Prezi:  The Plan to Gamify My Class

Project Link:  https://prezi.com/view/wYwRpProOgufmTGNRcr6/

After taking this course on gamification I set out a plan to begin to gamify my class.  Being that I am a technology teacher I thought that it would be a bit easier than many other courses that students take, but it still presents several challenges and a lot of work.  The more I look at how to add choices to my lessons, rewards, badges, leader boards, gamer clans and other aspects of gamification the more I realized how much more fun and engaging my class could be (Landers, 2015) 

I have always believed that students that are not learning and seem uninterested in class are not having fun.  “Fun is the emotional response to learning”(Stangra, 2017)  No fun, no rewards, no choices on lessons, lead to lower grades. 

A teacher that likes to hear themselves speak all class and constantly gives lectures with or without PowerPoint’s may eventually have discipline problems and falling grades when the students start to tune out the teacher.  I like to think of myself as a coach or a facilitator that guides students along in their journey to learn.  I realized fairly quickly in teaching that after 5-10 minutes of showing a student something or lecturing them they tune out.  It was hard for me to step back at first, but it really has made my job easier when I became more of a facilitator.  Is traditional teaching dead?  It is in my class. Bring on gamification!

By looking at the behaviorism theory it is easy to see how to entice students to learn by using beneficial activities (Landers 2015) .  Why would a teacher give an assignment that most of the kids were going to hate?  Personalization of units I found was the key, where students will have a choice of several smaller projects of what the class is studying, that will lead to a final culminating project for each unit.  It appears that Alverez has mastered this approach in several interactive websites that make the lessons look like quests (Alverez, 2015).  Getting my class to this point would require a lot of creativity and website work but it would be worth it in a future version of a more gamified class.

Other theories of how gamification can improve learning include the fun theory and expectancy theories like the goal setting theory.  If students are having fun they will be more engaged and excited in learning.  If they have a goal of getting on the leader board then they have something to strive for.     

The typing warmup that my students do for the first 10 minutes of class is already gamified.  There are online points and badges that they can earn and even an online leaderboard.  If they make it through a certain amount of lessons they get a typing ninja game battling a Yeti.  To take this a step further I started putting up a leader board in my class now so students and visitors can see their standing.  I decided that only the first 50 out of about 180 students that I teach will be on the leaderboard as I do not want to embarrass students that are way behind.

My units that I teach in technology are less gamified and I wanted to take a hard look at how to better gamify my units especially the writing unit I teach.  One of the things I got from the class I took was to give students more choices and make their learning more personal.  I usually give the students 3 essays and I decided which ones they could do.  If I gave them a choice it may be a bit more work, but it would help to personalize their learning. 

If I set the writing unit up as a quest based on points with a culminating project I could give them more choices, but still have them do a similar thing (Alverez, 2015).  I have 16 essay lessons that are already written that I have decided could easily be put on a website.   I have laid out a plan in the Prezi info-graphic I made.  Students would choose 3 of the essays to do and then have a culminating project at the end.  By giving students a choice in what they are writing about will make it more interesting and fun for the students.  Throw in a few badges and points from Edmodo when I grade it and we could easily be on our way to gamifying that unit.  If students get ahead or need to be rewarded they could go to fun learning games like typing games, or learning games. 

Another unit that I took a look at in my Prezi was the coding unit.  In order to gamify my coding unit I would give the students several coding projects and have them pick from them.  Depending on what projects they choose they would eventually get enough points to get to the final project.  For this assignment I would look at creating gamer clans or leagues where students could help each other out to complete more complex coding projects (Gamification in Education, 2017)  I could even have them code a little game, but this is way beyond simply gamifying a classroom.   As students progress they would be rewarded with badges from Edmodo and fun learning games. 

All the theories like behaviorism, goal setting, and personalization are key to setting up a good gamified classroom.  The goal to gamification is engaged students having fun and and learning.  I took a poll of one of my classes and placed the data in my Prezi.  In the poll my students overwhelming said they liked having more choices on assignments, and they liked badges and other awards for completing classwork.  Although I expected these answers I noticed that my students split a poll question when it came to their typing where many of them preferred typing games over badges and leaderboards. 

