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Sheri Edwards

NH teachers have 'gamified' their classrooms to motivate their students to learn - Pare... - 0 views

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    ""Within my class, when I introduce an assignment, it's embedded within a storyline," he said."I'm making up a story as I go, often strongly influenced by suggestions from the students. They'll create an entire subplot basically, but, basically it's a reason. The reason you need to take this test is because there is a peril in the kingdom and we need people to go up against this.""
Terry Elliott

Stuart Brown - Play, Spirit, and Character | On Being - 0 views

  • come up with a philosophy of play
  • I believe in God the Playmate, Maker of every kind of place to play and every kind of playmate, both the visible and invisible.
  • I have to remind them again and again that we are only playing. They cannot fail. But somehow all the expectations to be good, to do it right get in the way of our natural
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  • social pressures and the fear of embarrassment most likely have something to do with it.
  • When I teach I aim to allow students, above all, a safe place to play. The nature of play is to come together with others and experience joy as we discover more about life and the world. What could be more spiritual?
  • Hello ~ As school children in the 1950s, we were sent out to play "on the noon hour" everyday no matter what the weather - and it snowed, rained and scorched. It was the best part of the day even though it was tough. I remember standing in Mary Catlin's coat to stay warm. I was very little and my fingers froze. Our teachers, Sisters of St. Joseph in full habit, put on shawls and skidded down long ice chutes with black robes flowing. We played every game - pom-pom-pullaway; red-rover-red rover; dodge ball; witch-steals-the-child. We monitored ourselves on the playground - some kids were 'mothers' to others. We played our hearts out, never looked back, loved each other and let everyone play.
  • Here is a poem I wrote about those days
  • role playing.
  • The ritual theorists perked up and remarked that play was considered the highest form of ritual.
  • Play has become my hermeneutic for both preaching, study, and in many ways life.
  • I would wager to say that while one can understand faith without being playful, one can not have it unless one understands the give and take, the unpredictable pitfall and grace that constitutes the fabric of play.
  • Play, i.e., making forts, running, twirling, skipping, and making up scenarious, even gathering at night to play "kick the can," dancing, being silly, all elicit joy, pleasure and inspire confidence and hope, both now and as a child.
  • I became a leader in InterPlay, where story, movement, sound and stillness are paths to spontaneity and play. New ideas and relationships, deep laughter ease and grace have been the gifts that have convinced me I MUST PLAY to stay healthy and happy.
  • interplay.org
  • play therapist
  • I think play is the ability to imagine things differently and not feel locked in. Play is the slack in life. The way that newness can most easlity come into life. That is why play is usually fun.
  • nvestigate how play has shaped the mammalian brain and more specifically how a lack of play in humans can lead to a loss of neuroplasticity which is associated with all kinds of psychopathologies.
  • "play" can not be understood as an activity but must be recognized as a mental or neurophysiological state. When approached from this direction it becomes apparent that play can exist in virtually any circumstance or any experience as long as there is an absence of fear or threat.
  • no doubt that play has been THE fundamental characteristic or quality that has given homo sapiens their ability to think creatively, imaginatively, etc.
  • Dutch thinker Johan Huizinga was correct in his labeling humans as Homo Ludens as opposed to Homo Sapien.
  • The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. —Exodus 32.6
  • Augustine said: “Better learn learn to dance, or the angels in heaven won’t know what to do with you!”
Sheri Edwards

The Introspection of a Pedagogue: Gamification: Good or bad? I say good! - 0 views

  • In my social studies classes I am a fan of games that go beyond the simple answer a question get a point and instead cause students to debate within and without their table group, think critically, and make a decision.  Games are not some aberration that teaches students to think life is a game, but instead is creating an environment that allows for difficult concepts to be acted out in a safe environment.
  • even if the game doesn’t come out great the teacher tried to be creative instead of hiding behind what “works". 
  •  I also think that at times to much has been pushed onto the “best practices” and has slowed creative thought.  The best practices have a place and they work very well when used properly, but when do we stop saying what teachers are doing is wrong because they don’t look like the person next door?  Are we all supposed to be clones teaching in the same way all the time?  I think not.  But I suppose that is a different topic to tackle on different post. 
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    "We are not just handing out badges, but implementing creative ways to engage students to help them try on concepts for size.  We are not sugarcoating anything and in some ways are able to engage the students in debates that they could not have without the simulation.  In short, we are building the future senators, doctors, lawyers, etc of the world that learned skills from the game and will apply them to their adult life. "
onewheeljoe

