Can Gamification Be Used Effectively in Education?

Gamification is being used to sell more shoes and cereal, get workers to participate more fully in company programs, encourage individuals to pursue nutrition and fitness goals, engage people in solving problems like world hunger, and train soldiers.  LinkedIn uses gamification to encourage users to complete more steps in their profile. Khan Academy uses it to reward learners as they progress through lessons.  If you are looking for a tool to engage people, gamification is worth looking at (and trying out).

But what is Gamification, and what application does it have, if any, in the realm of K-12 education?

Gamification involves using principles of game design that make games so engaging, and applying them to non-game situations.  It doesn't mean turning everything into a game, although games are a valid teaching tool.  In education, the goal of using gamification is to improve the engagement of students as they learn the content and skills presented to them in whatever learning platform they are using.  This could mean a wholly face-to-face, traditional classroom setting, or some combination of computer-based and face-to-face learning situation.

Gamification, like anything else, can be an effective tool for engaging learners.  Also, like anything else, it can fall flat on its face.  A tool is just a tool.  Its effectiveness is all in how the tool is used, and the skill of the person or group wielding it. 

As students do more work in a blended or wholly online setting, gamification is bound to get more serious scrutiny.  This is especially true because K-12 students today are so involved in games already.  Appealing to a generation of students who cut their teeth on a tablet or on mom or dad's smart phone requires an openness to adding new tools to the education toolbox.

The following infographic is a good place to start the conversation, and thinking, about effective ways gamification could be used to foster real learning.



Created by Knewton and Column Five Media

Moving On...

Amazingly, I haven't made an entry in quite a long time.  Mostly I have been so consumed with work, I have not kept up with this blog.

I have been involved in blended and online learning for about eight years now and am about to embark on a new phase of my journey.  January 22nd I will begin a course in blended learning offered through our REMC.  It will give me a chance to see what's new.  It will also be a good opportunity to network with other educators.

Over the past two years I have explored gamification through a Coursera class, and have continued to be involved in blended and online learning.  This year our school district decided to turn our alternative ed high school into a completely online experience.  I can only say that a little more planning ahead of time would have been a good idea.

I've followed the local news for Michigan and Indiana as online schools have grown exponentially, and have seen some of the problems they have encountered.  They come as no surprise.  Most of the stories have been about public schools who tried to implement online classes.  Gull Lake schools, near Kalamazoo, made the headlines last year when the state took back money the district should have been paid by the state because their contact with students didn't meet the state standard.  Also, in an effort to reach out to local home schoolers, they offered classes that were not available to traditional students in their district.  These things are really minor, though.  I'm sure the school district was able to make changes to satisfy the state, and, frankly, Michigan (and I'll bet lots of other states) has had a hard time keeping up with the amazing growth of online schooling. They often struggle with which policies to put into place to be sure state money isn't being wasted and that programs really result in academic achievement.

Issues that online schools have faced include poor test scores, a population that is very fluid, and meeting state standards for attendance.  Strangely, this is not so different from problems we faced every year in our community ed and alternative high school programs.

On the other hand, there is lots of money to be made in online schooling.  I am sure it is hard to resist the possibility of bringing hundreds of thousands of dollars into a district simply by reaching out to students who have a difficult time in a traditional setting, or to home school families.  In fact, public schools lose money when parents home school. Offering courses online to home school families gives public schools state aid money they lose otherwise.

There has also been an increase in the number of private companies offering online education and collecting money from states for those who enroll in their programs.  It is really kind of a back door voucher system.  Politicians have argued for years about offering vouchers which students could take to any school.  Online schooling has sidestepped the politicians. 

In Michigan, for instance, state aid for a full year of schooling is about $7,000 per child. (There is some difference, with a few districts earning more because they were seen as more needy).  I think it is pretty obvious that schools can bring in quite a lot of money with online programs.  But they have to meet attendance requirements, which include the number of times students log in and direct, two-way communication between the school and the student - such as face-to-face, phone, and email conversations where both the teacher and student are involved.  Gull Lake schools discovered that sending an email out wasn't enough to count for attendance.  There had to be weekly contact and the student had to respond as part of that contact.