In my Prezi poll I also talked to five teachers about gamification and they seemed very positive about the concept.   They said that personalization would probably increase the quality of the students work and engagement in the classroom.  When asked if they would switch to a gamified model from a traditional teaching model many said they probably would not, because it is to much work, they have lessons that work, and there class is not suited for it.  Many said they have a curriculum that does not call for choices, but many said they like the gamification idea and may incorporate some of the ideas into their class.

As for my class it will continue to become more gamified.  I am in the process of building out a gamified website that looks like a quest, but it will not be ready until next semester.  Overall I want my class to be educational yet fun and by gamifying parts of my class I can get closer to that goal.    

Gamification Changing Education? Make it More Fun!

Gamification Changing Education?

Gamification has been on my list to implement in my class but I have a ways to go before I get there.  I found this article on gamification interesting as it helps to explain how to set up a gamification style classroom.  Overall I want my classes to be fun engaging and gamified by next year.

The article breaks down the gamification model into several different key components.  The first component is achievements and points.  Students can win stamps, points etc. in this type of setup for doing tasks or projects and earn badges as they advance.  Then there are levels or ranks that students achieve as the advance.  There are also leader boards that can be implemented so that students can see how they rank in the class. 

I actually have a leader board posted in my class for typing skills already and there are some students that are determined to stay on top even if they have to do a lot of practice typing at home.  What I lack is badges or rewards for achieving great milestones.  The article talked about future plugins to edublog or other websites that could award badges for achievements.  I think Edmodo may award badges so I will have to look into that as I use Edmodo a lot.  I have also seen some of my colleagues at other schools that have created websites with point systems and achievements, but it is not how I envision it.  I want it to be awesome and fun if I am going to put that much time into creating something.  I am still looking at moving to the gamification model, but need to think about it some more.      

Any ideas on how to kick off Gamification?              

Technology in Education Sherry Turkels Ted talk.

Is technology getting out of control?  How much do we want to integrate technology in to the classroom before it is to much.  Are people connected and more alone than ever?  This video says a lot about how messed up we are with technology!  Check out Sherry Turkels Ted talk.

I was shocked in the beginning when Sherry said that a text from her daughter was like getting a hug from her and that she sleeps with her cell phone.   I begin to think are you kidding me, but then realized that she was getting started down a road of how screwed up people are today because of technology?  

I agree there are teachers at work that would rather send an email than have a face to face conversation and many are texting or emailing during staff meetings.  My assistant principal recently stated that she has no problem if teachers are writing emails or texting during a staff meeting even encouraging it by saying “everyone is busy.”  I was shocked but many people now see this as acceptable.

One of the most shocking things that sherry states is that many people want a more advanced Siri to be like their best friend so that they can talk to it.  I think that there are people that really need to work on their relationships if they are at that point, but I agree with Sherry that sometimes you need to stop and just listen to people.  It’s kind of scary to think people see their phone as their best friend, but there are many that cannot live these days without their phone and Wi-Fi.    

I also liked the phrase that Sherry used called “pretend empathy.”  Many people are seeking empathy through technology, but as she stated it’s not the real thing.  Technology does not understand humans, their life or their feelings.  There are many people in search of something that they will never get through technology yet they continue to be sucked into the digital world. 

There is a balance that needs to be had between technology and real human interactions.  Some people are so sucked into the digital world that it’s becoming an ever growing problem.  Just look at all the accidents now while driving and walking because people cannot get away from their phones.  Sherry is right that we should take a closer look at how technology has impacted our relationships.   

Kahoot: Awesome Website for Education

KAHOOT IN EDUCATION IS A BIG DEAL

Kahoot is an awesome program that I have used a few times in the past year.  I have made several games and just made a real quick math one to quiz my son and daughter in their math facts and they love it.  I used it at the beginning of the year not for students but for a staff professional development on PBIS.  I was tired of PowerPoint presentations, so I presented PBIS real fast and then gave the staff a quiz.  It was probably the best PD I ever did and I had the staff’s attention.  Then the staff wanted a PD on Kahoot because they found it so much fun.  I thought about using this program for actual quizzes as it was suggested in the video, but I see it more as a fun toy than something I want to use for a graded quiz.  For graded quizzes I would still use Edmodo or Google forms with Flabaroo.  Kahoot has its place to make learning more exciting, but not for tests and quizzes as the kids are too excited when playing Kahoots.      

