My aim in life is to contribute to the larger body owork that pertains to educational games and learning software. For a long time I have tried to find my purpose in life. And perhaps there really isn’t merely one isolated grand scheme. Perhaps, I suggest, there are a variety of potentials that can be realized by myself, and of course anyone else for that matter.
In the collaborative environments created by Web 2.0 technologies where we can share information and experiences, different people from various walks of life are now able to investigate what their own goals are and perhaps even see how their lives overlap with others.
The skills that need to be developed for the 21st Century are those that will definitely need to address people who have grown up with Web 2.0 Technologies and ideologies, and those who are relatively new to it.
In searching for meaning in my life, I have come to realize that I have a profound interest in transferring knowledge to youngsters. And I’ve concluded that if I could get them to learn material, in fun and exciting ways, that there would be a level of relevance that is generated. This relevance would translate into interest on the part of the learner, and eventually result in learning which could conceivably open the students’ mind to related forms of learning and exploration…a part of the skill set that will be needed in the 21st Century among others is a willingness to collaborate.
That being said, I’ve concluded that I need to be involved with the development of education learning games and software.
The Networked Student video could have been referring to me, the Networked Teacher, who because of the need to develop education games, becomes the networked learner. This concept is cyclical. Allow me to elaborate.
In last month’s course, each member of the team had 3 different types of media assets that needed to be developed for our group project. One of the assets was a Flash based game that quizzed the student on 12 common Jamaican vocabulary words. The quiz was the 2nd component to a Power Point Reading Activity.
As a designer and illustrator it was easy for me to create and design graphics that supported the goal for this game. As an educator I enjoyed integrating the educative qualities of the game with the overall design. However, when it came onto the animation and scripting aspects, I wasn’t too knowledgeable.
Enter my Personal Learning Network, which by the way, I was thrilled that to learn that I already had! I have one friend, an animator whose entire life’s ambition has been to become an animator. He is a very talented individual who has worked for agencies and freelanced for a number of clients. A different friend was originally a student in college learning various programming languages, including Object-Oriented C and C++. These two individuals lived in two different locations, and by the way knew of each other, but did not really know each other personally. I used Email and Yahoo Messenger to relay the details of how I wanted the animation to work. When I finally got the version of the game completed to my satisfaction, I sent it on over to the programmer. But wait… he had man questions. As a programmer, he is concerned with the details in the HOW of things. I am concerned with the big picture. So, I could say that I need a game that quizzes people. The first question he’d ask is, “Would it be multiple choice?” “Will they be entering the answers in the keyboard?” “Are they clicking the answer with their mouse?” “How will they know the answer is correct?” (Validation & Confirmation). Because of these questions, I was able to further explain the details of the game to the programmer.
The sequence of the questions, the options, the location of elements. What made sense to him didn’t make sense to me at times and vice versa.
However, the point I am trying to convey is that without my willingness to be open minded, steps toward collaboration and eventual completion of the game could not be made.
Everything that the programmer asked about or raised a point on was taken into serious consideration. If the animator didn’t group objects correctly, he could not script it. This challenged the animator to take different approaches to solving a problem. In addition, the sequencing aspect was a detail that I took a keen interest in. It was important that the learner knew they got an answer correct, and if they got any wrong. The learner needed to get their final score, and if they misspelled a word how they could correct it, In addition, we needed to deal with words that had spaces. All these nuances facilitated a shared learning experience on the part of myself, the animator and programmer.
You can take a look at the final piece here:
Reading Assignment & Flash Based Quiz (
As an educator, I cannot overlook the fact that I will need to be ever learning. And a part of this ever learning comes from being willing to access and grow my PLN.
In addition, I found the steps in Scott Young’s “15 Steps to cultivate Lifelong Learning” (Retrieved Monday, September 14, 2009) to be practical and straightforward approaches. Two of the steps, always reading a book and goal setting are steps that I have already employed in my personal and professional life.
I have found a very compelling application that I would like to investigate further at some point in the very near future. Goal Scape is a goal setting software that makes it comprehensive yet simple to create, manage and monitor your goals.
http://www.goalscape.com/?gclid=CIX13fm58JwCFado5Qod_grAsA (Retrieved Monday, September 14, 2009)
In the effort to be facilitators of children becoming Networked Learners, we, as the teachers/trainers need to be willing to collaborate with our peers as well.
Doing this enables us to relate to the student on a personal level, being that we too as teachers have been in their shoes. We can then tailor learning experiences and prompts that are genuine and not contrived merely for the sake of instruction.
Unless we ourselves learn to become more like students, our students cannot learn to become more like teachers. This reciprocal relationship is pivotal to effective communication, inventive thinking and digital literacy; skills desperately needed in this evolving age.
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