Sadly, one result of this trend is that some schools jump in without proper planning and preparation, then flounder around while they try to figure things out.  The worst thing about this is that it is bad for the students.  As much time as schools spend on school improvement, you would think they would realize implementation of an online program requires planning and research.

It is easy to subscribe to an online program, like the Florida Virtual School, Plato, Odyssey, and others. At my school, we have used Novell and Nova Net in the past and currently use OdysseyWare.  Subscribing saves a district all the time and manpower of developing classes themselves. Since the publishers go through the process of becoming approved by the state, local districts also don't have to worry about failing to meet state standards when they subscribe to these products.

Then the school can simply set up a lab and sign students up.  Granted, there are many schools who do more than this, but essentially all they need is a subscription and some computers and, viola! they have an online program.  They easily make up the money they spend on the subscription and for computers and a few staff.  Some districts don't even worry about having certified teachers supervise the learning. Instead, they hire instructional aids or mentors.

On the other hand, there are districts who have created quality online experiences that reach beyond the bound of their own locale to serve students at great distance. I will talk about one of these schools in another blog.  I want to be sure to have space to really share their remarkable story.

So, I haven't written in this blog for a long time, but I have not been idle.  As I move forward, I will record my thoughts here and in my Word Press blog, edubable.org. 

Well, it has almost been a year since I really was doing some serious posting! Yikes!  I found the coolest thing I am going to try with my Digital Storytelling students.  This was born out of the fact that I started the year with NO computers. Zero!  That kind of takes a bite out of the digital part of digital storytelling!

We are three weeks in to the new year and I still don't have the new laptops (despite some very hard work and long hours put in by our tech department).  So, we storyboarded commercials (which we can't make yet), and planned and started on the filming of short horror story scenarios.  I have the help (thankfully) of a former student, Bryon, who is a whiz at film and has the answers to the questions I have been asking for the past 6 years! Yay!

So, this week we made zoetropes.  Not bad, really.  While searching for a pattern or demo or something, I ran across the amazing video posted above.  Wow!  In fact, Walt Noon, the person who made the video, has been quite helpful and willing to answer my questions.  So now I am on a quest to build the high tech zoetrope.  I figure I can give the students a circular base to design on, and we can try them all out one at a time and film them.  This could be really cool!

Now I just have to find a way to be amazing a little while longer while we get our new computers and I build the zoetrope.  Gotta say, I can pull that off every once in a while, but being amazing two days in a row...ahhhh.   Picture deer in the headlights...

I'll update my blog as we go along, so that anyone following will be able to see how it goes!

Okay, this was just too funny. I discovered a site called LiveBinder, which I think is going to solve my problem of iGoogle going away and my Box of Links not working. In fact, it will be a great tool for organizing different content areas, as well as for saving cool stuff I find on the Internet. (No, the book is not real, but it was fun to play with the app).

 One of the links within the tutorials for this site took me to: Page Plugins

I used this site to created the pseudo book cover posted here. 



The site lets you make all sorts of fun things to post on a blog or social network page - for free.  Free is good.  It is really easy, too.  Once you create your banner or whatever, you just copy the embed code onto your site, and voila!

Image taken from Amazon.com

On a more practical note, I found a book on Amazon that I think is really great. It is callde Making Thinking Visible. Co-authored by educators Ron Ritchhart, Mark Church, and Karin Morrison, the book shares practical routines that can be used across grade levels to help students think more deeply about the subjects they encounter in class. It comes with a DVD demonstrating the use of these routines in real classrooms across a variety of ages and subjects. I think this book is well worth looking into. It is very practical - which is my favorite thing! The authors don't just pontificate about the benefits of higher level thinking. They show you. The book retails for $29.95.

