The class was split into to halves today. My half had TeacherJ first:
We "read" a text made entirely of symbols, which I found to be intellectually stimulating but practically frustrating. I loved the ideas brought up by the activity, such as what skills we used to decode the story and how this activity might be like school. I'm glad I enjoyed the discussion afterward, because I wasn't a huge fan of the activity. I don't enjoy texts that seem purposely abstract. Most of the time, if an author is trying to make a statement with the form of his/her work, I would prefer that s/he just say the point. In this case the symbol-text was probably essential to launch the discussion, but the idea of there being a whole book like that kind of exasperates me. Creative writing was one of my majors, and I blame my picky attitude about what I read on that.
I've already forgotten how that discussion flowed into talking about gaming, but it was a very smooth transition, so good job TeacherJ for choosing topics that go together naturally! I'm skeptical about asking teens to play more video/computer games, because I do think there are benefits to going outside and making eye contact with people, but I'm intrigued by the idea of getting them to play different games. If someone were to make a game geared toward solving real-life problems and as engaging as WoW, I think a lot of people would play that instead of what they're playing now.
I'm the most interested in how a teacher can create a classroom atmosphere that welcomes failure. What I took away from the discussion on gaming is that people play games because of how games make them feel: they are allowed to fail, it's assumed they will eventually succeed, they know the rules, they can determine their own path. If we can bring those emotional aspects to the classroom, we could reach a lot of students who are not currently invested in school. Of course, the only idea I have so far is my "save point" idea. I'm counting on my classmates to come up with better things!
The second half of the class was about podcasting, with TeacherK:
I learned that a podcast is just a recording! I was totally thrown off by the fancy word, and assumed it was something much more complicated (actually, I assumed they had to be used with iPods or something. Why put "pod" in the word if it doesn't involve iPods??).
I love the idea of using podcasts to help struggling readers, although something occurred to me: what happens with a struggling reader in a foreign language classroom? The students who read well in English would have more strategies to apply, but in a way they will all be struggling readers. Everyone would benefit from hearing a recording of a German text while they read along. I wonder if a language classroom is a good place to give struggling students the reading strategies that they aren't taught after, say, 5th grade. Hmm...
Sadly, my PSA podcast had to be an unfinished one, since Myna stopped letting me save new voice recordings (it went through the motions, but the files never appeared). I did have a lot of fun doing that, though. Can you tell I'm a fan of creative projects? I get really excited when a grading rubric includes points for creativity.
Now, time to work on more things!
-B
Hey B - was the voice recording not showing up once saved to let you manipulate with it? If so, go to View-> Imported Files and it should appear in a column on the right and you can drag it into the Track area to play with. I hope this helps
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to foreign language, I LOVE the idea of having the read alongs. I know when I was trying to learn German, it would have been so useful to hear someone saying what I was reading, after all that is how kids learn a language by reading and repeating.
I was intrigued as well by the idea of a classroom atmosphere that welcomes, or encourages, students to “fail.” Failure is such a loaded term in education and can have such a debilitating effect on the psyche of student and the developing mind. I think I prefer the strategy of encouraging students to never be afraid to try. That the notion of failure is only truly realized when you refuse to do anything, when you don’t care to try, when you let apathy override your spirit and determination. In my classroom I will emphasize a strategy of goal orientated success by encouraging and supporting genuine effort – which I well understand is the inherent intention of the failure welcoming atmosphere – by doing whatever I have within my power to help them see effort as a means to success instead of as a sort of abject humility lesson in the glory of failure. The tricky part of course, is how to do you reach, how do you convince, the student who has tried and failed and tried and failed again and no longer sees the payoff in continuing to put forth energy, and effort, and very real humiliation for the sake of well-intended failure that aims to teach? The psychological differences between failing in gaming world virtual reality in front of no one other than oneself, and failing in challenges of the real world classroom in front of a room full of peers, are two drastically different environments that need to be well considered in teaching methodology.
ReplyDeleteI think your idea of using podcasts to help struggling readers is awesome. Podcasts have the potential to be an awesome tool in foreign language classes. Having a recording while read along with a text would be helpful, but think about all the other cool applications. We could have students record themselves speaking in German for homework and dramatically increase the amount of speaking practice (and speaking practice that gets heard by the teacher) that each student gets. We could record native speakers of German or even other German teachers speaking so students get to hear more people speak than just their teacher. And think how fun a lesson on German dialects could be with podcasts!
ReplyDeleteI'm very intrigued about how exactly to use gaming effectively. I'm so worried that if I give the perception to my students that "gaming is good," they will take that to the extreme and become totally addicted to video games "because Ms. S said we should play more games!" How do you effectively portray to kids that there are both pros and cons to the games they love? Hmmm...I suppose I'll just have to keep thinking about this more. :)
ReplyDeleteBrianne, your "save point" idea is awesome! I think it's safe to say everyone in the class (Jeff included) were very intrigued by it. I certainly was! And like you and Charles, I too was taken by the idea that games are so engaging because they create a safe atmosphere for failure. If there is one thing schools can do to be more like the gaming world, that is what it should be. We are all too afraid of failure. It's apparent everywhere, even in our own classroom by the lack of volunteers to answer questions (something I myself am ever so guilty of). Anyway, I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one whose attention was caught by this idea.
ReplyDeleteAhhh, "save point"--it was late when I wrote in my blog last week (haha, look it's late again!) and I couldn't remember what the term was--glad you mentioned it!
ReplyDeleteI'm sad your podcast didn't work because it sounded like it was going to be FABULOUS!