5 Easy Activities for any Class

5 ACTIVITIES THAT CAN BE ADDED TO ANY CLASS

Exit Slip:  I think that exit slips can be a great tool to use to ensure that students have grasped the content.  I would not have them write it out on a piece of paper though, I would have them post it on Edmodo and then have the students make one comment on another post.  This makes it more interactive and engaging then just writing something down on the paper.  P would display the comments through my LCD projector and watch the class work and the exit ticket was answered.

Quick-write:  Having kids quickly write down what confuses them can be a good tool to get questions answered quickly.  I can easily do this with the Edmodo discussion board and ensure that all students fully grasp the concepts that I am trying to teach.

Pamphlet:  Using a pamphlet is a great way to get students to grasp a concept.  I like using Microsoft publisher as it already has templates set up and allows student to simply fill in the blanks.  When I assign an assignment like this though I do not think that I want to just tell the students to create a pamphlet but play on a theme of theme being a travel agency or an expert that is hired to design and create a pamphlet to show that there are real jobs for designing things. 

Comic Strip:  Using a comic strip to teach a topic is a great tool to teach a concept.  Bitstrips is an easy tool that the students can use and then share on Edmodo or on their blog.  I may add to this type of activity by actually having the students draw some of the cartoons using Pencil Madness or Clker which are great drawing websites.  I do not always like the copy and paste activities, I want my students to design and create.    

Advertisement:  I like the idea of using advertisements and have done this a few times to create wanted posters or hero or villain posters.  Now that I am a tech teacher I like the idea of commercials where students would create a video to get information across like a 30 sec commercial.  Maybe even an animated commercial with the program Frames.  

Moving to the Cloud in Education? It just makes sense!

I wanted to draw your attention to the cloud and why moving to it is beneficial and the great things you can do with cloud based computing and storage.  Using the cloud is a great tool and it’s simple to use.  In fact many of you are probably already using some form of cloud storage to include Google Docs, Picasa, YouTube, Edmodo, Drop Box, or any other place you store files, pictures and videos online.

                There are many benefits to using the cloud.  You can access your files from anywhere meaning that you do no longer have to lug your laptop back and forth from school.  You can access your files on your phone, tablet and just about any other connected device to the internet.  It also makes it easy to share these files and if students turn in their work online you no longer have to lug papers home to grade. 

                Another important thing about the cloud is that you have a backup of your files online.  Computers break, get lost, and you can lose years’ worth of work if they crash, but if your files are backed up in the cloud you will never lose anything.  This makes it better than a jump drive backup system or DVD backup because you will never lose your work if it’s in the cloud and you can access it on any device. 

                Another great thing about online cloud storage is that it makes it easy to share documents with students.  I love using Edmodo to post my classwork online.   The students get the assignment and complete it.  They then turn it in online.  Nothing gets lost and I can easily see who turned in the assignment and who did not.  Things no longer get lost in the shuffle and students get quicker feedback on assignments.   

                When students are using the cloud for storage there is never an excuse as to why they do not have their work.  I tell my students to save everything to their computer and to their backpack in Edmodo.  I explain to them that if they have to move seats or if their computer breaks they still have access to their work.  I also explain to them that if they miss a few days of school their work is online in their backpack on Edmodo and they can continue to work on it from home.  They now can never lose their work and can access it from anywhere to include Brazil if they decide to take a vacation during the school year.

                There are some drawbacks to using online cloud storage.  The biggest drawback is that you have to have an internet connection.  It the internet connection is down or you are in an area with no internet you will not be able to access the things you stored in the cloud.  Although this can be a problem at times, the benefits of cloud storage far outweigh this slight problem. 

                I would strongly recommend you trying to use online storage more in your daily routines.  Everyone in the school system already has a Google account so give Google docs a try and back up all of your work to the cloud.  It’s better to have your files backed up in more than one place because one day your computer will crash.  In the cloud its safe, easy to access, and share.  Try the cloud today!

Olaf: I love Summer! Funny teacher prank!

Ever prank a teacher and had fun doing it!!!!!  This is a great way to end the summer on a teachers door.  Of course he had an Olaf up during the winter months, but Olaf loves summer so we pranked him!  Whats your best teacher prank?