Updated ACES Presentation for Spring of 21012

After a year of developing the ACES program, we will be visiting our own high school to share with the staff. This will be a great opportunity for us to clarify what it is we are doing over in our building.

All-in-all it has been a successful year. Challenging, yes. Exhausting, yes. But we really laid a good foundation for next year and, I think, proved that there is enough interest to support investing resources into growing and developing the program next year.

School Board Presentation: the ACES program

We have been very busy getting the program started this year. This is a presentation I put together for our school board to explain the ACES program. So far, things have gone really well - though, of course, there are many things we need to develop.

Adobe Youth Voices and Problem Based Learning

Adobe has a set of curricula to help teachers connect with their students through problem based learning and the use of music, print, video, and animation. The site, Adobe Youth Voices, promises to be a great resource for teachers.

In addition to fully developed curricula, the site includes teacher stories centered around lessons educators have learned through embracing this approach.  Gregg Witkin, a teacher from Boynton High School in San Jose, California wrote about the importance of cultivating a connection with students as an essential element to becoming an effecting teacher.  This really jibes with the direction we have been trying to take with our high school students in the ACES program.

Over the past several weeks we have, unfortunately, had our attention drawn away from moving forward with developing a problem/project based approach to learning.  Essential administrative tasks swallowed up a lot of our time.  Now, I am hoping we are going to be able to start developing the problem/project based aspect of the program.

We are using a product - a Photo Story 3 slide show - as a means of allowing my Government students to display their understanding of the Bill of Rights.  This also gave me a chance to introduce dig.ccmixter.com as a site for downloadable music they can import into their slide show if they wish.  Students also learned how to create music within the free Photo Story 3 application.  One result of my experience in the Full Sail EMDT masters program has been an increased commitment to honoring the intellectual property of others - and to teaching my students to do the same.

This week I intend, finally, to get them journaling, by way of their blogs.  I will have to accelerate the rest of our course somewhat because of the things that hindered us at the start of the year.  However, I also discovered Blackboard offers a free version of their application online!  I started building an online version of my Government course using their Course Sites.  I was glad to find this, because Blackboard is so widely used, but I had only been able to use Moodle and Schoology up to this point.

At this point I need to make a couple of media assets - tutorials - to help my students through their Photo Story projects.  Then it is the downhill rush to the Christmas break!  Well, they say that a car has to be moving before you can steer it - so I'd say things are good.  We are certainly moving!  Now let's see if we can steer things in the right direction.

Well, that was bracing!

Many of the sources that describe using Project Based Learning (PBL) also testify to the fact that implementing it (or any approach that is radically different from traditional methods) can take us out of our comfort zone.
Putting ourselves in uncomfortable positions is hard to do. I think it is even more challenging in the absence of a mentor who has traveled the path before you. Still, I believe our journey to blend PBL with the other approaches used in our program is well worthwhile.
We got our program underway last week and presented the concept of PBL to our students; however, we are just laying the groundwork. We have not actually engaged in PBL yet. Our first task is to create a foundation - to make sure students have basic skills needed to carry out projects of their own. Their first projects will be guided and supported. As students (and the teachers) progress, the students will initiate their own projects.
One "bump in the road" was the decision by the district to transfer our math/science teacher to the high school, leaving our program without a qualified math or science teacher. Ouch! It also left a program with a very small staff to begin with diminished by one third. Double ouch! Oh, yes, and this happened during the first week of school. Yikes! We knew our friend was going to be part-time at the high school, but having him totally gone was a shock.
I have no doubt we will still press forward and successfully implement PBL in our program. We have great leadership in a director and district superintendent who are vested in seeing our program succeed. It will be quite a challenge, though. I look forward to looking back at the end of the year with the satisfaction of those who have worked hard to overcome obstacles and achieved a worthwhile goal.