If Thou Beest a Moon Calf…More Stories from My Dark Night of the #CCourse Sou... - 0 views

  • That’s what we want to do. Well…OK, that’s what I in my omniscient infinitude want to do. This is the problem of the connected classroom how can one give up the hiearchy, trusting that the course of things will be taken up in manifold ways and products?
    • onewheeljoe
       
      Self deprecating about your role in the classroom and also reflecting on the need to give up the hierarchy. Can you turn the hierarchy on its head regularly and routinely? 
  • And therein lay the rub: in response to the fear and confusion I sensed in my students I became Uncle “Hub Central”. Understanding how to summarize became an external act outside their own minds consisting of checklists, algorithms, and templates designed to connect the dots that I so faithlessly put on the page. But in the end I believe that summing up needs to be an internal algorithm that rises up as a personal exigency, a massing together of sets of neuronal allies, firing and wiring like a mosh pit of nodal “hands” holding up the crowd surfing madman named Summary.
    • onewheeljoe
       
      Here you are tough on yourself again while the rock and the hard place remain exactly where you found them. In my view, Uncle Hub Central responded with support strategies (I'm shocked to discover your use of the word scaffold, Terry. :) How might you throw out the bathwater of hierarchy while tucking the baby of your support strategies under your arm? If the hierarchy disappeared, how might you leverage your support skill and instinct in a more networked, dynamic way?
  • Meaning making and perhaps internal connecting? A consummation devoutly to be wished.
    • onewheeljoe
       
      How might you insist on the meaning making and internal connecting? Above you showed how you insist on summary. 
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  • Best practice/worst practice. The problem with this variant of the post hoc fallacy is that we don’t really know if the strategies all arose as a ‘one off’ case, a sample of one, or as a truly generalizeable theory of action. Heraclitus (and his kissing cousin, Chaos Theory) argues that we really can’t step twice in the same river. In other words, initial conditions are always different from case to case in the dreaded ‘real world’. Those initial conditions almost always lead one astray from the desired results. Post hoc thinking is almost always wrong.
    • onewheeljoe
       
      The best practice/worst practice piece has tremendous power. It is at the core of your reflection and might be at the core of reform. Is this the theme I think it is? 
  • Perhaps I will discover the best case scenario for each of my classes. Perhaps not. Perhaps the success will come in the constant trumpeting of both “baby step” successes as well as “falling and hitting our heads on the coffee table, let’s go to the emergency room” failures. I just need to move my primary default mode from hub to node. They are more responsible for their own learning than I am. I share a duty to them, but the process is messy. We are all moon calves when it comes to learning. Moon calves.
    • onewheeljoe
       
      Your conclusion reads like a beginning to me. How is the hub kidding himself about his role and his impact? How is the node superior as a teacher and learner? 
onewheeljoe

Is It Time to Give Up on Computers in Schools? - Hybrid Pedagogy - 0 views

  • The sorts of hardware and software that were purchased had to meet those needs — the needs and the desire of the administration, not the needs and the desires of innovative educators, and certainly not the needs and desires of students.
    • Sheri Edwards
       
      And the needs of the IT -- not teachers and students
  • we must stare critically at the belief systems that are embedded in these tools.
    • Sheri Edwards
       
      identity -- what identity must education take?
  • The mainframe never went away. And now, virtualized, we call it “the cloud.” Computers and mainframes and networks are a point of control. Computers are a tool of surveillance. Databases and data are how we are disciplined and punished. Quite to the contrary of Seymour’s hopes that computers will liberate learners, this will be how all of us will increasingly be monitored and managed.
    • Sheri Edwards
       
      I hope she suggests a solution. #clmooc would be leaders. How to share this perversion of possibilities.  The "adjacent possible" of the good became the priority instead of adjacent.
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  • The latter should give us pause
    • Sheri Edwards
       
