Category Archives: Accessibility

Reflection for 5/11/15 to 5/15/15

I’m starting this week at the 2015 IST Statewide meeting on both Monday and Tuesday. It’s good to meet with faculty f2f that I often only meet virtually.

I’ve been busy with working on the first week of courses. Not big red flags are present.

I’m also working on 230 for Fall ’15. It’s nice to know that I can make a few adjustments to improve the course.

I also met with faculty for two revision/developments.

A staff retreat was on Friday. It is always good to spend time with colleagues. The focus of the retreat was on leadership. It was interesting to talk about a topic that was covered in my recent supervisory training. The topic was about work style. I found myself wondering about what others thought my style was and what it really is. Then, I began to think about those who I work with and what there style was. I feel like I learned a few things both about myself and others. I know that there are a few holes in our team in terms of style. I’m hoping to work on my skills in those areas to help complement.

LDSC ’13 Day 1

It’s that time of year again to get together with some of my favorite ppl around the university. Learning Design Summer Camp is a unique opportunity to listen to and learn from colleagues around Penn State. It’s also a great time to reconnect with others who share a passion for teaching & learning. After a welcome by Kate Miffit, Cole Camplese got to share a heartfelt plea to keep the momentum going here. He’s been extremely influential in shaping the Learning Design environment & culture at Penn State & will be greatly missed.

Following the inspired speech by Cole, we moved to a panel about empathy and design. The panel focused on several issues such as accessibility and diversity. It’s important to consider the learner before we can truly design any type of learning. It’s great to see the Penn State community come together over the past several years to make progress in this area. Here are a couple of points from the panel’s talk that stuck with me:

  • Always keep user experience in mind by considering doing user testing as a part of the design process
  • Issues surrounding culturally diverse populations include prof-student relationship, plagiarism
  • Be clear with expectations; don’t assume that every student comes in with complete understanding
  • Don’t assume that as a designer that you know exactly what is needed to cover accessibility. Ask!
  • Mobile apps tend to be more accessible because they are simpler
  • Avoid trying to find a perfect solution to accessibility; the learner also needs to participate in the process
  • Consider how exhausting learning can b 4 some students, especially culturally diverse or differently abled students
  • Don’t over generalize populations
  • Implementing principles of universal design & the use of standards is a way to design for others, instead of yourself
  • Design process becomes not only collaborative but also democratic
  • How do we accommodate more diverse populations? Hire diverse staff

After the panel, we had choices of places to go. I decided to do the discovery trail which focused on issues of accessibility. I had a chance to hear from Keith Jervis, Interim Director at the Office for Disability Services (ODS). Here are a few stats about ODS:

ODS_stats_ldsc13.JPG

Keith went on to talk about changes since 2009 in the role of ODS. Most of the changes were because of the NFB’s complaint.

He also talked about the shift from ODS from defining disabilities to finding solutions. This has to be empowering for those in that group. This has happened because disability has gone from being scientifically defined.

Keith shared a few tools that were being used by ODS.

Keith also presented considerations when selecting textbook for student accessibility.
ODS_tb_ldsc13.JPG

Keith finished up by talking about the future considerations of ODS. The point that stuck the most with me was focusing on STEM materials. Hope to see this in the near future.

Next, we moved to Susan Hayya in 113 Pattee West. We got a chance to see the room dedicated to students with disabilities in the library.

Following lunch, Pam Fuller, Senior Financial Adviser for ITS Financial Services talked about mindful teamwork. She started with a definition of teamwork & asked us to do a few activities to help us think about what we all have in common:

  • Personal Values
  • IT Principles
  • IT Strategic Plan

She also reminded us to sprint to understanding instead of speeding to a solution. Additionally, she told us to be mindful of our fears and learn to trust.

Following this session I attended a game put on by Chris Stubbs about teamwork and elements to good teaming. It was a fun way to reflect on issues that we deal with in teams.

Day 1 was fun and a great chance to interact and reflect on what we do every day.

Web Conference at Penn State Day 2

The second day of the conference was very good. Definitely a shout out to the planning committee who did a fabulous job of bringing in great speakers. Both days were great!

The keynote was a good reminder of how easily, we may be left behind if we don’t understand how important disruptive technologies can be. Karen McGrane spoke about a company called DEC that went from being at or near the top of selling computer systems to being taken over by Compaq. This after several decades of being at or near the top. How did this happen? They miscalculated the impact of a less sophisticated technology (personal computing). I thought an important point is that quality usually means little when this type of disruptive market takes over. Usually, the technology brings users into the market that haven’t been around before. After time, the technology improves and replaces the original. I couldn’t help but think of higher ed as Karen made her points. Hopefully, we can make the necessary adjustment. I think that accessibility (disabilities, mobile) will play an important role.

