The Educated Kiwi
motivation
Time for some inspiration.
Jul 28th
There are times when I start to feel a little stale cocooned in my world and I have forgotten to look outside. Thanks to my new iPad I found this as I browsed video podcasts on iTunes.
The Playstation 3 is for Educational Research Dear…
Apr 23rd
Yeah Right!
These days you have to keep up with the kids. Ironically Playstation was the first console to be marketed at 20 somethings with expendable income hence its success and the playstation 3 is no exception with its price tag. I bit the bullet and the GE money genie bought me a PS3 and Guitar Hero World Tour (with guitar, drums and mic) on tick. After some hard practicing I took the gear round to Richards house for an evening of home made wine and rock and roll.
The game itself is fairly straight forward, choose an instrument, skill level and a song, play individual or as a band and away you go. Beginner skill level just requires you to keep a beat with the strum bar (guitar) or tapping a beat on any part of the drum kit and if you have never done it before even this is quite challenging for an entire song. Crank it up to easy and it gets quite intense with medium almost impossible without considerable practice.
Playing as an individual is great fun but playing as a band is even better and if someone makes too many mistakes then the band gets booed off the stage. I even had a go at playing drums and singing at the same time Phil Collins style which was extremely challenging but I managed to get to the end of Band on the Run.
Of course with a room consisting of 75% teachers we saw huge educational value amongst all of the fun and thoughts wander to how it may be used in a classroom. We also wandered if we could hook the wireless drum kit up to Garage Band and sure enough you can – just download Gamepad Companion and map the drum pads to keystrokes and use it with the on screen keyboard to play the drums on your mac. And even though the guitar playing isn’t as authentic as the drums, as a guitar player myself I could see it helping with strumming patterns, rhythm and muscle control (especially little finger fretting which I tend to avoid).
There are a whole lot of skills involved in this game and it is one of the few games that doesn’t annoy me when I get killed. Maybe it is because there are some great rock songs, we all certainly found the drumming very satisfying and decided that it was more fun than singstar because of the team element.
I would love to see one hooked up to a projector in a music department with students learning to appeciate good rock music instead of that crap they listen to these days.
When should children be introduced to ICT?
Oct 26th
Having a son made me question the place of a computer in his life. When should he be allowed to use one? What rules should there be around that use? Would he be better spending his entire life doing “real” stuff?
Matthew is 20 months old in this photo and has now been using a computer for about five months. I was actually fairly reluctant to allow him on a computer as I had visions of all the worst possible outcomes (i thought he would immediately transform into a greasy-haired, pimply-faced, overweight, drug-using, unemployed 20 year old with no ambition beyond sitting in front of a computer in a basement all day and playing some online game that hasn’t been invented yet).
However I got a Mac Mini for him to use and hooked it up to a touch screen monitor and set it all up on a table in the lounge. I installed Tux Paint and Reader Rabbit Toddler on it and used those programmes when he was around a few times. I had thought he might enjoy making lines or shapes in Tux Paint, but instead he preferred to change the selected tools from the onscreen menus and to select options that would have a dialogue box pop up. It seemed he liked the dialogue boxes because they gave him a reason to have me with him, and he would grab my finger and make me touch the screen to dismiss it. I might be wrong but it really did seem that he preferred having someone with him.
Within a couple of weeks he developed a strong preference for Reader Rabbit and enjoyed a module in it that he could make sing a song by touching on one of about 8 different icons. He saw his older nephews play in other areas of the programme on 2-3 occasions and could exit the module he was in and choose another one on his own. Indeed he went through a stage where that was all he did, just entered and exited the modules, often the same one over and over.
By the end of the first month he could get up on the short stool in front of the table and launch either Reader Rabbit of Tux Paint from the dock. This was not something we had taught him to do, although he had seen us do it. He also started playing in modules that had previously held little fascination for him. Up until about 6-8 weeks we did nothing to moderate his use of the computer, he would hop up on the stool play for up to 10 minutes and then hop back down and go play with his other toys. But then he did start wanting to get on the computer before breakfast when he got up, and although he only had about 10 words in his vocabulary computer (he called it the “tar”) was now one of them. At this stage we put a cloth over the screen and did not remove it until after his afternoon sleep and he could play on it during the late afternoon if he wished.
After 2 months he could use the shape sorter proficiently, and could distinguish between different sizes of the same shape and when we watched him it was obvious that he was looking at the shapes he had to place and the “holes” they needed to go to and was working with thoughtful intent to complete the puzzle. While it is not obvious in the attached photo, he often uses both hands when working with the shape sorter which is very cool to watch. This learning seemed to transfer to him using his shape-sorter toy as well, although I have no way of verifying that.
After three months of using the computer (18 months old) he was able to recognise the shapes of the letters of the alphabet and match letters on keys with letters on doors in one of the modules. My wife and I had not realised this at first, a friend who was watching him pointed it out to us, we had decided only a few days earlier that he was still making random guesses. This definitely was learning that he was able to transfer to actual objects as at about this time my wife was playing with our nephew and had some cards with letters on them and was spelling Stefan’s name. She was saying where is an “E” and Matthew picked one up and handed it to her. When we investigated this further he could name 6 letters and appeared to recognise a few more when we asked him to find them even though he could not say the name of the letter. Since then we have further encouraged this while out walking and stop at letterboxes, signs and number plates for him to tell us what numbers and letters are on them.
I have been frankly amazed at the value of him having access to a computer. He has been able to show intent, to demonstrate learning and seems to have enjoyed a sense of achievement at being able to do things. It has provided stimulation and challenge on demand in a way that my wife and I would not have been able to do ourselves. It has not turned him into a computer addict, he probably stands at it for up to an hour in total on some days but other days he does not touch it. The challenge for us now is to keep finding programmes that challenge him as he gains confidence and ability.
Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation
Sep 22nd
Thanks to Derek for this one.
As I sat in a class this morning watching students labour over a task that only a few seemed genuinely engaged in, the teacher and I discussed what their motivation was for the task. Essentially the only reason they were doing anything in this lesson was to get the grade. Now I can’t say we can avoid this all the time and my other reason for being interested in this in the first place is because Rylee has just hit two and boy can she throw a tantrum at toothbrushing time. So what is needed how can we as teachers/parents avoid the trap of rewards? The site references Alfie Kohn who seems to have quite the library of texts on the subject I will try and find one in the library and see what I can learn.
Are you a Fox or a Hedgehog
Feb 20th
The first Keynote of L@S was Jeremy Kedian. Great presentation with a real view to change. 20/20 vision was the title relevant due to year one students graduating in 2020 and are we as educators a hedgehog who coils into a ball in the face of adversity or the fox who looks for solutions. I liked the middle ground idea of a hedgefox but look forward to how we can change with the 2008 Curriculum.
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Tags: L@Sjeremykedian keynote
Oh how times have changed
Feb 5th
“when are we ever going to need this?”
Jul 23rd
This from Doug Johnson
When asked “when are ever going to need this?” by his students about an algebra procedure, high school teacher Dan Sherman says:
Never. You will never use this.
It then go on to remind them that people don’t lift weights so that one day they will be prepared should one day, someone knock them over on the street and lay a barbell across their chests. You lift weights so that you can knock over a defensive lineman, or carry your groceries or lift your grandchildren without being sore the next day. You do math exercises so that you can improve your ability to think logically . so that you can be a better lawyer, doctor, architect, prison warden or parent.
MATH IS MENTAL WEIGHT TRAINING. It is a means to and end (for most people) and not an end in itself.
I like it and although it’s a feeling I’m sure most teachers share with their students already the weights analogy would I’m sure appeal to an element within our classes.
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