      I'm pausing. So many things reeling in my head: how can bad be the most powerful? people: identities unaccepted; control;  We're supposed to be civilized. But are we -- if this is what we do?
  • challenge it
    • Sheri Edwards
       
      When we challenge it, we will see HOW the data will be used against us as those controlling it will want to silence us, not find another way to work with people.
  • little thought about the Terms of Service,
    • Sheri Edwards
       
      I do read the terms of service, and I know that Google wants me to share, so gives me my ownership. Yes, collecting data. Advertising.  So how do we as those sharing, work with Google, etc. to to make a better world? What is a "better world" ? Aren't there Google aspects reaching out to help identify environmental and social problems? Is everything here bad? I don't want it to be.
  • control over our access to knowledge.
    • Sheri Edwards
       
      There it is control. What do you want them to do? What is the people's goal?
  • “Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate.”
    • Sheri Edwards
       
      I remember. My brother made a keypunch card with "the finger" on it. 1970s  I wonder where I put that? His quiet push back.
  • you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!
    • Sheri Edwards
       
      And, again, where is the HOW? How do we push back? The optout movement has started, and the pushback on them is fierce; fierce to keep the testing going. What do "the people" do? This is the alarm. We have no firetruck. Give us some tools. Now. Please.
  • ISTE is the perfect place to question what the hell we’re doing in ed-tech in part because this has become a conference and an organization dominated by exhibitors. Ed-tech — in product and policy — is similarly dominated by brands. 60% of ISTE’s revenue comes from the conference exhibitors and corporate relations; touting itself as a membership organization, just 12% of its revenue comes from members. Take one step into that massive shit-show called the Expo Hall and it’s hard not to agree: “Yes, it is time to give up on computers in schools.”
    • onewheeljoe
       
      What are some ways we can evaluate the knowledgeable others who inform our practice, or the organizations that supply the tools we adopt in schools, to always understand the market motivations at work?
  • The stakes are high here in part because all this highlights Google’s thirst for data — our data. The stakes are high here because we have convinced ourselves that we can trust Google with its mission: “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
    • onewheeljoe
       
      We've convinced ourselves that we can trust Google with its mission because to investigate the way Google might influence us by monopolizing search is beyond most people's ability or inclination to understand the inner workings of the Internet. 
Sheri Edwards

Gamification in the Classroom: The Right or Wrong Way to Motivate Students? | NEA Today - 0 views

  • Kathy Sierra, a popular technology blogger, author and game developer, believes that incentivizing learning-related behaviors poses risks. Sierra says rewards should be left at the classroom door. She is critical of the way gamification is practiced in the classroom, and believes well-intentioned educators may be missing the mark.
  • “A well-designed game only deploys certain mechanics to support an intrinsically rewarding experience,” Sierra explains. “When you remove that experience but keep the mechanics, you are now working from an entirely different psychology than actual games, and it is one that, in essence, uses mechanics to drive mechanical behaviors.”
  • Matthew Farber is not keen on the term “gamification”
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  • instrinsic game elements like narrative, creativity and collaboration, rather than just badges.
  • What’s missing, Farber says, is a narrative structure that places the student on a “journey,” similar to what the best games do.
  • “The journey is to build mastery,” Farber says. “The better way to gamify is to put students in an inquiry-based or project-based learning experience. Or give them a task in a narrative frame.”
  • create the right balance of challenge and skill, deeper knowledge and high-quality feedback.
  • Try to find what is inherently interesting in a subject and exploit that. It doesn’t matter if students roll their eyes. A good teacher can capture their attention and engage them before they even have a chance to think they aren’t interested
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    "using instrinsic game elements like narrative, creativity and collaboration, rather than just badges."
Terry Elliott

Right Now - hackpad.com - 0 views

  • come out
    • Terry Elliott
       
      emerge as if from...a chrysalis? via GIPHY
  • Friday
  • Friday
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  • Friday
    • Terry Elliott
       
      via GIPHY
  • it’s all pointless
    • Terry Elliott
       
      via GIPHY
  • a teacher
    • Terry Elliott
       
      via GIPHY
Terry Elliott

Symphony of Ideas: 2014 - a year of connection, disconnection, and loss - 0 views

