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I watched this video in ENGL 030E workshop, and I am very interested in this video and the way the tutor use this video. The tutor show the video twice to students and assign them 8 minute quick write about what they have known from the video; after the quick write, the tutor let them discussion what they have gotten from the video in small group and share in the big group. In the big group discussion, some students mentioned that they "saw" words in the video. After discussion, the tutor show the video third time and asked students to write down all the words they have "seen" in this video. At the third, I figured out that the video shows different definitions of same words, like play, blow, run, etc., and the transitions between the words are done well. Through the process of thinking and discussing, the students noticed the words and the fluent transition. At the end of the discussion, the tutor collected the students' writings. The questions I raise from this video are that: 1. How to guide students to have such thinking rather than limited eyes. There will be more than two viewpoints to the same phenomenon, just like the different but interrelated definitions of the same word. At the beginning of the writing, the thought about the writing should be not limited in a specific topic or certain aspect, and writer can explore more ideas than they can. 2. How to start and use the invention strategies to avoid mechanical writing. Writing can be anything, not only the structure but also the idea. How to organize the essay, the structure, should be considered when the writing is certain; when having no idea of what to write, the free thinking and think deeper would be much more useful. It could be anything to inspire thoughts and ideas, like vocabulary, normal experience and so on. The video, the way the tutor delivers and the reading (Chapter 2 in Clark's book) make me think about how to really use the invention strategies.

I have already posted a Extra Credits video but I have to be completely honest: I feel the show is a goldmine for the potential topic that I'm looking at. While my other video discussed the basic concept of Gamification, this video explores the application of gamification to education specifically. Honestly, it may be a better idea for me to just lump all of Extra Credits together and simply refer to each video as its topic comes up. This is especially important because Extra Credits also has the following topics: Tutorials (http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/tutorials-101): This would tie in well with the "Rigid Rules" article from our text. Education does not necessarily have a clear "tutorial phase" especially for certain topics. Tangential Learning (http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/tangential-learning): This is a very important topic because it essentially explains the wikipedia effect. Learning about one topic can lead to an interest in another and someone who started on prominent war battles could eventually end up on the page for horse breeding. Enriching lives (http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/enriching-lives): Which does not focus on either topic specifically but focuses on the way

I found this video actually looking for an informative video about students liking writing ---- goes to show that most students "hate" writing for multiple reasons. Many of the reasons in the control of educators. Teachers have the power to change the negative connotation students interpret writing to be - just an assignment, no further significance to, no interest to write ---- students should enjoy writing <<< school stems from learning through writing and reading ---- students want to write on things that interest them not pedagogical theories and research assignments. Students like to learn through their own eyes - students enjoy different genres of writing. Teachers have the power to enable their students in finding their interest in the writing realm. However, students should know the general rules and process of writing whether it be a narrative or research assignment, etc. Also, (as a teacher comments within the movie) - students don't always take blogs or social-media oriented writing forums with interest since self-representation is then transmitted into a educational institution. The video also covers the public's views on possible preventing of "writing hatred." This video also reflects the concept in the Casanava article in our class packet - teachers need to work on getting students immersed in writing through allowing their personal knowledge be combined with the values and lessons deemed by the institution they are writing for.

This is an hour long lecture by the same guy (Dr. Wesch) who did the short video "A Vision of Students Today" that we watched in class at the beginning of the semester. This video goes more in depth about the issues presented in the short video. He discusses how the way most college classes are set up (i.e. lecture-based classes) do not encourage learning. He talks about how we can create a community of learning by incorporating different types of media like Google Docs, Twitter, Diigo, etc. to get students engaged with each other and what they're learning. This is a great video, but I warn you: Dr. Wesch likes to pace around in the same area when he lectures. This may not bother everyone, but it was distracting to me because he never holds still.

As an avid Video game enthusiast, I've always been curious about what exactly makes them so rewarding to play. Some would say story but that can't possibly account for the success of games like Call of Duty and games like Bioshock are not critically acclaimed solely for their gameplay. This video from a web series called Extra Credits (think TED talks meets gaming) touches on the theory of Gamification. The concept is best summarized in the video where they state "Gamification is simply the idea of taking the principles of play, the things we've learned in three decades of making videogames and using them to make real world activities more engaging." If this theory could be refined and applied to learning, both in and outside the classroom, I feel we would see an almost revolutionary shift in student engagement and enthusiasm.

This is a video I found on YouTube discussing freshman composition. The video's main focus is to get the students' perspective on the class and to discover what it is that they are wanting to get out of the class and how they view the class in general. The students that were interviewed explained how it is hard to be themselves in their writing and they get caught up in trying to make their writing cater to what the teacher wants. One student, discussing her writing, says she feels she has to "alter it to fit the teacher" and that in class, they aren't writing for themselves but writing "for the teacher." The video goes into detail about the purpose of freshmen composition, it gives examples of all sorts of paper assignments and guidelines that the teacher wants to be followed. Students were then interviewed on their perspectives and noted that the guidelines were helpful and kept them on track. Others felt it could be a little stifling and hard to be themselves in a paper. The video went on to explain how writing is different from any other class because it is an example of the students' own identity, their ideas. There's a sense of vulnerability to it that is not seen in other classes like math or history for example. I found this to be interesting, I wish the video had gone into a little more depth but I liked seeing the freshmen's perspectives. It would have been better if more students were interviewed too. Definitely something worth checking out though!

This website deals with the idea of conferring with students. The author states that individual conversations with students are important on accessing the students and determining what they need at the time to improve their writing. The author shares a wonderful video that demonstrates how one on one mentoring and conferring can truly build the confidence of a student. The author states that it is critical to support students without taking over their ideas specially if the the student is struggling. I truly enjoyed the video as it truly illustrated the authors suggestions. I found this website interesting because sometimes we must show someone how to be a writer before criticizing their papers and assuming that they are bad writers.

