Chapter 9: Gaming

educationarcade.org

Education Arcade is a site that offers educational games is subject areas such as mathematics, science, history, literacy, and language learning.  It is geared toward a wide variety of ages.  This site really wants to get the educational circles talking about the positive effect that gaming could have in the classroom.  This site offers its games on computers, handheld devices, and you can have them delivered on-line.  They use some of the popular commercial games, because they do see some educational value from those games.  They also have games that were created by the some of the creators of the site that are more specific to the educational needs of today's students.

This site is perfect for chapter 9 since it is a gaming website.  In the chapter is briefly discusses some practical reason to use gaming in the classroom.  Two of the those reasons include giving the students a break and reviewing material learned in during the lessons.  This site offers things for both of those reasons.  Since it includes the popular games the kids already know and love they can play them without even realizing they are getting some educational value out of it.  It also offers games specifically for education so the students can brush up on their skills.

Chapter 6: Virtual Worlds (2)

whyville.net

Whyville is a virtual world that is aimed toward pre-teen and teen girls and boys.  In this site members can create their own avatar person, and then they can go places, see things, play games, chat with friends and much more.  Whyville really is like its own city.  It has its own senator, City Hall, town square, museum, beach, and even its own economy.  The members can play educational games and earn clams.  The educational games offer subjects such as art history, science, journalism, civics, economics, and a few more.  This site works directly with NASA, Getty, the School Nutrition Association, and others to help engage the students in educational content.  From what I could see, this site didn't offer much to say about security and safety.  That would be my biggest concern with this site.

This site goes right along with this chapter because it is a great example of a social and educational virtual world.  It didn't seem to address any safety concerns, but it is still a good website to have in the appendix of this chapter because it demonstrates both aspects, the social and the educational, side of how a virtual world can be helpful in the classroom.

Chapter 6: Virtual Worlds

clubpenguin.com

Disney's Club Penguin is a virtual world where kids are able to interact with one another using their very own penguin avatar.  With their friends, kids can do different kinds of activities, play games, and chat with each other.  Kids can submit the artwork they create and share it with other "penguins." This site really takes safety seriously.  They have people monitoring the online activity chat at all times.  They also strongly encourage parental involvement.  They even have their own little version of a neighborhood watch program where kids can apple to become Secret Agents and participate in keeping the site safe.  Parents can even limit the amount of time their child spends at Club Penguin.  They can either set a timer for that session or they can set a limit on the daily hours spent their.  One great thing about this site is that it is free from third-party advertisers, so no ads will pop up while the kids are playing.  For the most part the site is free, but there are some things you need to be a member for.  They have something new each week for the members to explore.

This site goes right along with the chapter for obvious reasons in that it is a virtual world.  The chapter briefly discusses this site under the heading Focus: Social; which is fitting because this site really holds no educational value to it.  The chapter goes a little into the safety concern and this site is a great example to have of what safety in the virtual worlds can look like.  This site also fits right in with what the chapter considers one of the most important reasons for virtual worlds: exploring creativity.  Club Penguin lets kids do just that; they get to be create in creating their avatar and while doing the various activities.

Chapter 3: MP3 Players

learnoutloud.com

When you sign up with learnoutloud.com it gives you access to thousands of audio books, podcasts, and videos.  The site does offer some free stuff, but for the most part you will have to pay for what you want.  You can search for what you want in a variety of ways: most popular, by author, by publisher, etc.  When you become a member you get credit each month you can use to buy things, and if you don't use the credits they will roll over to the next month.  Everything you download from this site is in MP3 format.  Members can also get some good discounts on the merchandise.  One cool feature about this site is you can publish your own stuff.  There is an extension of the site called Teach Out Loud.  This part of the site allows teachers to publish their own work.  I really liked the mission of the site.  They want to show teachers that it is easy to turn that "down time" into something special and educational for the kids using audio and visual tools to help fill that time.

This site fits right in with the chapter because the chapter is all about MP3 players and everything you download from this site is in MP3 format.  This site have many educational uses which again goes right on along with the chapter since it also discusses how to use MP3 players in the classroom.

