GAMING… the future of the world?

WOW! Watch this video from TED and then think about the world and what needs changing and how it can be done.

Spring Break has arrived and…

                here I am back at blogging for a bit.

As most TED Talks, this one is inspiring and makes us want to jump up and do whatever the speaker wants us to do.

I am not a gamer.  I barely play “the Cow Game” or bowling on my Wii, but… I do have a Wii and I have experienced the games.

I know that this talk is about much more complicated and long term games.

As an educator, I have to think of the power of this mighty strategy. 

Students from 5th grade through the end of high school have the opportunity through classes (with perfect attendance) to achieve over 10,000 hours in a setting/learning environment (or so Jane McGonigal states in her Ted Talk).

Gladwell says (or so Jane McGonigal says) that anyone who puts forth 10,000 hours in direct practice/learning about an area/subject will be a virtuoso, an expert, in that area.

Why are we not making our students virtuosos by the time they graduate from High School?

In describing her games, Jane McGonigal says gamers do have the ability to solve world problems. She is trying to develop games that will work to allow these gamers to become these future world citizens who can solve the world problems and allow our civilization to survive another century.

I like the idea of the game Jane made regarding the oil crisis.

I’m thinking about what would it take to get me involved in this gaming frenzy. 

I love education. I believe in education. If there were a WORLD of EDUCATION game like there is a World of Warcraft game, would I play it?  Would I come up with creative and viable solutions to the problems of education? 

I’d  like to think that every day I play the World of Education Game. That every day I am trying to make the world a better place through education.  One minute, one student, one solution at a time.

The problem is that we need all the educators in the world involved in this game together, feeding off each other’s ideas and thoughts.  There is a start to this GAME. It is the Internet, blogs, PLN, twitter, etc. We just need a little more organization.

Are you up to organizing this? Are you willing to collaborate? Are you willing to spend up to a “half-time job” working on this problem after you work at your full time job at school?

What ideas do you have?

Technorati Tags: World of Warcraft,WOW,gamers,gaming,education,Jane McGonigal,Gladwell,World of Education Game,PLN,twitter,blogs,virtuoso,10,000 hours,game,high school,TED Talks,educators,organization,Wii,playstation

Student Blogging Guidelines

Many schools in this 21st Century are adding blogging to the writing experiences of their students. It can be an experience that makes students more aware of the global connectedness of the world in this day and age and provide an outlet for their writing spirit. It makes a purpose to their writing, a reason to write so others can understand what you are saying, a reason to use correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar, etc., not just another assignment.

Student Blogging Guidelines by Kim Cofino at Always Learning reminds us of several items to think about before opening up our children to this opportunity on the web. Her school developed these for 3, 4, 5th graders last year and has now posted them for K-12 students as well. They are well worth perusing.

Student Blogging Guidelines
As a student blogger at ISB, you are expected to follow these blogging guidelines below. Use the questions in italics to help you decide what is appropriate to post on your blog.
1. Only post things that you would want everyone (in school, at home, in other countries) to know.
Ask yourself: Is this something I want everyone to see?

2. Do not share personal information.
Ask yourself: Could someone find me (in real life) based on this information?

3. Think before you post.
Ask yourself: What could be the consequences of this post?

4. Know who you’re communicating with.
Ask yourself: Who is going to look at this, and how are they going to interpret my words?

5. Consider your audience and that you’re representing ISB.
Ask yourself: Do I have a good reason/purpose to do this?

6. Know how to give constructive feedback.
Ask yourself: What will I cause by writing this post?

7. Treat other people the way you want to be treated.
Ask yourself: Would I want someone to say this to me?

8. Use appropriate language and proper grammar and spelling.
Ask yourself: Would I want this post to be graded for proper grammar and spelling?

9. Only post information that you can verify is true (no gossiping).
Ask yourself: Is this inappropriate, immature or bullying?

10. Anytime you use media from another source, be sure to properly cite the creator of the original work.
Ask yourself: Who is the original creator of this work?

Commenting Guidelines
As a blogger, you will be commenting on other people’s work regularly. Good comments:

• are constructive, but not hurtful;
• consider the author and the purpose of the post;
• are always related to the content of the post;
• include personal connections to what the author wrote;
• answer a question, or add meaningful information to the content topic;
• follow the writing process. Comments are a published piece of writing.

Even adult bloggers can learn some hints for themselves about how to act when blogging online.

Blogwalker also has some timely Tips for New Bloggers that you also might want to check here.

If you do have a class of bloggers just starting or continuing to develop their blogging skills, please check out this Blogging Challenge by Sue Wyatt. It may be too late to join, but it can still be an excellent opportunity to learn how to comment on someone else’s blog – an important skill.

A teacher might not send her students to this following site because it is more written for adult media consultant bloggers, but the tips included here at  7 Habits of Highly Effective Blogs can be adapted to use for students as well.

I just posted comments to a class of 1st grade bloggers and 5th grade bloggers. The 1st grade bloggers posts were edited by the teacher, as many would not yet be readable, but I can hardly wait for the year to progress to see how the students are learning to write. There will be amazing differences, especially in the 1st grade blogs!

Do you have your own personal blog?

Do you have a professional blog for education?

Do you encourage your students to blog, even if they are in 1st grade?

Do you need someone to read those blogs?

Ask your twitter community. That is how I found out.

Technorati Tags: blogs,Kim Cofino,ALways Learning,Sue Wyatt,blogging,guidelines,7 Habits of Highly Effective Blggers,Kami Watson Huyse,comments,twitter

Twitter Example…Great Job Karen!

On one of my favorite blogs (Aren't they all favorites or why would they STILL be on your bogroll?) EdTech Solutions: Teaching Every Student by Karen Janowski I found some great answers about Twitter.