  • 2014 was a year of work. 2015 should be a year of fun. That's my resolution.
    • Terry Elliott
       
      Then you have to play without end or purpose in sight.  That is the infinite game.
  • Indeed, wrestling myself away from my smartphone might be just the signal my muse needs to come around to visit me again
    • Terry Elliott
       
      I am beginning to practice what James Altucher suggests here:  http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2014/05/the-ultimate-guide-for-becoming-an-idea-machine/
    • Terry Elliott
       
      One my ideas was that we could start a 10 Creative Ideas Club using Hackpad.  Here is link to prototype: https://hackpad.com/The-10-Creative-Ideas-Club-lQtZ3D1hY7x
  • Relocating the muse
    • Terry Elliott
       
      Keep jabbing at the dog named Resistance that protects the Muse. Keep jabbing.
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  • One of my desires as a teacher and learner is to obscure the artificial boundaries that exist between formal and informal learning, 'school' and 'real life'. Such distinctions between digital connection and analog, 'face to face' connections should also be blurred.
    • Terry Elliott
       
      I think one way to do this blurring is to observe and share more of your own life.  I am beginning a series of posts called "Petty Joys" that chronicle the 'small beer' of my life, stuff I love that doesn't rise to the level of epiphany.  I am blurring the lines so that the editor in my head doesn't send out a rejection letter.  My first petty joy is the peanut butter stirrer. Watch for it.
Terry Elliott

Tutor Mentor Institute, LLC - 0 views

shared by Terry Elliott on 13 Dec 15 - Cached
  •    Career Ladder - Helping Inner City Youth Through School to Careers by Daniel F. Bassill
    • Terry Elliott
       
      I am reading Henry Jenkins, et al's latest book, Participatory Culture.  Everything I see here fits what I have read so far.  And also asks the question: how do we get youth to participate in this particular culture--the one that moves them through poverty and into careers.   I will have to make this one of the core questions as I read Participatory Culture.
  • "What Will it Take to Assure that all Youth Born or Living in High Poverty are Starting Jobs and Careers by Age 25?"
    • Terry Elliott
       
      Trying to imagine what this meant to me in my life.  I don't think it was the skills so much that my parents gave me as the attitude to keep on.  
  • the ideas exchanged by participants, and the relationships created, are as important as the learning that takes place.
    • Terry Elliott
       
      the "c" in cMOOC stands for 'connectivism', a learning philosophy that argues that connection is the secret sauce the element in the play that makes learning inevitable.  Part of that connection is exchange (what I call reciprocation) and relationship (the fruit of reciprocation).
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  • Last night the hangout focused on a platform called Youth Voices, where youth from around the country are connecting and sharing ideas and reflections. 
    • Terry Elliott
       
      I feel badly that I have not made a better attempt to connect/facilitate between others. That's why I tried to get Daniel and Simon together in a Hangout.  
  • encourage him to use concept mapping tools like Kumu
  • I found one under the topic of "How Can We Reduce Costs and Still Get the Care We Need?"  
    • Terry Elliott
       
      A valuable tool.  Here is a quick response: https://farm1.staticflickr.com/741/23114808664_5298e18c36_b.jpg
    • Terry Elliott
       
  • They could be learning many new skills and habits (see article about passionate employee). 
    • Terry Elliott
       
      This has always been an issue in education--where is the best leverage for improving learning? where the best place to use any resource to get the most value?   Is this too narrow a way of looking at the problem?  too bottom line?  Seems to value "cost" efficiency over all other values?   So...do we need to be putting our magic into tutors/mentors and teachers or into learner/employees?
  • This process could engage youth in thousands of locations, focusing on many complex problems, not just health care or poverty.
    • Terry Elliott
       
      I have always been for the idea that learners need to be more responsible for their own learning.  They should begin to be responsible for the problems they generate in their own lives and the ones they see generated around them.  It is the distribution of these problems and the relative inequity of this distribution that is most troubling.  Those who have the greatest opportunity to face the most difficulty problems are also those who are given the least resources to deal with them.  How fair is it to ask children to deal with the large issues of safety, health care, and poverty around them?  
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