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Thursday, March 10, 2016

Gaming to Learn: Research Meets Classroom Practice


Today is the University of Northern Iowa College of Education's Education Summit.  

I was invited to talk about gaming in the classroom at this conference.  It was a great opportunity to discuss the topic with about 20 people.  These educators ranged from 19 - 60+ years of age.  It was a strong discussion with many points of view shared.

Below is an embedded version of my presentation.   The Youtube links should also work. Please contact me if they don't work for you. 

If you want to contact me, please leave a comment below or email me at zeitz@uni.edu


Sunday, March 06, 2016

The Educational Background Behind Gaming - Part 1

It's NOT about the Games.  It's about the Gaming.
Creative Commons: UltraCommunications.com
I like to introduce my university students to Gaming in the Classroom. It is not aboutplaying games but rather about the opportunities and engagement that students experience when they are learning through a gaming framework.  

I would like to share with you the introductory sequence that I use in introducing this.  I would also like to share how I challenge my students to play a specific game for a while and then reflect on the process.  

ALERT:  Next week I will share the responses, reflections and insights that my students develop from this experience.

Did you know that in 2011:
  • 65% of US households play video games?
  • Almost 1/2 of the video gamers are adults < 49 years old?
  • The average gamer is 32?
  • 2 out of 5 gamers are women?
Gaming is not a fad. Video gaming is a way of life. Gaming is an activity that provides sufficient positive feedback to cause players to exclude all else. It is challenging enough to entice gamers to continually attempt to beat their last score.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if school was like gaming? Where students would be so motivated by their learning activities that they would get up early and stay up late to engage themselves in the learning process.

Our understanding of learning has taken a HUGE leap forward in recent years.  It is time that we were Rethinking Learning with the 21st Century Learner.  This video explores how we need to rethink our students' learning experiences to best fit their interests and learning preferences.  This video includes interviews with John Seely Brown (discusses how today's learners are gamers to the core),  Nichole Pinkard, Diana Rhoten, Mimi Ito (Lead Researcher for the Digital Youth Project); Katie Salen (Executive Director of The New School for Design); and Henry Jenkins (Media Guru). 



Is it about playing the game or getting involved in something that is rewarding and challenging.  Maybe it has something to do with "getting into the flow of things . . . "

Flow - The Psychology of the Optimal Experience

Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Chick-sent-me-hi) has studied states of "optimal experience" for over two decades. He is exploring the conditions and attitudes that engage people's concentration and attention to the point of total absorption. He calls this state of consciousness Flow.  In this state of attention, learners are at their most receptive level.

Dr. Csikszentmihalyi discusses his theory of Flow in this 5-minute video. 
It is the primary introduction to the Flow concept. He further explains its application to education in this short interview on Edutopia.org:  Motivating People to Learn.

9 Characteristics of Flow have been identified. Learn these characteristics so that you can later relate them to the apparent aspects of gaming and learning.
Pay careful attention to this concept of Flow because while it may seem like "good common sense," it is an underlying principle of learning.
Gaming's Elements Make for Good Learning

Gaming is a directional process where the player is guided towards a selected goal through positive and negative reinforcement. Isn't that similar to a good learning situation? How does that relate to the 9 characteristics of Flow?

Read this posting which discusses a list of 8 characteristics of Gaming. Relate these to those of Flow. What similarities do you see? What distinctions?  You will also find a video of a leading gaming researcher, Dr. James Paul Gee.  Watch this video and correlate it with the connections we have been discussing.

Gaming in Your REAL Life

Gaming is the basis of living and learning.  When you do something correctly, you are rewarded.  When you faultier, you fail.  It's about how you interact with the world. Before you can explore how you would do this in the classroom, you need to know something about how it works in your life.  Seth Priebatsch and Jesse Schell share some interesting ideas about how Gaming appears as a layer in your real life.  Read this posting and watch these two videos to get a new perspective on how you are gaming on a daily basis. 

If you are interested in really applying gaming to your real life, Explore Chore Wars.  It is a quest game where you can claim experience points for housework.

Consider your present concepts about gaming. Have they changed in the past 24 hours? If so, what have you realized?  How does this affect your perspective as a trainer, teacher, educator?

Using Gaming Practices to Improve Learning
In this 10-minute video, Paul Anderson explains how he reinvented his course to make it a gaming learning experience. Pay attention to the insights that he shares about the elements of active student-centered learning environments.

 
 

Time for Real Gaming

In my university class, Using Digital and Social Media, I challenge my students to apply what they have just learned.  These resources have identified how the gaming and learning are two sides of the same coin so I want them to play a game and then reflect on what connections they are seeing.

Another benefit for this homework is that my students get to tell their roommates/friends/ siblings/parents/children that they get to play Kingdom Rush for 3 hours for homework.

Tune in Next Week

I will share with you the gaming reflections that my students generate as well as some educational perspectives that I add to the mix.