Did you see my previous post?

Please read her short but sweet post.

Now I just have to become friends with all of her friends!

Technorati Tags: Twitter,EdTech Solutions: Teaching Every Student,Karen Janowski

Twitter… AGAIN!

Okay!  I know I talked a while ago in this post about Twitter and how I still didn’t get it.  I am getting better, but to be honest, I guess I just don’t have the friends or the time.That’s what I need to work on. 

Do I REALLY need to work on it?

No, only if I want to. 

I know that everybody seems to think it is the next best thing to “sliced-bread” as Howard Rheingold states in his blog here.

I know that if I get “into” it, I will develop friends and find it more useful. 

I just switched from Google Reader to netvibes.com (Thanks to a suggestion/recommendation from Jeff Utecht.)  I have a tab on netvibes.com that is called Social. It has MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter on that tab.  So now I can keep that tab open and be READY for Twitter …

It is hard for me to think that hearing some people talk about how they are sitting there waiting for a plane to take off (Sorry Will )  or talking about the wonderful ribs they are cooking (Sorry Steve) is worth my time and effort!

OKAY, NOW! Will and Steve, you guys are big enough to be a good example here and not take things personally, right? Will, I know that you were worried about your children flying to Atlanta to visit the G’parents and Steve, my 30DBBB friend, your ribs looked mouthwatering!

So…That’s where I could be wrong.  It could be well worth my effort!

I  need to develop a community that will be there for me when I need them. In order to create that community, I need to be there for them.  I can’t just be an occasional “sucking out bits of wisdom” lurker in the “twittersphere.” I need to follow people, help them when they ask for help (especially new people), follow their ideas or thoughts,  and look at what content they are talking about.  I need to respond to their content. 

Now that is one place where I am confused. 

When I like their content, do I re-tweet it?  That’s what one suggestion I read said. 

Do I @them to tell them I liked what they said?  Or is that bothering them?

I know I don’t DM them unless we have something  “personal/not for broadcast to the world” to discuss.

I guess if they follow me or see me re-tweeting their message that is enough for them to know I liked it or thought it was worthwhile, right?

How often/how long are people on Twitter every day? 

I guess most people have their computer on all day long at school/work/home and also have their twitter feed open at the bottom of the computer all day long.  They look at it or have it set to make a noise or flash something when someone they follow makes a tweet.  Then they know when/how to respond. 

Do most school systems allow this to be going on during the day at school while a teacher is teaching a class of students? Or is most of this tweeting done during breaks, lunch, after school, or at home in the evening?

I know last semester when I was an Interim Teacher in a Computer Lab, I did not have time to Tweet. Some days getting a break to use the bathroom in an elementary school is a MAJOR undertaking!

I know that I would have been in trouble spending time Tweeting when I taught in a K-8 Computer Lab (but perhaps it wasn’t even available then!)

When do you tweet?

How are you able to tweet?

I know I’ve heard all these great examples of how people get lots of responses to their “burning questions” of the moment, how there were twitter pictures of the landing on the Hudson River, how Teach Paperless expects his students to use Twitter for tests and daily class work.

I like the immediacy of it. I like the global feature of it.  I like the sharing part of it.  Howard Rheingold  states some of these very characteristics that I have mentioned that makes him feel Twitter is  a great tool.  Characteristics of Twitter Howard Rheingold  touts are

Openness, Immediacy, Variety, Reciprocity, A channel to multiple publics, Asymmetry, A way to meet new people, A window on what is happening in multiple worlds, Community-forming, A platform for mass collaboration, and Searchability.

These are all admirable, great reasons to use Twitter.

So what’s not to like?

There’s just a tiny bit of me that sees it as a product of our society in which we all want immediate gratification, (but in this-day-and-age who wants to wait for the Pony Express to bring the answer in the mail!) and also I see it as part of the society that has produced so many ADHD students. 

So tell me more…

about how it is really good for you.

AND how it could really work for me.

Technorati Tags: Tweet,Twitter,Howard Rheingold,Jeff Utecht,WIll Richardsonhardson,Steve Dembo,Teach Paperless,education,Google Reader,netvibes

Help the squirrel? OR How I got back onto Twitter…

I love the internet… I just ran into this blog that I don’t ever remember having seen before. The writer of the blog is a person that I follow on Twitter… if you could really say I FOLLOW people on Twitter. (NOT REALLY!)

Actually truth be known… I signed up for Twitter A REALLY LONG TIME AGO, but really have hardly ever used it.  Once when I was DESPARATE to find a way to bypass the filters blocking YouTube at my school, I put out a tweet for help.  My fellow tweeters pulled through.  They mostly told me to use ZAMZAR to convert it so I could put it on a flash drive and carry it to school to use… also I could then e-mail the video to myself and the co-teacher for whose class I was working on this project.  It ended up working GREAT… I thanked my fellow TWEETERS,  but then I have not been back on Twitter since. 

Today for some reason, I decided to try Twitter…

OH, I think in some bog post that I read, (SORRY, I still can’t remember who wrote about the site I went to – been running up and down my reader trying to figure it out… can’t!) there was a reference to an article to get  K-3 Teachers started on Twitter.  I figured that was just what I needed.  A Kindergarten approach…

I went to the link and read the information.  It seemed straight forward and made it all seem so easy. 

So I got onto Twitter. 

I started looking at the people I FOLLOW… (I use that term loosely.)

After reading the DIRECTIONS for K-3, I knew that I should look up the web pages of the people I might want to follow. So that brought me to this first blog post whereupon I learned about  THE SQUIRREL….

BUT THAT’S ANOTHER POST!

Happy Twittering.

Do you use Twitter? How long did it take you to get hooked? How can Twitter be used at school, even in K-3?