KimP’s Blog

On Wednesday a group of students from our school (Belmore South PS) – including 3 AllStars – represented us at the “Connected Learning Conference” at the Novotel Hotel at Brighton.

The students formed a panel to discuss their experiences using GameMaker to make digital games.

Students demonstrated their completed games, walked through how to make a game, and held a panel discussion about the value of making games in class, the educational benefits, what they learned, and their thoughts on game making. The students even answered questions from the audience.

The response from the teachers and educators in the audience was positive- and the students were professional, passionate, articulate and impressive.

Congratulations to everyone involved – you are a credit to youselves, your families and your school – thank you.

Our negotiated task for this term was 

to create a game, based on our study of history, using the MissionMaker program. 

Here’s a brief outline of how we went about it……. 

1.    Exploring world history. “Taste testing” periods, people, stories from 3 eras:           

• Ancient history          
• Medieval history           
• Modern history 

2.    Focusing in on a story that they enjoyed –            

• Researching         
• Familiarizing          
• Comparing info/accounts of the story 

3.    Playing with MissionMaker

• Playing MM games           
•  Watching training video for ideas, ways of using the props, objects, rooms           
• Exploring the program themselves 

4.    Negotiating task requirements«           

• Pick up 5 objects           
• Use a story from history           
• Demonstrate knowledge of your period in history           
• Rubric 

5.    Aligning historical story with MissionMaker game. Deciding on worlds, characters, objects that are available in the game           

• Mind map of possibilities – who, when, where, what, why, how          
• Physical map of the game – rooms, characters, objects, clues

6.    Making the game – this is where we are up to now

7.    Presenting the games for play 

It’s school holidays at the moment so we have had to take a break from game-making for the next two weeks, but will continue when we get back to school.  

I have been encouraging the students to blog their preparations and plans as we go. To “see” what they have been up to please visit our class blog –  07 AllStars and click on their individual blogs down the right hand side of the page.

Further to a previous post on my student’s commenting skills, I decided to explore the issue in a teaching unit recently. The series of lessons fit into our English syllabus as they involve Talking & Listening, Reading and Writing. 

I wanted to improve the commenting being undertaken by my students. 

We started our discussions by looking at lots of comments on many styles and types of blogs. Students classified them into 3 star, 2 star, and 1 star comments. 

We cut and pasted some comments onto one page and discussed these comments further, trying to find examples of what good comments were. 

Next, students tried to articulate the aspects of comments that made them worthwhile and meaningful to them as recipients. What did they, themselves, feel was useful in a comment? 

We looked at some sentence starters we had up in the room, and why they were good.We looked at open-ended question starters that we use in our Reading Circles and discussed how they were useful. 

We had a chart in our room that we had made earlier in the year that had our class requirements for commenting (full sentences, grammar, punctuation, positive, constructive). 

 We discussed this and realized that we had to add other criteria as well. We came up with a number of areas that were missing from our original chart: 

• Links – to our own life and experiences         
• Responding –  to what the blogger is saying/ thinking/ asking           
• Conversation – between the blogger and you, asking questions for clarification, for more info 

We found it really hard work:  

• to respond thoughtfully to what the blogger was saying, and to respond to their message.           
• to articulate what was required in a great comment 

But we all have a clear definition of what is required now

PS: we practiced our commenting on our blogging friends blogs, and this is what Mr Pearce from Geelong in
Victoria had to say recently 

An “opportunity to talk to and learn from teachers and educators across sectors ……. to talk through issues confronting education in a Web 2.0 world …… enjoy the feeling of being a part of something new and different and stimulating. … “ Megan Poore, Chair, Learning Futures Coordinating Committee. 

Held in the beautiful grounds of the Australian National University in Canberra mid September, The Learning Futures Symposium was an eclectic gathering of people interested and passionate in responding to and embracing the changes that must be made for formal education to remain relevant in the 21^st century. 

Keynotes from Jillian Dellit, the Learning Federation, about the knowledge economy and the slow uptake of digital technologies in the education sector. Schools and teachers are the products of governments’ inability to change and to acknowledge the “knowledge economy’. 

Dale Spender spoke on the digital revolution and how it isn’t optional – how the implications for education are transforming learning, literacy, creativity and assessment. The world wide web has changed reading, writing, creating, thinking – it’s changing social, economic and political structures but it has not yet changed education and education structures. 

The spotlight speaker was Garry Putland, from education.au, who spoke on the applications that kids are using out of school, the applications used within schools, and user-generated content. He pointed out that connectivity is already part of our kids’ lives and that when we put up barriers, we are really just encouraging kids to go around the barriers.  

Garry mentioned that we as teachers have to tread carefully, but innovate and become entrepreneurial – push the boundaries because while kids use these technologies they are also “clumsy” with them. It is our role to discuss, explore, articulate and teach to the needs of the kids. We need to help develop our students’ critical thinking and analysis skills rather than banning everything we don’t understand/agree with. 

Lots of food for thought here! 

What I liked :)

• Chance to talk with other educators across boundaries           
• Sharing uses of technologies and applications           
• Networking with others          
• Hearing about exciting projects 

Things that worried me :(          

• “We are already doing this” (no we are not- KimP)          
• “It’s the teaching NOT the technology” (its both! Lets more on from PowerPoint – please!!!!!!! – KimP)          
• “My system can’t/won’t/is unable to change” (it will have to – go on, lead the way -  KimP)