Digital Discourse: Composing with media in the writing classroom Karen Gocsik This article, posted under the writing and rhetoric section of the Dartmouth University website, discusses the potential multi-media assignments and teaching methods can have on new-age students. Gocsik feels that the literacy of the screen should become a third type of literacy behind oral and print. The nuances in composing a webpage or video reveal similar elements to that of constructing an essay. Gocsik makes the point that making a video project teaches students how to: come up with explicit vs. implied theses, structure according to the expectations of the audience and conventions of a particular medium or genre, and how to craft arguments out of a polophony of voices while creating a multimedia voice of one's own (Gocsik). Multimedia devices such as blogs or webpage's can be used to assist in the bigger project of a video collaboration.

This is a bit more general than my previous posting but I feel it meshes well with my previous video on gamification. In this video, Jane Mcgonigal discusses the potential for video games, or at least the factors that keep us playing them, being a force for good in the modern age. Especially interesting is that she talks about how playing MORE games could solve a number of real world problems.

Hypermedia Authoring as Critical Literacy Jamie Myers Richard Beach This article talks about the benefits of implementing hypermedia into literacy education. Hypermedia or hypertext is a web tool that allows students to access school texts via the Internet and actively engage in annotating those texts or providing links to relating websites, pictures, or videos. Students don't have to just link either, they can create their own webpage geared towards whatever it is their doing. A student could make a webpage featuring a paper they wrote, with links to videos and pictures that the creator feels relates to the paper. It's a type of personalization that would motivate a student and make them view their writing differently. Free writing is a useful tool for helping a writer find their voice or develop their own style. Hypertext allows students to free write with freedom and creativity about particular texts, and puts their writing into conversation with other student's responses. Similar to the way we use dijgo, but with a focus on the inquires made into a certain school text. Discussion of the various posts can be made in class, to create a literal conversation on inquires and interpretations of a text.

This video is a very entertaining whiteboard animation of a talk given at RSA (described on their website, http://www.thersa.org, as "an enlightenment organisation committed to finding innovative practical solutions to today's social challenges") by author Dan Pink (for more, see http://www.danpink.com/about). The question he poses, is "what motivates us?" The common belief that people will work harder for a bigger reward is found to be true only when the work involves simple, mechanical skills. When the work requires even rudimentary cognitive skills, a surprising reversal occurs: the larger the reward, the poorer the performance. Pink states that engagement requires three factors: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Though his presentation is addressed to the business world, I think that he's really addressing fundamental aspects of human nature that can be applied in education as well. For example, his claim that crappy products are the result when profit is separated from purpose, can be applied to education as well, when grades are separated from meaningful learning.

Great video and surpassingly simple. We do better work, when we are doing work towards something that interests us and that we are voluntarily invested in. That's not to say that we are invested in it voluntarily from the beginning, but that as we invest ourselves the reward is more personally gratifying. We are made happy by getting better at a task and mastering that task, we are made happy by engaging in abstract cognitive ideas that interest us. Money can not buy happiness, it can only buy a lack of cognitive effort.

This video talks about the growing gap between technology use outside of the classroom and inside the classroom. The video brings up a number of interesting ideas in regards to implementing web 2.0 in the classroom, and what needs to be done to facilitate the pedagogical need for web 2.0. Web 2.0 can allow for the "personalization of learning," letting students adapt technology to their particular individual learning needs. Learning has been largely individualized and web 2.0 allows for a more communal approach to the learning process.

This is an informative YouTube video that looks at the way Dr. Christopher Long uses blogs as writing in his philosophy classes. The video explains how the blog can be used as a way to bring web 2.0 writing into the classroom with a number of benefits. Some of the benefits that Dr. Long discusses refer to "blurring the boundaries between the teacher and the student" and making a "community" within the classroom.

This is an assignment I did for eng 333.....the video is really long i think so maybe skip around....?

In this TED talk video Dave Eggers is talking enthusiastically about free tutoring centers where students receive one-on-one attention from either more experienced peers or teachers who volunteer to go to these centers at least two hours a week. He backs up the need of having individual help by research data (I would be interested to see the primary research) which say that 35-40 hours a year one-on-one attention students can get one grade level higher. The first center was opened to offer help in English and writing. Although there was an issue of trust at first to visit the center, with time and some advertising the center got packed with students. They even published their own writing in a form of a book, which is inspiring as it honors their work, hardship, creativity and thoughts. Now they have 1400 students in the center and they want to grow nationwide. Also, they have a website (http://www.onceuponaschool.org/) where there is somebody to show guidance to those who are interested in starting their own learning center in their town (for their public school students). To me, this is a great idea to inspire students and keep their motivation going in a particular subject. I wonder if they have done research and found out students of what achievement tend to go there, is it possible that those who are already into writing, science, languages, etc, are the ones visiting these centers. I also wonder if the volunteers who are there to help receive any kind training about certain methodology or ground rules.

This is a technical discussion on dopamine, rewards, and time by neurologist Robert Sapolsky. His research has shown that the anticipation of reward is more pleasurable than the reward itself and this pleasure increases when the reward is not a guarantee, but a possibility. This kind of discussion may seem overly abstract and distant from the classroom, but understanding how motivation works, even on a neuro-chemical level, can help us to not only design our courses, but develop new approaches to generating enthusiasm and performance in the classroom. It is a good place to start when crafting (or re-designing) a teaching (and/or writing) philosophy. What are the rewards students associate with writing? What is our role in creating, maintaining, and providing access to those rewards? Do the rewards always have to be attainable? How do we frame these ideas for use in academic planning?