Chapter 1: 21st Century Skills

21stcenturyskills.org

This website gives a nice overview of what 21st Century Skills are and how they are incorporated.  One of my favorite things about the site is that you can watch videos of actual classroom using 21st Century Skills and you can upload your own videos to add the community of classrooms using these skills.  On the Overview page, it gives a great figure to show what 21st Century Skills are all about.  This is a great visual because it shows that 21st Century Skills do not neglect core knowledge, but it incorporates everything together in a way that most benefit the students.  This site also lets you know what different states are doing to incorporate these skills into their schools.  You can also request to have a speaker come and address various topics pertaining to 21st Century Skills.  This could be a great resource for a professional development day.  This site also offers a guide book called a MILE Guide.  You can buy paperback copies or you can download a PDF for free.  The last aspect of the site I want to talk about it the Route21 feature.  This is an interactive tool that helps demonstrate how to integrate core knowledge with 21st Century Skills.

This site is basically an extension from the chapter in the book, which makes it a perfect site to have in the appendix.  The chapter talks briefly about what 21st Century Skills are and how to incorporate them, this site goes into great detail about everything that has to do with 21st Century Skills.

MY WEBSITE :)

 It was a long process, but I finally completed it!!!! It was slightly frustrating at times, especially after we created a website using Google Sites and it was so much easier.  But it was pretty cool to see a website come together from the ground up. Hope you enjoy :)


Click here to view my website!!!!!!

Digital Citizenship

The characteristics of digital citizenship can be summed up in three categories: respect yourself, respect others, and respect outside limits.

Respect Yourself:
Kids should understand that once something is one the internet, it is no longer a private matter.  Even if privacy settings are set-up, it is still possible for some people to access the information.  Kids should also be aware that even if they delete something off the Internet it can still be retrieved in archives.  With these things in mind, kids should think twice before posting something on the internet and make sure it is not degrading or misleading in some way.

Respect Others:
With the same ideas above in mind, kids need to be aware of their posts can affect others.  They need to respect the privacy of others and not post any information about someone else.  They also need to be kind with what they are putting on the internet.

Respect Outside Limits:
There are some sites that have you accept their terms before proceeding, kids need to take that seriously and abide by the terms.  Copyrighted material is another problem sometimes.  Kids should know that not everything on the internet is public domain.  And finally kids need to be aware of plagiarism.  They need to know how and when to give credit where credit is due.

I don't think it is a bad idea to charge sexting as a felony.  Kids need to know that it is not a permissible action and there will be consequences.  I would like to think that with being an elementary school teacher that it would not be an issue there, but I would definitely have a no tolerance policy with that one.

Creating Content---Images

I don't believe I have ever had any experience in downloading pictures.  I have, however, had plenty of experience viewing photos.  This is something I have been doing for many years.  I would say most of this experience comes from needing pictures for presentations.  Google Images is always the place I go for that.  Most recently I was retrieving images to put into my camp program.  Videos, on the other hand, I have had experience downloading and viewing those.  Youtube, of course, is the place I always go to for that.  Most of my Youtube trips come from someone telling me I need to watch this video, so I jump online and watch.  I have downloaded some videos to use with the kids at church.

I have lots of experience uploading pictures to the Internet.  For the most part, all of the pictures I have uplaoded have be done of Facebook.  There have been a few times where I'll post some pictures in other things like my teaching portfolio.  I suppose my purpose in posting pictures online is to share what's going on in my life with friends and family that aren't always there to share those memories with me.  I've never personally posted a video, but I am in some of the videos my friends have posted.

Definition of: Creative Commons:
An organization that has defined an alternative to copyrights by filling in the gap between full copyright, in which no use is permitted without permission, and public domain, where permission is not required at all. Creative Commons' licenses let people copy and distribute the work under specific conditions, and general descriptions, legal clauses and HTML tags for search engines are provided for several license options.
(Source for definition: PC Magazine)

The creation of Creative Commons allows teachers and students access to more photos and videos.  It gives a nice middle be complete access of the non-copyrighted stuff and the no access to the copyrighted stuff.

Creating Content---Writing

Blogs- entries appear in reverse chronological order, so the most recent one appears first; they can include words, pictures, or links; can be a sentence or two long or many paragraphs; can consist of one author or have many contributing authors; comments can be monitored before going public to help with censorship.

Wikis- allows visitors to add, remove, or edit the content of the page; some wiki sites come with templates for the user to get started, and some the of the templates still allow the creator to personalize them; even if the the templates do not allow for personalization, you can still personalize them by adding graphics; while any visitor can make changes to the wiki, the owner can limit the visitor's ability to view and edit the content.

Web-based Word Processors- allows the user the create, edit, and store files; eventually the files can be published to the Internet; the user can invite others to view the document and edit it; simultaneous editing is possible.