PBL Ground Zero

Be still my constructivist heart! Seriously, there is such cool stuff out there about project-based or expeditionary learning. I also discovered a company called Project Foundry, which offers an LMS that helps teachers take students through a project-based approach, tying the planned project to standards, and assisting teachers to manage the whole process, including the awarding of credit.

What I am doing now is looking for a way to present this to our "alternative" high school students. In one video, the classrooms were like offices, with low dividers and work stations for kids that looked an awful lot like an office. The adult leading the kids was called an "advisor" rather than a "teacher." This may seem like a petty shift in semantics, but when students have built up a paradigm for what they think a "teacher" is, they can be helpful in moving students away from that mold.

Our journey to being a truly project-based/problem-based school is just beginning. Our first steps might still be a little like a traditional classroom. As the year progresses, I expect our team to learn more about how to be advisors. We'll be shifting our paradigm right along with the students. Cool.

See More Myst IV Revelation Various at IGN.com

Why a picture from Myst IV Revelation? We are starting the year with a focus on relationships. As part of that, we are having students decorate their lockers as a way of telling others about themselves. The logical parallel to this is for each of the teachers to decorate their doors with the same intent. So, I have been on a search for images to help inspire my door design.

Mrs. Reed's door is a big sunshine, green grass, blue water and sky. I laughed and told her I would decorate my door (which is directly across the hall) in Goth style and we could see which door attracts which kids. Just kidding. Actually, I am going to go for steampunk on my door, maybe with the addition of a dragon or two.

Building a friendly yet professional relationship has got to be a foundation for our whole year, and the doors and lockers are intended to function as a springboard for getting to know one another a little better. It is also fun. Setting the right emotional tone is important too!

I will update this post with pictures of our doors once we are all done decorating them next week.

Seek and ye shall find

Reaching the iGeneration requires a shift in teacher thinking!

Amazing site!  If you are interested in using project based learning effectively, but have little or no experience with PBL, you need to check out Project Based Learning online. This site has an excellent set of resources to help teachers plan their PBL units.  There are also videos with great examples of schools using PBL effectively.

Maybe I've been around too long, but  when I read statements about things that can go wrong, I get it. Been there, done that! I definitely know about things going wrong!

I also know first-hand how much more time and effort goes into constructing really effective PBL than is needed for a more traditional approach.  Our team is well aware that we will be putting in many, many extra hours this year.  Sites like the Project Based Learning are so valuable in helping us to think about all of the details of planning and carrying off this approach successfully.  Not only do I find myself nodding in agreement as I read their web site, but I also can tell that these people get it - they know what they are talking about.

The planning process the PBL-online site describes echoes instructional design principles I learned in the Education Media Design Technology masters program through Full Sail University.  The site also offers an opportunity for collaboration, as teachers can share their own PBL plans and outcomes with other educators.

Like anything else, PBL can be implemented well or poorly.  The research I've been reading, including articles posted on the BIE site, confirm again the value of learning to effectively use PBL with our high school students.  But there is the caveat - effectively implement - that makes a great deal of difference between having the ideal outcomes PBL is capable of, and creating a big project with no particular positive impact on learning.

I think most people who've been in education for a few years have seen the monster improperly designed attempts at PBL can create.  That is why I keep going back and looking again at resources and research to help guide my practice.  It helps keep me on the right track.  The many videos and reports of success also are very encouraging.  They let me know that, if our team keeps working on using PBL, we will refine and improve our use of this approach with the effect of creating a dynamic, engaging learning environment for our students. 

21st Century Challenge

I was doing some back-up research about 21st Century skills and ran across this wonderful video on the Partnership for 21st Century Skills site.  The video was written by children’s book author/illustrator Peter H. Reynolds and created in collaboration with the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and FableVision.

I had 21st Century skills on the checklist I created for planning my courses.  I have spent so much of the past six years learning about 21st Century skills, that I had to think for a moment when I was asked where I got the idea to include them in my planning.  I went back and made a more detailed listing, including 21st Century literacies, so that I could be more precise in addressing this element of the courses I'm creating.

