Like Sand Through The Hourglass...

[Insert - That is a good description of this blog entry - I started it just before Christmas. In the meantime a significant amount of information (grains) has passed by. Unfortunately a significant amount of it has slipped through my grasp with alarming ease.]

Assessment - in particular self review. This has got to surely be one of the more difficult processes. Personally I hate it because you never can tell if you are being too hard on yourself or going too easy. But here goes...

I wonder if I did the concept of Game Based Learning justice with my 10 min lecture. I think the answer to this is yes, but not in the way I planned. I had hoped that I could show how the community that has developed within the game, and how this community building can be linked to actual learning opportunities. What I think I showed was the potential learning opportunities games have. A subtle difference but the more I review the happier I am that it panned out that way. It was funny how I was shy about showing too much because the others in my community - simply because I had not asked their permission first. Which got me thinking about closed verus open communities.

[Insert - Ironically recently a spammer joined our Google community. I wondered what parents would think if the same thing happened with my students and any community we created.]

From my presentation I learned a lot more about communities and the vehicle in which they travel. There needs to be a driving motivation the ensure participation and from blogs, wikis, bulletin boards, email communities etc I have not seen easily the 'hook' that would catch a secondary student. Which has led to my trip down GBL alley, and my fear that more sand will fall while I play games - but in the interest of improving education of course.

[Insert - I am looking at incorporate a class blog and maybe a wiki into my Year 9 programme but in a closed environment as part of Moodle's journal to see how the class community might aid individual student's knowledge and understanding.]

An the Academy Award for Best Presentation Goes To...

Here I am in the process of preparing for my online debut - a 10min presentation on Elluminate relating the learning opportunities I have discovered while playing my main vice - Travian. A synopsis of all the different links I have seen while becoming completely addicted to it are:

• English
• Communication English – traditional vs abbr.
  
• Poetry
• Music
• Writing lyrics
• Social Sciences/History
• Gaelic history
• Medieval Tactics
• Treaties
• Mathematics
• Logistics
• Probability
• Science
• The Science of Combat
  
• Potential Energy – catapults, rams
• Technology
• Metallurgy
• Design and construction
• Computing
• Databases
• (php) Coding
• Life
• Always be bigger fish
• Social interaction
• Community building
• Online Identity(s)

It is interesting to see that there are lots of learning opportunities in games. But the question is do the kids see the same learning opportunities that I do?