My school now has a mobile laptop lab that has found it’s “permanent” home in my classroom.  This has been a great addition.  No signing up weeks in advance for a computer lab, no sharing the computer lab with other classes or individual students needing to finish a last minute project.  Laptops in my room, with my students….

The first use of the mobile lab was to play Making History last Spring with my AP World History students.  We played the game after my students had taken their AP test from the College Board and they needed a change in routine.  As every year I have played this game in the classroom….the kids loved it.  Of course we always go to war very quickly…..thus the war also ends quicker with a devastated Europe.  Not a heck of a lot different than real history except the timeline speeds up considerably.

Secondly, the mobile lab allowed me to teach my sociology class this semester in a very environmentally friendly way.  We were a paperless classroom.  Tests, assignments, PowerPoints, etc… all produced on the laptops and emailed directly to my school email account.  This was a nice first run through of going paperless and I will continue to do this with my second semester class as well.   Also, while teaching sociology, in the midst of classroom discussion of topics including teen driving statistics, alcohol and drug use, and crime and deviance (to name a few) the laptops provide instant ability to find hard statistics from reliable sources to help kids make their anecdotal evidence cold hard facts.  Or sometimes they found their arguments were not supported by statistics.  This new way of working the room was interesting.  Sometimes discussion took interesting turns but all in all it was a very positive experience for all.

And finally, teaching the tech generation is sometimes very interesting.  Simple tasks like attaching a file to an email is not something that all Seniors know how to do.  And to be quite honest the spider web of information in cyberspace is sometimes overwhelming for them.  Separating the wheat from the chaff seems to be easy for most but if your world centers on facebook and twitter then the entirety of the world wide web is intimidating to some.  I found that the tech generation is not always as prepared for the use of technology as one might expect.  New machines, new ways of teaching the same material, and games in my room…..all of it still boils down to students wanting to learn and teachers wanting to teach.  When the two meet in the middle great things can happen.

Have a Merry Christmas!

http://www.icivics.org/games/do-i-have-right

The first semester is in the books and unfortunately games have been few and far between.  But here are some of the activities I have been up to in the classroom.

AP World History:  I have been trying to teach sophomores to think.  Yes I know that this challenge is one that society has been struggling with for years…..hence the definition of sophomoric…..but I do try.  AP has been a lot of fun for me to teach.  I do enjoy a room that is full of students who want to succeed.  The abscence of the lethargic student during one period of the day is refreshing.  We have been trying to write essays and practice the styles of essays that the AP Exam asks students to write.  I am pushing them out of their comfort zone….some love it…..some don’t….but I hope all will see the benefits come Spring testing time!

World History: My regular WH classes have been going well.  Two years ago when we started AP history one thing I failed to realize is that when the motivated are removed and put into one class during the day….the remaining classes have a tendency to become less motivated…if that makes sense.  I have not blogged this year with either AP or regular world history.  This mainly comes from the lack of adequate technology….or should I say working order technology.  I have mentioned before that we recently “upgraded” but the bugs have been many and difficult to deal with….so in all honesty I have just avoided the computer lab as much as possible.  We shall see what next semester brings.

Sociology:  This class was interesting.  I had The Breakfast Club in my room…..from #1 in his class to infinity in his class.  It was a challenge!!  However, that class is over at break and we are now heading for a new class.

It has been quite some time since I have blogged about the use of games in education.  It is hard to believe the amount of time that has passed since I first met the people from Muzzy Lane in Washington D.C. at NCSS years ago.  Since then I have done many things promoting the  use of games in education.  But the winds of change have come to Oak Hill High School.  We have recently completed an upgrade in our technology which included a change in servers and systems.  I often describe myself and tech friendly but not tech literate.  I have never been interested in the nuts and bolts of technology….just what can I do with it.

We now have some nice equipment at Oak Hill.  However, it is not compatible with my ancient version of Making History.  I have always used the oldest version.  It is the one that was more targeted for education.  The newer versions of the game are much more “gamer” friendly but not so much for the classroom.  So my continued use of MH The Calm and Storm is now in serious doubt.  Other changes this year…..I have not had a class blog to this point.  This may be more of a timing issue than anything.  When our school year started our computer labs were down.  No access at all.  So I didn’t set blogs up with students.  And now that the year is rolling and I have defaulted back to pen and paper for writing it is hard to stop the wheels of education.

I am teaching sociology again for the first time in a couple of years.  However, I have yet to play The Sims.  Again, when I was playing before I used a laptop and a portable projector.  I now have a projector mounted in my room that runs through a splitter for my desktop, sat tv and dvd player.  I now have some issue trying to hook up my laptop to the projector and my desktop is as old as father time.  So the logistics of The Sims have not come together.

Anyway….I could go on but I have really not been using games this year.  I do miss it.  I will return to it.  I will have to change with the new system.  Now that football is over for the season I will have some additional time to work out the details of some of these things.

It is also now official.  I will be teaching Sociology again this year.  It has been a couple of years so it will be fun to get back into social norms, birth order etc…  The only drawback of this new plan is my AP World History course has grown to 29 students.  Which is great!  However, I would love to see those 29 split up into two sections but that is just not going to happen.  Budget restraints don’t give us the ability at this point to divide the class up.  It really is too bad.  I think 29 in an AP class is a mistake….but something I will just have to deal with.

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

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!

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!

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!