What videogames have to teach us about learning and literacy

I was absent for this assignmentm so I hope that I'm not too late to post my opinion.


1. Gee's fundamental argument is that children can learn a lot from videogames, and that they should be placed in learning environments to teach children more, and so that they have more opportunities to play and do so.

2. I agree with Mr. Gee to an extent. I believe that all children need time to play, and that some games can teach them a lot about real-world experiences, but I do not think that videogames should make more of an appearance in the classroom because later in life it will make the children, (then adults) lazy and give them an excuse to play instead of work. Videogames will have been all they knew.

3. I believe good teaching has a lot to do with keeping things new in the classroom. If the teacher 'spices things up', the children will not only be ready and willing to learn, but they will also be entertained. Teachers should introduce a new way of teaching as often as possible. Videogames can be used occasionally, but if used too often, I think that would present an example of bad teaching, because it makes the teacher come off as lazy for not getting the students involved.

4. I think Scratch is a great website to teach children short lessons and for them to play short, educational games, but I don't believe I would use it in my classroom. I found it to be difficult to understand at first, and I don't believe in letting my students play videogames everyday, all day.

Final Portfolio

Click here to see my Portfolio. :)

Presentation idea

I have decided to do my presentation on contractions. The english language is very complex, and sometimes people misspell or misuse contractions. I hope to enlighten some with my presentation, ans I hope that everyone likes it. I found a youtube video that goes along with my presentation perfectly. I plan to use powerpoint for my presentation.

Presentation

I had hoped to ask some questions on Tuesday, I'm not certain I did this right. Here is the link to my presentation on Contractions.

Scratch idea

After looking through the projects on scratch, I finally found one I think I will try to modify. I was looking for a fun idea, that may involve a little easy game of some sort, that will also teach a lesson. I wanted something science-based, that is well known to younger students. I finally stumbled upon Fishing for Recyclables. This scratch involves a game in which you move your cursor around the screen to catch recyclables in the ocean. A few things i would change about the game are how slow the4 cursor moves, and the text of the instructions. The words are barely visible and the cursor moves entirely too slow to catch anything.

Blogging with Fifth Graders!

I really liked blogging with the fifth grade class from Fairview Middle School. I liked hearing their hopes for fifth grade, what they thought about school, homework, etc. It's always fun to get involved with younger students when they're learning new things. The students seem to really enjoy getting our responses to their blogs, and we enjoyed writing them back. This is definitely a new step in classroom teaching. When i was younger, computers were rarely used in the clssroom, much less blogging and communicating with other clasrooms. I'm not sure if i would use this tool in my future classroom. I guess it will depend on the number of computers in my class, or how often we would get to use the lab. I think blogging is a really fun teaching tool, but it will also depend on how quickly my students pick up on using a computer and newer technology. Overall, I think that blogging with Fairview Middle was fun and exciting, and I will definitely consider using it in my classroom.

Scratch Modification

SC.O.1.3.5
develop respect and responsibility for the environment by engaging in conservation practices (e.g., recycling, or trash clean-up).



The scratch I chose to modify was called "Fishing for Recylables". It is a game in which you drag your cursor across the screen in order to catch the recycled material from the ocean. When i first saw this scratch, the recyling bin moved very slowly, and the instructions were hard to read. I changed the font and color of the instructions and sped up the movement of the recycling bin. While these were both simple changes, I think it made the game a lot easier to understand. To see the modified verson of "Fishing for Recylables", please click here.