Week+5+Reading+EDLD+5364

 The videos show that gaming is a great tool for learning. I remember when my son was playing Civilization. He learned quite a bit about the different civilizations and historical figures. The game allowed the player to learn strategies in building cities. They learned about the different components involved in building up the cities. I liked the video with Professor Sasha Barab from Indiana University. He takes on a tour with his three-dimensional multiuser environment project Quest Atlantis. In this project, the students are immersed in educational tasks using a virtual gaming environment. The gaming environment provides positive responses to the students and requests their help in finding solutions to their problems. This allows the students to take on many roles to find solutions to the problems posed. These scenarios allow the children to become engaged and motivated while at the same time being critical thinkers.

My first reading of the week was from Pitler’s “Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that works.” The chapter reading focuses on reinforcing effort, which stresses students’ identification of their success through their effort. I liked the saying from the book which states that “success comes in cans; failure in can’ts.” Success does not come from your genes, gender or background. It is in our innate ability to succeed and when shown a connection to effort it instills confidence in students. In reinforcing effort, we need to show students to believe that self-efficacy plays an important role in their achievement. We learned that students should be advised about the importance of their effort and how to track it along with their achievements. We learned earlier that feedback is an important component in student achievement, so tracking efforts and results provide good information. The information can be tracked using spreadsheet software and data collection tools. In showing, a student how their efforts are paying off, an effort rubric can be created to track their results. In the effort/achievement spreadsheet the students can log their efforts and grades and see the correlation. Feedback from data tools such as Survey Monkey can be used to show students how others have overcome their difficulties and applied effort for achievement. The second reading this week focuses on the importance of authentic assessments. Stiggins (1987) gave a good definition on this and it says, “Performance assessments call upon the examinee to demonstrate specific skills and competencies, that is, to apply the skills and knowledge they have mastered.” The best way to measure, a students’ progress is through formative assessment because this is an ongoing measurement of the students’ progress. Harry Tuttle, an experienced educator explains the use of technology, particularly Web 2.0 tools to make authentic assessments. He lists podcast, videoconferencing, social bookmarks, Webcam, wikis, and e-portfolios to evaluate student progress. Electronic portfolios are a good tool to use for supporting the assessment of learning. Web 2.0 e-portfolios have gone through changes earlier version, which is version 1.0. The older version consisted of digital paper, web-based form, and local storage and the new version 2.0 now consists of digital stories, blog and wiki, network storage on a web space. The Web 2.0 e-portfolios are learner-driven, focus on individuality, creativity, feedback from learners, learning-focused, and open standards. These new tools have a way to motivate and engage learners and by using technology we can improve and showcase student achievement.

Edutopia.org. (nd). //Big Thinkers: Sasha Barab on New-Media Engagement.// Retrieved on Oct. 5, 2009 from http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-sasha-barab-video Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). //Using technology with classroom instruction that works.// Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 155-164. Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2007). //Web 2.0: New tools, new schools.// Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education, 168-176.