The planning tools I've created are really for my own benefit, to help me keep track of the many threads I need to weave together to produce a truly well-balanced set of courses for our high school program (no longer "alternative", we are now "accelerated"!  Cool!).  It occurred to me, though, that the tools I created will also help me answer questions when I'm asked how my courses meet state standards, and how I know students are having the kinds of learning experiences they need.  Questions are good - they make me rethink and remember what my reasoning was, how I arrived at a certain conclusion.

Only three weeks until school starts! So much to do...

Putting the Pieces Together

A little A-Team music, please!  Yes, we love it when a plan comes together.  Today Brenda and I are meeting to go over grading and some of the specifics of our planning, now that we actually know when school starts and stops.

The Wordle is a reflection of some of the things we are trying to juggle (hence the drawing).  We have spoken of keeping student work in a cumulative portfolio that will give evidence of their mastery of the skills and concepts expected of high school graduates.  I found a good article on graduate portfolios that I think will be a great starting point for a conversation about a different kind of portfolio than the students have created in the past. 

We plan to have students demonstrate these skills over the course of multiple assignments.  For example, perhaps their first writing will focus on a good, well-written paragraph about a topic.  As students progress, the writing will become more sophisticated.  We intend to introduce MLA style, respect of copyright, documenting sources correctly, and tools for planning a written product (like webbing and outlining).  Assignments throughout different courses and different levels of courses will have students use these skills again and again, so that they will become fluent and proficient in them. 

How often are students introduced to a skill, only to have a great deal of time pass before they are asked to use that skill again?  Of course, they forget.  Asking students to use the same skill across subject areas, and to do it through each level of a course, will help reinforce the skill.  The same is true of our approach to tech and Web 2.0 tools.  There are a million of them.  Rather than continually introducing new Web 2.0 tools to students, we are choosing a number of them as a base and using them over and over again until students are able to use them independently and with a reasonable degree of proficiency.  Of course, we can introduce other tools as individual students master the foundational set we will use in classes. 

For example, each level may require some sort of presentation to allow the student to demonstrate mastery of a set of concepts.  In the beginning they will have learned how to find copyright free music (digccmixter, etc) and bring it into Audacity, if needed. They might use Prezi or PhotoStory3 to combine images, words, and music to present their topic. They will create storyboards to plan their presentations. Their final product will be embedded into their blogs with their reflection about what they learned in a given unit or level.  As students progress through each course, a presentation will be part of their demonstration of understanding the content. 

Students who are more adept at using technology will have a chance to expand the range of tools they use, but everyone will develop fluency and proficiency at using at least two modes of presentation. 

Drawing by Patricia Ort

Why? 

I expect each of our students to go on to some sort of post-secondary education.  Statistics support the reality that, at some point in their future, our students will need to be able to manage their learning for additional training that will be presented to them - whether it be tech school, college, or on-the-job training provided by an employer.  The higher level thinking skills they will hone through the process I described above will stand them in good stead when they are in a different setting, without, perhaps, the kind of support they will be getting in our classrooms.  They will be independent, confident, and equipped to take whatever they have learned and share it with others in a way that is clear and demonstrates good understanding of what they have learned.

This should serve them well, no matter what venue they find themselves in. It should give them the foundation to be life-long learners.

What makes our alternative high school program unique?

I appreciated the comments of another blogger as I gave thought to this question. Rob Barton shared his thoughts on the differences between pedagogy and andragogy (a word I became aware of this year).  I liked best his comment about there not necessarily being a set age line between pedagogy (a teacher-centered approach of teaching commonly used with younger children) and andragogy (a student-directed approach for adult learners).

While I have a responsibility to be the person "behind the curtain," making sure students are involved in learning that reflects state and national standards, many of the things identified as principles of adult learning seem very appropriate for my alternative ed students.

