Grockit Answers and MentorMob

I read a post from Kirsten Winkler, on her Disrupt Education blog, where she discussed an emerging tool called Grockit Answers.  The site (still in beta version) allows public instructional videos to be annotated with comments and questions at specific time markers.  It reminds me of soundcloud, but for informational videos.

In the classroom, I could envision asking students to create a video showing how something works, or sharing new insight into a chapter or section they had read.  Students could then share their video, and the teacher could have other students ask questions on that student's Grockit video.

What really interested me was a different link to one of Kirsten's other blog entries, which highlighted a website entitled MentorMob.  MentorMob is a site which seeks to filter out incorrect or bad information regarding popular searches, and condense the best answers into a handy slideshow.  I'm averse to getting a twitter account, but apparently that is the only way for you to request for a MentorMob account (you have to follow them, or tweet about MentorMob to a friend).

I remember during long-term sub job where I led students through a project where they were to identify 5 questions and answers they would include on a powerpoint project.  The students didn't necessarily struggle with coming up with answers/facts, but they did struggle with coming up with proper questions.  Many students moved on to opinion questions, or questions that are currently unanswerable (may favorite was, "Are Ghosts Real?").  Using MentorMob would have been a good tool to help lead students from one of their subject interests into finding those hard-to-reach questions.

Answers aren't hard to get on the internet.  Are the correct questions?  I really like the idea of Grockit Answers, and the way it can show students how to properly ask questions of deeper meaning.  One of my favorite Grockit videos is here.  It shows information about the credit crisis, and the questions and answers annotated to the video make it that much more informative.  Teachers could even post their own informational videos, where they themselves could post annotated questions. Students could then have the choice of giving answers, or asking more questions on the video.

I still have to sign up with twitter and enter MentorMob, but the articles I read about it excites me.  I think it could be a useful tool in the classroom, however I just don't know all the particulars about it yet.  I'll hopefully have more to write about it later.

Gaming Practices in Curriculum/Pedagogy

I’ve still been caught up trying to wrap my head around video games.  From what I’ve gathered, the use of video games in an educational context still mostly revolves around implementing drill and skill games interlaced with traditional teaching practices.  While this may be effective in increasing specific skills, there are many other gaming motifs which are left out of the equation.  After reading James Paul Gee’s article “What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy”, I was left with some optimistic insights on how to innovate a classroom based around successful gaming mantras.  However, the fact is there haven’t been many attempts to implement a potentially resourceful and educational innovation in a real-life classroom setting.

To sum up the article, Gee first states (after mentioning his book in the first paragraph), “that schools, workplaces, and families can use games and game technologies to enhance learning” (p. 1).  He then cites some references which state that science itself supports this notion, as there is evidence that our brains can excel at learning within a computer/video game interface.  He goes on further to cite how motivation can be increased through the use of these games, and therefore deeper learning can occur.  There is also mention of how video games appropriately scaffold certain skill sets during play, which is what any experienced teacher should eventually try to master.

What has confronted me the most on this article is when Gee states that in these games, “players engage in ‘action at a distance’, much like remotely manipulating a robot, but in a far more fine-grained fashion. Cognitive research suggests that such fine-grained action at a distance actually causes humans to feel as if their bodies and minds have stretched into a new space [Clark 2003]…” (p. 3).

How can an educator produce a classroom where students invest in a sort of ‘avatar’, where they produce deep learning while also being engaged in fantasy?  I normally think back to debate activities certain classrooms would hold, and the act of identifying specific ‘lenses’ to look through  as a character in the debate.  Even if I didn’t agree with the debate team I was on, I enjoyed the challenge of forcing myself to think against my intuition.  This, I felt, eventually led to my understanding of acquiring and mastering perspectives.

But that’s just perspectives.  How can a teacher implement this “action at a distance” when it comes to literacy?  I suspect utilizing group and individual roles would be a start.  In an English program, I could envision sorting students into a microcosm for journalism, for example.  I could assign (and redistribute) roles such as reporters, editor, photographer, editor-in-chief, and so on to create an exciting environment where students somewhat forget that they’re students in a classroom, and ‘pretend’ they’re invested in a hot case. 

That’s exactly what Gee wants to see with computer and video games; to allow students to excel by becoming something they’re not, while acquiring learning that they didn’t have before.  As his last line states:  “the real importance of good computer and video games is that they allow people to re-create themselves in new worlds and achieve recreation and deep learning at one and the same time” (p. 3).

