Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Video Games
Gee's basic argument is that good video games include a lot of cognitive learning strategies that are often not, but should be, used in a typical classroom.
Before reading this article, I had a very negative opinion of video games as learning tools. Gee's argument is difficult to disagree with, however. Many of the skills that young adults and children learn in video games can help prepare them for the 'real world' even better than much of what they are being taught in school. Though content can be taught, it is more about the way in which it is delivered. I agree with Gee that the video game must be a "good" game and I believe that while most games support Gee's article, I would not suggest many of them for younger children due to their adult content and graphic images.
Scratch can be used in the classroom to motivate creative thinking. Like good video games, it helps the student to become part of the lesson by creating his or her own world through directing the action and appearance of his sprite.
Before reading this article, I had a very negative opinion of video games as learning tools. Gee's argument is difficult to disagree with, however. Many of the skills that young adults and children learn in video games can help prepare them for the 'real world' even better than much of what they are being taught in school. Though content can be taught, it is more about the way in which it is delivered. I agree with Gee that the video game must be a "good" game and I believe that while most games support Gee's article, I would not suggest many of them for younger children due to their adult content and graphic images.
Scratch can be used in the classroom to motivate creative thinking. Like good video games, it helps the student to become part of the lesson by creating his or her own world through directing the action and appearance of his sprite.
Blogging With 5th Graders
I really enjoyed the blogging exercise with the 5th graders. I think that we can provide them with a different perspective than that of their teachers. I was surprised that they weren't encouraged to type more for their essays. I want to use blogging in my classroom, but I would expect as much work done in a blog as I would in an essay.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Scratch
Though I am still learning what Scratch is completely, (I'm in the process of downloading it now so that I can try it out for myself) I found one on the Scratched site that looks interesting and useful for an english classroom. It's called a wikiScratch Picture Dictionary. While it is still an idea in progress, it gave me the idea to use it in the classroom for vocabulary words. Each student would have a word of their own and could contribute to a final dictionary that would include all of the words. Each page would contain the word spelled correctly, a picture, and perhaps the phoenetic spelling and a sentence containing the word. Not only would you have a final dictionary at the end of each unit, you could put all of the units together at the end to incorporate all of the vocabulary words for the year.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Makeup Work: My Think Aloud
Click here to see the published version of my Internet Literacy Think Aloud.
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