The principles of adult learning (most often credited to Malcom Knowles) are:

• Self-directed, autonomous learning.
• Students bring life experiences and knowledge to the learning situation.
• Learners are goal-oriented.
• The learning needs to be relevant to the learner.
• The learner is practical.  They want to know stuff they can see a use for.
• They need to be shown respect.

Well, yeah.

What about this list wouldn't apply to my high school students?  It is true that there are different levels of maturity among my students that make some more ready to be self-directed than others.  I think that is a matter of experience.  If we create scaffolding for students to give them the opportunity to develop skills which support them as self-directed learners, then those who have not quite gotten to that point can be enabled.  Those who are already able to direct their own learning will simply be able to engage in self-directed learning more quickly, while those who need to have this modeled will be given plenty of help.

I think this is where setting every student up with an iGoogle account, and having them create tabs within that account as part of creating their own Personal Learning Environment (PLE) fits in.  It is also where setting up a blog and using it to journal about their learning experiences comes into play.  Later, when our students move on to post-secondary education, whether it be a college, trade school, certificate program, or some other setting, they will have the tools to manage their own learning.

Our plan to use project-based and problem-based learning situations also fits very well with these principles.  We know our students are not blank slates to be written on.  They have their own experiences and knowledge to bring to the table.  Remembering that they are still teens, we can invite them to use the knowledge they already have while helping them to gain the knowledge and skills they will need as adults.

Each time we approach the standards and topics that are part of a high school education, we will also look for the ways in which they are relevant to our students.  If they can see they are not just doing rote learning, but are discovering things that make a difference in their lives, they will be more engaged and motivated to master new concepts and skills. In this way, also, we intend to help students to see the practical use of the content they will be mastering.

As for showing respect - well, of course.  Kids know if you are talking down to them.  I think this goes beyond just presenting lesson content.  I think it also goes to not gossiping about the kids and not letting them gossip about one another.  The idea of "respecting the absent" is shared in the book Top 20 Teachers by Bernabei, Cody, Sweeney, Cole, and Cole.  They advocate being a problem solver instead of a problem bringer.  What they meant by this had to do with those conversations teachers often have about students...where they complain and criticize the student but bring no solution to the table.

That made sense to me.  It is easy to become frustrated with a particular person or situation and to engage in conversations where you are really just venting about the person.  You might really care about the person - but you feel so frustrated that your conversation isn't about finding a solution, but about complaining. 

So,

• Self-directed, autonomous learning.
• Students bring life experiences and knowledge to the learning situation.
• Learners are goal-oriented.
• The learning needs to be relevant to the learner.
• The learner is practical.  They want to know stuff they can see a use for.
• They need to be shown respect.

These are some of the things that make our program unique.  They are not just principles to be applied to the 20-somethings and older group.  They also have their place in the alternative high school setting.

Finally, I have to share this video!  In my search for more information about adult learning principles, I ran across a project a fellow Full Sail University student produced for the Musical Theory and Educational Applications class.  I just had to laugh - been there, done that!  Not quite ready for prime time, but the content was good and I just had to empathize with a fellow EMDT student!

Progress Happens

Courtesy Creative Commons

Things are starting to fall into place.  We are using a problem solving/project based approach this year, which requires a lot of groundwork!  Today we set themes for the year, which  gives us a framework to build the rest of our learning experiences around.

Most themes run for four weeks.  We are collaborating -  creating whole group learning experiences, which we will team teach. We will also divide the students up into smaller groups to do explicit, direct teach lessons which are aimed at specific learning outcomes drawn from National and State standards.  The schedule is flexible, allowing us to give more time on any given day to a learning experience that requires more time. For example, if Bryan is doing a lab to help students understand plant biology, we can allow him that time, while adjusting time spent on other lessons.  Students who did not need to earn a biology credit would work with Brenda and I in English or social studies.

