I used Animoto for my Learning Philosophy 2.0 Video. This was very new for me! I was excited to try it as I can see myself using it for class for practice quizzes on anatomy or presentations related to the student club that I advise. However, I didn’t realize that adding text would be so limited. I wanted to say much more, but perhaps in this case, less is more. I look forward to seeing all of your videos and wrapping up the course. Thank you to all for your thoughts, insights, and comments this summer! ~Melissa
@Justin – in case you’re interested in looking at the research-side of games and learning, I highly recommend Kurt Squire (he’s a prof at the Univ of WI). Among books, etc. he’s the founder of Joystick101 which you may already be familiar with.
What can I say? I’m a gamer. Games of particular interest are strategy-based board and card games. Chess, Magic: The Gathering, and any of the classic German games have always appealed to me. So much so that in elementary school I designed my own card game. It was based a book that we read together as a class. The game allowed players to conduct the affairs of the main characters all within the confines of the plot of the story.
I think it’s time for me to create more games.
After reading my students’ feedback on my teaching this past year, one request was clear to improve their learning: include more games! Math games seem a lot harder to make genuine; i.e., use the math in real-contexts to solve problems relevant to the content. Most math games require you to solve problems that don’t really have a relationship to the story line (answering arithmetic problems to learn times tables). That’s not always a bad thing, but I want that level of authenticity at the high school level.
I found the video to be true of some types of learners, but not really most of my current students. Perhaps in a few years! But for me, I have been struggling about what my role as a teacher will be when learners can do so much on their own. That is why I included the part from Networked Student video about the role of the teacher. It really gave me a model to emulate as a learning architect, networker, and change agent.
@Melissa – nice choice of soundtrack and images, which give it a nice sense of flow. Regarding the details of your philosophy, I like your inclusion of games. As we’ve talked about in class, this represents a growing area of research interest for many because many learners perceive the experience to be dynamic and engaging. Based on your inclusion of the Networked Student video, I’m guessing that you found that particularly compelling. Can you recall the specifics of what you liked about it?
Dear Melissa, thank you for sharing with Animoto. I have heard of it last year and again during our Tech Tool exercise but never had time to look at this tool – it is impressive and you communicated much with the stated limitation. Very excellent wrap up of your Learning Philosophy 2.0 – would you be able to upload your Animoto into YouTube so more people can get to see it? Thanks Melissa for sharing so much of your experience over the semester.
I wish we could have worked more together as well for it is nice to find someone who has similar thoughts but also expresses them so eloquently.
Thanks Cheryl! Sorry we didn’t get to work together more this summer…I always found your posts similar to my own thinking!
Nicely done and inspiring!!