There were several other sessions that I really enjoyed. One was by Eric Kim on Mobile Context. I really loved his analogy of food with mobile computing. He talked about power bars as an example of how mobile is to the desktop. Important point made by Eric based upon research is that mobile is morphing into the preferred method to do computing (not just when you’re on the go). I find that myself. I always have my phone with me. Laptops/desktops are becoming less and less my preferred method.

The rest of the day revolved around social media. Matt Hames talked about how facebook needs to be used carefully. Personally, I don’t understand how facebook is still so ubiquitous. I think that it has alot to do with the difficulty of leaving the environment.

Donna Talarico from my alma mater Elizabethtown College did an awesome session on the use of social media to improve engagement. I was so impressed that I like the fb page and followed on twitter. Definitely good to see Elizabethtown making the move.

Web Conference at Penn State 2013 Day 1

Great first day of the Web Conference at Penn State 2013.

After b-fast at the Penn Stater, we moved to the day 1 keynote by Cindy Li from Flickr on Inclusive Design. Cindy started by mentioning that her mother has macular degeneration. This brought a personal element to her talk. She went on to talk about sites that needed work and how they could be improved. During this part of the talk she highlighted tools that helped in testing sites, like Xscope, Nocturne, Braille Institute, and Color Contrast Analyzer to name a few. 
One of the most memorable parts of her talk were a few exercises where she asked us to close our eyes and hear how a screen reader worked on a few sites. Then we were asked to watch the experience. It was amazing how poorly the sites had been set for accessibility. Just a reminder of how so many individuals are affected by items that many take for granted. 
She also highlighted a few sights that were well done. She mentioned that we should make our designs welcoming. Users remember when it makes them uncomfortable.

Went to several sessions in the AM and PM that I really enjoyed. 
My favorite of the day was by Kris Rockwell from Impact Games on Play the Election. Kris talked about how there were three parts to the experience of Play the Election. 
  1. Electoral map that allowed students to go back to 1960
  2. Election games – 11 games & a way for teachers to create their own games. Impact Games made the interface while the 11 games were created by those at Rand McNally
  3. Community – which needed special consideration because of the audience, high school students. Classes had the opportunity to wall of their classes from the public. 
Kris made some important points about game creation and gamification and differentiating between the two. He also mentioned how competition increases engagement at least in the short term. 
Kris went on to talk about things that went wrong:
  1. Short development time (only 3 months)
  2. Abbreviated marketing research
On the positive side:
  1. The game was a solid platform on several devices that included the transition from flash to html5
  2. Tools in the game were easy to use with little need for support
  3. 2400 classrooms created – 20,000 to 25,000 Individual users, a lot of positive feedback
Another session that I liked was about our users. The speakers highlighted Millennials. I felt like much of what they highlighted could be good for all users. We spend so much time thinking about making everything so useful for a large group when we need to think about personalizing the experience. We really need to do little with our systems. We need to think about how our systems are accessed and integrate with one another.
The last session that I’ll comment on was about leveraging social media for maximizing student engagement by Andrew Smyk. Andrew handled technical difficulties very well. He made some solid points about being strategic with the use of mobile. He also mentioned that accessibility of content via mobile is much more important than the attractiveness of materials and content. 
Nice conversation at lunch with people from outside and inside Penn State. Great day and looking forward to more tomorrow. 

Reflection 5/27/13-5/31/13


Accomplishments:

    • Personal Security MOOC
      • MOOC progress
        • Completed Module 6 questions on 5/29/13
    • IST 220 (Friedenberg)
      • 2 notes from Nick G about items that he’d like to see done to improve the course
        • One is about a screen cast that shows how to do a screen cap in VHOL
        • One is about creating a better survey in ANGEL for team creation
      • Met on 5/2 from 11:00-12:00 to discuss
        • He would like OIDI to create a virtual Finite State Machine
        • He included a powerpoint with examples of what he would like
        • Need to assemble a team to get this rolling
        • Spoke with Allison and Ranjani about possible participation in this project
        • Emailed Marc on 5/31 about getting together to discuss the project
    • IST 230 (Newcomer)
      • The truth tables are completed
        • Feedback from Kent about video on the page (& in the rest of the course)
          • Would be nice to point students more clearly on where to start the tables – Done
          • Can make the video accessible by ios devices. Here is an evernote on how.
      • Email sent to Larry on 4/9
        • Reply from Toni D; positive about the final product
      • Amy G pointed me to some resources that were available from the past.
        • I plan to take a closer look and share with Larry for possible inclusion in later semesters
      • Note from Larry on 5/9 that there is something that needs to be fixed
        • Emailed Greg for help
        • This should have been done earlier but it’s another reason we need professional ed tech
        • Texted Greg on 5/31 and worked with Ranjani to fix the issue
    • IST 240 (Fonseca)
      • Talked to Lisa and she was going to touchbase with Mary Beth about reforming committee
      • Meeting on 5/1 about the course with Fred rescheduled for 5/8 b/c of grading needs
        • Meeting again rescheduled for 5/15 b/c of being behind
      • Received note on 5/20 that Fred could make meeting this week, so I shared my feelings about the project getting behind.
        • He sent me materials and nice note.
      • Moved Hal’s materials into an Archive folder in the dev section and deleted gradebook
      • Updated the course and made a few more adjustments based upon the file sent and a google+ hangout session on 5/23 & 24
      • Received an email on 5/29 that Fred changed his mind and is revamping the course
      • Looked more closely over the edits and plan to make adjustements next week when I have time
    • IST 250 (Bixler)
      • Met with Brett on 1/30 to discuss adjustments
        • Mostly items that Brett will fix
        • He will send me changes to the curriculum as Word docs for me to update
    • IST 302 (Clark)
      • Sent note to Shawn about new text
        • He replied that if the book changed significantly we would have to do a revision
          • I sent a reply back to let him know that it didn’t change much and to see if he needed a copy
          • He said yes, and I sent a request to Kathy W on 4/8
          • Checked in with Amy S about the possibility of revision
          • I don’t think it’s necessary
            • Talked briefly with Shawn on 5/21 that I didn’t think the course needed a revision
            • Received the book and clarified with James C on 5/31 that we were going with the 7th edition

  • Summer ’13 Courses
    • IST 210
      • Sec 001 (Gary)
        • Received email on 5/30 from Gary that he needed the word version of the lab 0 file to make an update
      • Sec 002 (Fred)
        • Question from Fred about which Helpdesk to send to
            • bit surprised that this was still a question – good reminder
    • IST 220
      • Sec 002 (Mike)
        • Still working through a VHOL connection issue with a student
          • appears to be more user error than anything
          • still reinforces that there is still work to be done on VHOL for the future
    • IST 230
      • Sec 001 (Larry)
        • Graded 10 quizzes from Quiz 1
    • IST 240
      • Sec 001 (Hal)
        • More discussion about costs for accessiblity by Mike and Anita
        • Hal liked the real-time transcription
    • IST 420
      • Merged (Rosalie)
        • Received audio pptx for Lesson 3 and added to drupal site on 5/29
        • Forgot to add a link in ANGEL so tied that up on 5/31
  • Fall ’13 Courses
    • IST 110
      • Sec 001 (Garbrick)
        • Ok from Amy G to copy last version into the space
      • Sec 002 (M. Lipton)
        • Checked in about copying in last version of the course into her space on 5/31

Ongoing Projects:

    • Updated google spreadsheet for Fall ’13 google schreadsheet 

Immediate Decisions / Issues:

    • Need LMS that better integrates and includes tools that we use in our classes.

Important Dates:

  • May 3 Vacation Day – 8h
  • May 6 Vacation Day – 8h
  • May 9 Vacation Time – 2h AM
  • May 23 Vacation Time – 4h PM
  • May 27 Memorial Day – Holiday
  • May 28 Vacation Time – 4h AM/PM
  • June 3 Vacation Time – 4h AM
  • June 10 Vacation Time – 4h AM
  • June 14 Vacation Day – 8h
  • June 20 Vacation Day – 8h
  • July 4 Holiday
  • July 5 Vacation Day – 8h
  • July 11 Vacation Day – 8h
  • July 12 Vacation Day – 8h
  • August 19 Vacation Day – 8h
  • August 20 Vacation Day – 8h

Reflection 5/20/13-5/24/13


Accomplishments:

    • Personal Security MOOC
      • MOOC progress
        • Didn’t get around to any of this
    • IST 220 (Friedenberg)
      • Met on 5/2 from 11:00-12:00 to discuss
        • He would like OIDI to create a virtual Finite State Machine
        • He included a powerpoint with examples of what he would like
        • Need to assemble a team to get this rolling
    • IST 230 (Newcomer)
      • The truth tables are completed
        • Feedback from Kent about video on the page (& in the rest of the course)
          • Would be nice to point students more clearly on where to start the tables – Done
          • Can make the video accessible by ios devices. Here is an evernote on how.
      • Email sent to Larry on 4/9
        • Reply from Toni D; positive about the final product
      • Amy G pointed me to some resources that were available from the past.
        • I plan to take a closer look and share with Larry for possible inclusion in later semesters
      • Note from Larry on 5/9 that there is something that needs to be fixed
        • Emailed Greg for help
        • This should have been done earlier but it’s another reason we need professional ed tech
    • IST 240 (Fonseca)
      • Talked to Lisa and she was going to touchbase with Mary Beth about reforming committee
      • Meeting on 5/1 about the course with Fred rescheduled for 5/8 b/c of grading needs
        • Meeting again rescheduled for 5/15 b/c of being behind
      • Received note on 5/20 that Fred could make meeting this week, so I shared my feelings about the project getting behind.
        • He sent me materials and nice note.
      • Moved Hal’s materials into an Archive folder in the dev section and deleted gradebook
      • Updated the course and made a few more adjustments based upon the file sent and a google+ hangout session on 5/23 & 24
    • IST 250 (Bixler)
      • Met with Brett on 1/30 to discuss adjustments
        • Mostly items that Brett will fix
        • He will send me changes to the curriculum as Word docs for me to update
    • IST 302 (Clark)
      • Sent note to Shawn about new text
        • He replied that if the book changed significantly we would have to do a revision
          • I sent a reply back to let him know that it didn’t change much and to see if he needed a copy
          • He said yes, and I sent a request to Kathy W on 4/8
          • Checked in with Amy S about the possibility of revision
          • I don’t think it’s necessary
            • Talked briefly with Shawn on 5/21 that I didn’t think the course needed a revision

  • Summer ’13 Courses
    • IST 110
      • Sec 002 & 003
        • required adjustment of question in quiz 2
      • Sec 003 (Gary)
        • Note about customization list needing to be a bit better
          • My thought is that you need to teach it once, make notes, and adjust for the next time.
    • IST 230
      • Merged Sec
        • Discussion with Larry about the course
    • IST 240
      • Sec 001 (Hal)
        • Note to Anita about schedule for live sessions in adobe connect
        • Question about links to assignments
          • these are a customization thing that are problematic in ANGEL
  • Fall ’13 Courses

Ongoing Projects:

    • Updated google spreadsheet for Summer ’13
    • Started a Fall ’13 google schreadsheet 
    • Peer Eval
      • Sent out a note on 4/30 about transition from Greg & Will to Alison
      • Spoke with both Greg and Will about transition. They’re on board to transition Alison

Immediate Decisions / Issues:

    • Need LMS that better integrates and includes tools that we use in our classes.

Important Dates:

  • April 1 Vacation Day – 8h
  • April 2 Vaction Time AM – 4h
  • April 3 Family Sick – 8h
  • April 4 Family Sick – 8h
  • April 19 Morning Family Medical 4h AM
  • April 19 Vacation time – 4h PM
  • May 3 Vacation Day – 8h
  • May 6 Vacation Day – 8h
  • May 9 Vacation Time – 2h AM
  • May 23 Vacation Time – 4h PM
  • May 27 Memorial Day – Holiday
  • May 28 Vacation Time – 4h AM
  • June 3 Vacation Time – 4h AM
  • June 10 Vacation Time – 4h AM
  • June 14 Vacation Day – 8h
  • June 20 Vacation Day – 8h
  • July 4 Holiday
  • July 5 Vacation Day – 8h
  • July 11 Vacation Day – 8h
  • July 12 Vacation Day – 8h
  • August 19 Vacation Day – 8h
  • August 20 Vacation Day – 8h

Educational Gaming Brown Bag: Currency Exchange

I was very impressed by the presentation given by James Laurie and Mary Ann Mengel. It was a thorough presentation and showed both their implementation and research before starting the process.

One resource that I need to read is The Gamification of Learning & Instruction. Just added it to my google book library to read.   

Based upon their reading and research, James and Mary Ann mapped their learning objectives. I noticed that their objectives were found on higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. Definitely an idea to adopt.