We previously created a crosswalk from National and State standards and are using those results to create checklists for each of our courses.  We have evaluated the different technology and Web 2.0 tools we would like to use, and today posted an introductory survey we will use at the beginning of the year to start learning about our students.  Our first focus is on relationship building.  The survey will be one piece of that. Feedback from each person will tell us how they see themselves as students and help us in planning lessons.

I am duplicating my courses in Moodle.  This will allow students with attendance problems to keep up.  I have also found my students really like this kind of structure. They like to have a place where they can see what the learning tasks are, what level of performance is required to earn credit, and when things are due. Grades are also posted on the Moodle.  As our program comes together, Moodle will also be a tool for allowing advanced students to finish courses a little faster.  I am drawing from my e-learning and game design courses as I structure these new Moodle versions of the social studies courses I teach.  There will also be one Moodle which will serve as a resource for all students, with tutorials and step-by-step instructions for projects and assignments.  Students who may be working on a project at home could refer to the Moodle if they had forgotten how to use Audacity or Photostory 3, for example.  Or if they wanted to see the rubric for a major assignment, they could pull it up on Moodle from any computer linked to the Internet.

We are also looking at opportunities to integrate reading and writing standards across the curriculum.  The goal is to have students practice and demonstrate mastery of literacy skills essential to future success beyond high school. 

 I am breaking my social studies courses up into levels, with repeated elements in each level.  For example, each level in the history classes will have a vocabulary and a geography piece, as well as core content which students will need to demonstrate mastery of.  There will be increasing levels of sophistication required as students move through a course. 

We created a web as part of our initial planning.  The web was a good starting place for seeing how the English, math, social studies, and science courses overlap.  I am now working on a sort of web/flow chart to describe how we will be integrating all of our courses.  We also need to identify stories we want to use to introduce each new theme.  Storytelling is a great way to draw students in and capture their interest. They are also a great launching point for researching.

I also would like to see our students creating their own stories, as a way of sharing what they've learned.

Authentic Assessment and Blended Learning Edutopia Resources

Edutopia offers great support for teachers interested in authentic assessment and blended learning. I have been browsing through their site, getting ideas about what other teachers are doing. There are some very good resources there.

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto

As the teachers at my school have started getting together to plan this coming year, one thing that has become clear. We have a vision for the program, but figuring out how to get from where we are now to the fulfillment of that vision can be overwhelming.  I believe we can do it, but we will have to break it down and work on it step-by-step. One resource I read suggested planning by identifying what the end result is that you are shooting for, then working backward. I think that is a very good idea.

We have already gotten a good start.  For one thing, we have to allow for students who have attendance problems as well as for those who can move quickly through the curriculum.  I want assessments to go beyond multiple choice, True False kinds of tests.  That might be okay for some basic things, but we need to create authentic assessments - where students create a product that demonstrates they have mastered the course content/concepts.  It isn't just about course content - it is about helping our students to become master learners.  The tools we use are designed to empower students to be able to go on to whatever post-secondary education they choose and succeed. 

Now it's time to use what I've learned...

Sturgis Central Commons, home of the Community Ed program.

The time has come to put all the things I learned in the Education Media Design Technology Masters program to work.  This year is a year of opportunity for our alternative high school program. We've been given a chance to design a completely different type of approach - at least for us.

There are three of us: the English teacher, the math/science teacher, and myself (social studies).  Using State of Michigan and National standards, we are collaborating to create an approach that incorporates problem based, project based, and blended instruction. 

We have been analyzing the standards and course content for each of the classes we will be teaching, and are collaborating on joint lessons that incorporate standards from all of our disciplines. Since we will also be using a blended approach, I have begun to revamp my Moodle courses to fit our new curriculum.  I am also incorporating the concepts I learned about game design in creating both live and online coursework.

Much of the research I've read over the last year underscored the efficacy of using digital storytelling to support literacy and address 21st century skills. Last year I looked at digital storytelling only in terms of student engagement. This year I want to explore whether we can increase our students' literacy skills through the use of digital storytelling as part of our instruction. 