Gee, S. (October 2003). What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. Computers in Entertainment- Theoretical and Practical Computer Applications in Entertainment, 1(1), 1-4. Retrieved from: http://dl.acm.org.proxy.lib.iastate.edu:2048/citation.cfm?doid=950566.950595

Confessions of an Ex-Serial Gamer

My friend’s dad came into town the other day.  I told him that my professor had just suggested an article which emphasized how the process of playing a video game could be beneficial when it comes to learning, and also in literacy.  He exclaimed, “That’s right!  I remember when Jordan started playing video games, and when we asked his teacher if she could predict any problems coming from it, she said to let him play.  All-in-all, she said that Jordan was learning problem-solving skills.”

I’m not sure whether I want to do my ‘research blog’ on the link Denise posted for me (on the previous entry), so I’m going to sidestep that and elaborate a bit more on what I think the article’s main message was: Finding a “zone of proximal development”.  I mentioned this in my first introductory blog post, and the content of the article spurred some thoughts on what finding this ‘zone’ had meant to me in the past, and how I can help students find it in the future.   

I remember the first educational video game I played:  Math Blaster.  It was purchased by my mother after I had failed spectacularly at the dreaded ‘times test’.  The after school practice it brought to me transcended simply filling out sheets of multiplication problems.  It challenged me engage in math activities, while at the same time kept me from getting discouraged.  This was my “zone of proximal development”, and from it I began to excel at multiplication, and put into the ‘smart’ math classes.

But that was math:  What about literacy?  How can I develop a curriculum which engages discouraged learners?  Here’s a site which could be implemented, but not necessarily used to innovate.  I remember playing it all the time during keyboarding class.  There is another link below it; a paid site which has similar games.

http://www.shockwave.com/gamelanding/texttwist.jsp

http://www.what2learn.com/play-a-game/

I suppose this entry really does sidestep the main message of the article I mentioned at the beginning.  I’ll come back to it in another blog, but here’s my brief summary (this article made me think a lot, as a post-video game nerd):  If teachers were to mimic, or incorporate, the fundamentals of video gaming (brings challenges, lets the user transfer his/her self to an avatar, isn’t discouraging) then there would be less student aversion to schooling and learning. I will come back to this article only if I can cohesively join the article’s main tenets with my own thoughts.  Again, though, the article link is below.  If you can’t get to it, sign into the ISU library, then just search for the same title.

http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=950566.950595

Video and Literacy: Scourge or Solution?

I recently began subscribing to the blog entitled "Disrupt Education", which is written by Kirsten Winkler.  Just yesterday she made a post regarding the broad concept of using video to enhance student learning.  In it, she explains that scientifically students can learn just as well from a video (neurons are activated similarly), but also cites a study which essentially states that there would be some serious downfalls if we were to just replace a lot of instruction with just showing video in class.

Here is the link for her blog:  http://bigthink.com/ideas/40466?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bigthink%2Fblogs%2Fdisrupt-education+%28Disrupt+Education%29

Read the link which connects to "Dr. Derek Muller's findings" to get his description of why showing videos might lead to serious pitfalls.

This video concept led me to reflect on my student teaching experience.  There were definitely times I used video to clarify or strengthen general concepts, such as showing the documentary "God Grew Tired of Us" during a non-fiction reading of Sudanese refugees.  But can video help increase literacy?

It seems it definitely can for students in preschool.  Here's a link which supports that notion:
http://thejournal.com/articles/2009/10/14/study-games-video-improve-preschooler-literacy.aspx

But for grades 6-12, I didn't find anything.  I believe (and this is just my assumption) that once students pass their K-6 reading plateau, video can help student literacy, but not nearly as drastically as it could for younger students.

One connection I drew from student teaching was the use of animated poetry, found on a Billy Collins site (http://www.bcactionpoet.org/).  I remember using these videos as an engagement tool to draw students into the poetry unit.  But that's where I felt the use of video didn't quite improve literacy.  Instead, it was just a tool to produce interest.

So, I guess my short conclusion of the whole matter is that video, in perhaps grades 6-12, may be used to enhance a lesson pertaining to literacy.  But in the long run, it's practice that makes literacy perfect.

What these article really led me to was the use of video games to enhance or teach literacy.  This will be the focus of next week's blog.

P.S.  As an afterthought, "Schoolhouse Rock" anyone?