day smooth?  No, we had some tech issues early in the day to deal with.  I found a suitable solution so the second half of the day worked much better.  But that is the art of teaching….your plans are only as good as all the factors included in them….when one part breaks, is absent, or gets moved for a school convo…then the teacher has to mod his or her plans.  Is what I am doing this year ideal or best practices….no….but it is working so we are running with it.

I have blogged many times about the use of this game and said many good things about it and other games in the classroom.  However, what is discouraging about computer games in the classroom is how they have only increased slightly in the last four years.  I talk to people every month who have heard about what I do.  They like it.  They are interested.  And some even start using a game or two.  But why are teachers not using games and technology to teach?  Every teacher desk has a computer on it……most schools have a computer lab…some have multiple labs.  Kids homes have multiple computers in them.  We take attendance with the computer, lunch counts with the computer, make bus schedules and master class schedules with computers, we make airline reservations with computers, print off boarding passes with computers, make car rentals with the computer, shop on the internet, turn our lights on and off with a computer, run our HVAC with a computer……but we teach with a white board and a marker……..does that seem right???????????  Sorry about the rant but it just doesn’t seem right.  We live in a tech world….we produce factory model kids……I think we need to change…..quicker.