I plan to use this blog to journal about our experience this year.  We are all well-qualified, but turning theory into reality is a great challenge.  It is going to take many hours of work and great teamwork to create the program we envision.  At the end of the year I want to be able to say our students mastered the knowledge and skills needed for their diplomas - but more than that, I want to see students who are empowered to manage their own learning beyond high school. 

Fait Accompli

Holly, Thomas, myself, and Zoe - Team Digital Horizon rocks!

After a year of rigorous online instruction, we finally reached our goal - graduation. Well, really there is more to it than that.  Each of us has things we want to do with all of the skills and knowledge we gained during the Education Media Design Technology masters program through Full Sail University.

Holly's position at her school has been expanded to allow her time for teacher training. She is sorting out which professional development to do first!  She is the consummate researcher and will do an excellent job of assessing the needs of the teachers at her school and devising training opportunities for them.

Thomas also had a positive impact at his school and will be able to build next year upon the research he did in the EMDT program. I loved the commercial he made to introduce his high school English students to their unit on Gothic writing. Eventually I think he will end up back in his beloved Hawaii. He will have a lot to offer them when he does take that step.

Zoe is our world traveler. After a visit with family in England she will be off to Turkey. She has been invited to present at a conference in Malta in a year or so.  I knew her interactive e-book was a winner, but her research really illustrated its impact on kids. They loved it! Maybe Holly and I can go see her in person in Malta!

As for myself, I really want to use the experience and training I have in educational technology in a larger setting. It is true that at my current school we are designing a project-based program for next year that will also use a blended approach - mixing live classes and online learning opportunities. The teaching staff in my program is great and we really became a team last year. Still - I'd like to have the opportunity to show other teachers how to integrate technology into their classrooms. We'll have to see where that leads me.

 After working our tails off for a year, I could hardly let graduation go by without attending in person!  Part of our visit involved a tour of Full Sail University.  My original undergrad degree in Speech featured an emphasis in theater, so you can imagine how much I enjoyed seeing the tech at Full Sail. This photo is of an area where set pieces are built. Yes, when I was 19, I was doing that sort of thing. The smell of fresh pine really brought me back to NMU and Forest Roberts Theater.

  And yes, when we got to visit the studios used for filming various types of programs, I was really geeking out.  Lighting is my favorite thing, of course. I wouldn't mind learning to run one of those cameras, either!

Ok, so I am not skilled at running a sound board, but that doesn't mean I can't covet this one! Too bad I can't be two people and leave one of my selves at Full Sail for awhile.






Was it worth it? Yes.  There was so much - I will be re-reading my books on using game design to create classroom instruction. I will even be going back over ADDIE!  I intend to audit some of the courses in the future, so that I can improve my skills and keep up with changes in technology. Filmmaking, the Flash course, and game design are 3 I will revisit for sure!
That's the cool thing about Full Sail. We can audit classes in the program for free for the rest of our lives. Awesome!

In the meantime, I have also been looking into PhD programs.  If I want to instruct teachers in ways of integrating technology into their classrooms, and do it at a university, I have to have a PhD. Other opportunities may also present themselves. I would love to work as a Director of Educational Technology for a school district.  Before Full Sail I was already using the Learning Management System, Moodle, doing digital storytelling, and showing my students how to create their own blogs. I want to take the next step, including teaching students how to create their own Personal Learning Environments online with iGoogle.  It will be interesting over the next few months to see where this will lead me.

Congratulations to my fellow Full Sail graduates!  I look forward to seeing what you do, as well. It is bound to be awesome.

My Action Research Video Presentation

For more information about my Action Research project, please use the link on the right hand side of this web page.

Reflecting on my Literature Review

As part of our month 12 finalization of our Action Research Web page, I turned my literature review into a Wordle. Fascinating. Use the link in the right-hand column to read my reflection and other thoughts about my ARP.