Thursday, February 11, 2016

5 Question Structures to Improve Higher-Order Thinking

Looking to improve the discussions in your class so that they are engaging your students in Higher-Order Thinking?  Here is an InfoGraphic that I found on the Four O'Clock Faculty website.  It has a number of great ideas.  I especially like the Question Flooding idea.  It involves your students generating as many questions as come to mind about the topic at hand.

At first, I was thinking "How can I write fast enough to get all of those questions written down so we can discussion them?"  Further consideration brought me to the realization that this should be a student centric process.  Just getting the flow of ideas is enough to kindle the fire of examination.  Field the questions and then go back to them to see which ones stuck out in your students' minds.  Another idea would be to have your students post them in the cloud through Tweeting (with a specific hashtag) or entering the questions into a Google Doc or Padlet or Etherpad.

Which one makes the most sense to you?  Do you have any ideas that you would add to these 5 question structures?

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

TERRORISM: How to Talk to Your Students, Say This, Do Not Say . . .

http://www.jackstreet.com/jackstreet/WECM.Berkowitz.cfm
In this ever-changing world we need to consider how to talk with our students about terrorism.  Not only must we deal with what is coming through the media, but we must also discuss with our students the possibility of that happening in our own schools.

Recently, Vicki Davis (CoolCatTeacher) interviewed Dr. Steven Berkowitz at the University of Pennsylvania about how teachers can respond to this.

Click here to listen to Vicki's 11-minute discussion about Terrorism.


Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Is this your future classroom? Does this represent your future vision of Education?



This is a student film festival award winner.  It shows some great special effects and portrays some cool technological possibilities, but is this how you envision the classroom of the future?  The teacher is still at the front and the students are following his/her lead.   Is that what we want?

What are your thoughts?

Thursday, December 10, 2015

ISTE Webinar: Global Collaboration in Higher Education resources



The ISTE Global Collaboration PLN webinar that we presented tonight was a HUGE success.  After Anne Mirtshin introduced us, David Stoloff and I began the webinar at 7:00 pm CST with a single member of the audience.  The purpose of this webinar was to explore how Global Collaboration is and can be used in higher education.  I provided the introduction and shared some of the experiences I have had in teaching students from around the world and having them collaborate with learners on the other side of the globe.
Dr. Stoloff shared the many global collaboration projects that he has been doing over the years and provided an introduction to the Connecticut-Taiwan connection that he is presently doing with his undergraduate teacher education students.

David has been working with a professor in Taiwan, Julie Chen.  His intention was for them to to share their experiences as a team, but he has been unable to contact Julie for a couple of weeks and didn't plan on her joining him for the event.  HOOORAY!!!!  About half way through, Julie arrived in our ZoomRoom and they were able to share their experiences and discoveries.  As the evening progressed, our audience increased and it was a great experience for all.

Enjoy the recording of the presentation above and you can review the slideshows below. The website used for Dr. Chen's presentation is the dCCU-ECSU global connections website. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Slideshows Used in the Webinar

Created by Leigh Zeitz



Sunday, December 06, 2015

Global Collaboration in Higher Education: An ISTE Webinar presented by Dr. Z and Friends - Wed @ 7 PM CST


Date: 12/9/2015

Time:
--Wed at 7 pm in Iowa (CST)
--Wed at 8 pm on the East Coast (EST)
--Thurs at 9 am in Taipei
Please, check your local time at: http://tinyurl.com/ISTEGCwebinarDec

Join:
Dr. David Stoloff (Eastern Connecticut State University)
Dr. Julie Chen (Chinese Culture University - Taiwan)
Dr. Leigh Zeitz (University of Northern Iowa)

Session Description:
Join our exploration into the wonderful world of Global Collaboration in Higher Education. as they explore the present and future of Global Collaboration in Higher Education.

Leigh Zeitz will serve as discussant to this project presentation. He will begin with an overview of global collaboration in higher education, explore the types of projects that might be completed as well as share some of his experiences with Global Collaboration across the globe.

Julie Chen and David Stoloff will then discuss their on-going transcontinental project where 1st semester undergraduates are collaborating between Chinese Culture University (Taiwan) and Eastern Connecticut State University.  They will share their successes and challenges as well as plans for the future.  This presentation will use these resources eCCU-ECSU Global Connections. It includes a short video and  a powerpoint presentation.  Undergraduates at these two institutions will be encouraged to share their experiences following the presentation.

Ample time will be reserved for an online discussion on expanding global collaboration for university classrooms.

Session plan:
0:00 - 0:15  Introduction to Collaborative Learning in Higher Education by Leigh Zeitz
0:16 - 0:45 Discussion of the Chinese Culture University - Eastern Connecticut State           University Global Collaboration experience.  
0:46 - 1:00  Questions about the Collaboration Experience and an opportunity for attendees to share their experiences.

Access the Video Conference through   http://tinyurl.com/z-zoomroom
  • You will be asked to download a small program to run Zoom.  After you have downloaded it, DON’T run Zoom.  Return to your browser and go to http://tinyurl.com/z-zoomroom again.  It will take you directly to our meeting room.
  • Please use your first and last name followed by your province/state and Country