The only personal experiences I have with any of these three tools comes from my classes at Johnson both in in the undergraduate and graduate level.  I've never really had time to experiment with these tools on my own, so the only time I've played around with them came from required class assignments.

Gaming

For me personally, I loved having the option of playing educational games during school.  Looking back it was a good way for the teacher to reinforce concepts that we were going over, but it also taught general concepts such as problem solving.  But the genius of the whole thing was that I was not aware that those were the teacher's motivations.  For me it was something fun to do after I completed my work.  Of course I new they were educational, but it wasn't something I felt the teacher was making me do.  I really wanted to play the games and my only concern was getting as far along as I could in the time that I had.  So even though my motivations were not to continue to learn concepts or to help my problem solving skills, I was still getting that.  Plus, it was good motivation for me to stay on task so I could get my work done and be able to play.

Even though kids are more technologically advanced these days, I still think there is some value to having educational games in the classroom.  The challenge might be to find games that interest them or that are up to their gaming standards.  I don't know it Oregon Trail will hold their interest or not like it did mine, but something of the equivalent would be good to use with them.

I think having students make their own mini games would a great review tool.  It helps the students who makes the games, because the are reviewing all the material as they put it into the games.  Then it would also benefit the other students when they play to the game to review the material.  Having the students make their own games would be great for the class because it would not be some generic game, but it would be specific to the lesson or unit the class was talking about.

Virtual Worlds

I have never been apart of any virtual worlds.  They have never seemed that appealing to me.  Besides that, I've always had a pretty busy lifestyle.  If I'm on the Internet, I'm already spending too much time on Facebook, so the last thing I need is something else that I'm sure is very time consuming.

I'm kind of on the fence about virtual worlds having a place in education.  Reading some of the examples the books, they seem like they could be useful.  There seems to be a lot of educational ones that can reinforce what the students are learning.  Some also include ways for students to publish their work.  In the schools I like they could be a good tool to have.  I just wouldn't want it to become something that kids find themselves spending hours in outside of class.  I think there is already a lot of enticing games out there that consume a lot of their time.  Sometimes it seems like kids have lost the fun of going outside and running around or doing whatever.  Anymore, it seems like they just want to be in front of a television, a computer, or some kind of hand-held gaming device.  I don't know, is see valid pros and cons of both sides.  I'm not sure what I'll think about it when I have my own classroom.

Social Networks

I did not join a social networking site until I came to college and I joined Facebook.  Since a lot of my friends were going to different colleges we found this to be a great way to keep in contact with each other.  We enjoyed looking at each other's photo's so we could actually see what was going on in each other's lives and not just read about it.  Shortly after I got a facebook a lot of my family got one as well, and that was so nice to have another way to keep it touch while I was away at school. As much as I hate to admit it, I might have become addicted to Facebook. It is safe to say I check it more than I do my email.  One of my favorite features is that it tells me when it's my friend's birthdays.  Of course I know my close friend's birthdays, but this makes sure I don't forget antibody's birthday.  Facebook chat is another thing I love, most of the time.  It's great to catch-up with old friends or to just get a homework break from a friend down the hall.  Sometimes I wish I could block some people every now and then that want to chat all the time, but I guess there are pros and cons to everything.

Honestly, I don't think I have a vision for social networking in a 21st Century learning environment.  Don't get me wrong, I'm all for having the 21st Century skills taught right along with the core knowledge, but since I am going to be an elementary school teacher, I don't know how I feel about my students being on a social network.  21st Century skills are great and I think they are necessary for our students to learn, however, with the 21st Century skills comes living in the 21s century.  Now this might be coming from me watching too much Criminal Minds, but we live in a scary world.  We can't be naive about that when it is dealing with the safety of our kids.  As of right now, the only way I would be for social networking in the classroom is if there was a way to have more control over the kid's pages.  I would want to monitor who can be there friends, and that would only be the people involved in our classroom, maybe the other classes in the same grade, and maybe even the whole school.  But there would have to be some way to make sure no one outside of those involved in the school has access to their pages.  I might sound a little uptight about this, but the only benefit I see from having social networking in the schools is to create a learning community and there are other ways about going about that.  Google offers ways to set that up, and even with that there is an age issue as well.  But there are also sites like Engrade that can also create a learning community.  For me, when it comes to the kids, it's always better safe than sorry.  But I do keep an open mind about this, so if there is a safe way to go about it, I would be all for trying a social networking site in the classroom.