A great point made by Mary Ann was that games work great for situations where there are multiple factors. In this example, there were several factors that influenced profit. Making a game was a great way for students to study the effect of these factors in a way that they were able to make choices or be at the whim of circumstances in order to better understand the concepts presented.

As James and Mary Ann spoke, I could tell that there were many team members involved Team approach, constantly checking with multiple experts to make sure the game made sense. They also shared their timeline.

Curr_exch_timeline.JPG

It took awhile to get this going, and that is because of all of the additional responsibilities that each team member had to accomplish besides this project. Also, they were handling the whole process from scratch. It would be nice if we had more easily accessible templates in an engine that we could leverage to cut down the timeline.

As I mentioned earlier, the team working on this project did much analysis and design based upon research. Here is a slide that they shared about their analysis and design.

Curr_exch_analy_design.JPG 

 

With the proper ground work and team established. They were able to move into storyboarding. Here are a few slides on storyboarding.

Curr_exch_storybrd_intro.JPG

It may be difficult to see, but this above slide starts the process of determining scenarios for the game. It lists different cases for round 1 and reasons for decreases in sales price.

Curr_exch_storybrd_r1.JPG

Once an overall storyboard and ideas have been developed, it is time to drill down into each component. This is a slide on storyboarding for round 1.

Curr_exch_storybrd_r2.JPG

Here is another slide, this time for round 2 of the game.

Mary Ann talked at length about accessibility. An unanticipated event that happened in the middle of this project was that NFB had filed a complaint against Penn State. This complaint encouraged them to think about how to make the game more accessible. If they would have known about this, they would have taken a different approach from using flash.

Curr_exch_access.JPG

 

At the end of the discussion, Mary Ann talked about the benefits of gaming relating to skill sets that matter to workforce and mapped what games help to develop. Here is a slide on game dimension aspects of games. They went into detail on what elements were highlighted in their game.

Curr_exch_game_dim.JPG

 

Interesting to think about implementation. Should this be prefaced with instruction or considered as an anticipatory set that will lead to more engagement before introducing a topic. Sounded like the latter worked well this semester.

Reflection 09/17/12-09/21/12


Accomplishments:

  • Prof Dev
  • Fall ’12 Courses
    • IST 110
      • Grade discussion with Marcela on 9/18
    • IST 220
      • Still seeing emails from students and instructors about vhol. Confirms my thinking that it would be best to think about textbook labs
    • IST 240
      • Updated assignment 2 and contacted Hal about it
    • IST 250 
      • More edits to make
      • Answered a question by Don on Elluminate and how many participants can be handled by providing my insights and ccing Gary
    • IST 402
      • drupal implementation is working well but now information is not collected by voicethread since it is embedded. Checked drupal and can see that students are using it and made Rosalie an admin so she can check too
      • she created the latest overview in ppt with audio
  • Fall ’12 revisions/developments
    • IST 230 (Newcomer)
      • Working with Greg, Will, & Toni on interactive pieces
        • Larry is going to supply some problems to work on
    • IST 420 (Ocker)
        • Spent time on 9/17 finding and adding videos to the dev space
        • Still awaiting Rosalie’s decision on which direction to move text or articles
    • gamify.JPGIST 402 (Saab)
        • David is working on adding content
        • Meeting on 9/21 to talk about gamification was great
          • David went through items in his mind map
          • Chris mentioned his ideas about leveling up
          • Brett had a great idea of allowing students to plot their plan through the course
          • Plan to meet in two weeks
  • Spring ’13 Course Prep – Mapped out on my outlook calendar courses to work on so that I’m done by the first week in December. Going to be difficult since we have to go 1 section at a time. Plan to start the 1st week of October
    • IST 110
      • Sec 001
    • IST 111S
      • Sec 001
    • IST 210 – Hyunjeong and Mike M are teaching in Spring
      • Sec 001
    • IST 220
      • Sec 001
    • IST 230
      • Sec 001
      • Sec 002
    • IST 240
      • Sec 001
    • IST 250
      • Sec 001
    • IST 260W
      • Sec 001
    • IST 295A
      • Sec 001
    • IST 301
      • Sec 001
    • IST 302
      • Sec 001
    • IST 402 TIE-
      • Sec 001
    • IST 421
      • Sec 001
    • IST 440W
      • Sec 001
    • IST 495
      • Sec 001

Ongoing Projects:

    • Updated google spreadsheet for Spring ’13 

Immediate Decisions / Issues:

    • None

Back Burner:

    • Gaming, Simulations, and Virtual World Research Committee

Days off / Conferences:

  • September 3 – Labor Day
  • August 27- October 5 Gamification MOOC
  • September 10 Brown Bag with Brendaly Drayton, Ph.D. (Diversity)
  • September 19 Educational Brown Bag
  • September 19 Bringing Gaming into Online Learning
  • September 20 MS-Office Training for Accessibility
  • Nov 1 AM Sick time for Dental Appt

MS-Office Training for Accessibility

Major take aways

  • There is no one way to make everything perfectly accessible
  • The main idea about accessibility is to meet the standards and make sure that you don’t do things like hard code to take control out of the user’s hands

Accidentally went to Willard instead of Wagner. Got to the training about 20 minutes late. Everyone was working on a document that the instructor had on the screen. Not once did she stop to ask me if I needed help with anything. She just went on pontificating about her philosophies on accessibility. She also went quickly about how to do what she was trying to teach without checking with those in the training whether they could actually do what she was showing us to do.

Sorry for the rant, but this drives me crazy! I just want a hands-on training that is actually hands on! This is a lecture/demo, and I’m not getting what I need which is a chance to try all of this with feedback from an expert.

At about 10:30 (more than 1 hour after I had been in the workshop), we had a break. At that time, another person in the training gave me the file that they had been working on. I finally got with the training. But everything that we did was a demo. There was no chance or context in which to apply anything that we were being shown. I feel like I wasted my time in this training.

I need to find another way (possibly lynda or just a google search) to get the training that I need to accomplish my goal of creating accessible content.

To improve the session, I would have…

  • spent 15 minutes presenting the major, high-level take aways
  • before the session started, I would have asked each participant to email 3 examples from their work (1 Word doc, 1 ppt, and 1 pdf)
  • the presenter could have chose several that would be good examples to try to make more accessible
  • break the large group into 3-5 individuals per group
  • each group would have 3 files to make more accessible within a certain time limit
  • the expert would provide feedback for each presentation and reinforce the major high-level ideas

This format would provide a better result for all involved.

Morning Panel

For the morning panel, there were three faculty talking about different ways that they were integrating games into their courses.

Bart Pursel – Course on building games
IST 446 Introduction to Building Computer/Video Games

  • Bart finds that games as a way to connect to what students are familiar with
  • In his course, he talks about narrative, ascetics, and other aspects
  • HW is to play a certain games (5-8 h)
  • Games provide a common experience but different personal experiences
  • Interactivity is promoted by using games; allows instructors to move into the facilitator role, rather than lecturer
  • Games provide students a chance to fail in a safe environment
  • There are logistics for students to play the games
  • Reflection is important for learning
  • Possibly students get too engrossed in the activity
  • About 7 assessment
  • Team project
  • Advice: Try a current-generation game (3-5 h) before using games in a class

Mark Seguey – Out of the Box games
HPA 101

  • More diverse population (Sim Health) – experiencing how complex Health Policy is
  • Able to facilitate the global thinking about Healthcare Policy
  • Game was an application part of the course (not assessed) in the beginning
  • (Sim Health to Healthbound-CDC)
  • Now, the game is integrated into the curriculum
  • 50/50 about the game (10% hate the game) Why? Technology, audio, and graphics Not the learning preference of the students
  • Games allow for more discussion about alternative ways to form Healthcare policy
  • Improves student understanding that issues relating to healthcare are more complex than what is simply thought
  • Technology challenges with Sim Health, reason moved to Healthbound (browser-based)
  • Assessment: Final Report (rubric that assesses content and style)
  • Advice: Work incrementally; you will make mistakes; it’s a process

Jan Charlton – Course by Story
ASTRO 001
Want to play a game to make students go deeper
Way to develop philosophical elements that cannot do with lecture
Course is all through the game, but assessments are identical to the traditional approach
Game created by 5 on a team of faculty and students
Alien visitors take students on mini adventures
Various multimedia used
Game helps to provide students the chance to build and interact to help create learning
Many in the learning community have negative views towards games
WC push back in providing resources
Some student have certain learning practices that don’t fall within the gaming teaching and learning strategy
Games make learning more fun
Games are not the only strategy used

Accessibility is hasn’t been an issue yet, but they have some ideas

Reflection: This was a great panel! I appreciated many of the ideas presented. I especially liked Mark’s suggestion to take things in increments. It is easy to get overwhelmed when looking at project as a whole, but breaking it down into pieces makes things much more manageable.