Game based Mechanics at School

Last week I went with my kids to their school's "fun night". The fun centers around a fair like set of activities that generates funds for the school. My kids love the little games and winning all the nearly worthless little prizes and punches on their cards. This time the organizers decided to simplify things by taking the stuff and punches out of the activities.

I was watching my son Oren walk around trying to decide what to play. "Why don't you play this one?" (pointing to bean bag target game) I asked. He looked at me and said "You can't win anything so what's the point?". The organizers have definitely simplified the organization of the fair but they completely missed the game mechanics. To keep humans motivated and in this case creating enjoyment the game has to have a point. The point can be a prize, points, a leaderboard or boasting rights but it has to have a point.

I think this is the point that people miss when we talk about how our understanding of games can inform education. It is not about making educational games. Instead it is about importing the idea of feedback and rewarding incremental progress. Education has always been very good about long term rewards- semester and course grades, GPA and even entry to college. We are considerably less adept at rewarding incremental progress and specific achievements. The only example that I can think of in recent years is the work in RtI (Response to Intervention) on reading fluency. In it students receive weekly probes and chart their progress. This has worked almost too well encouraging students (and teachers) to focus on rate too much. This however highlights the enormous promise in using feedback on incremental achievement progress. Badging anyone?

Cognitive Flexibility, and Devices in 1:1 Environments

This week I visited a new 1:1 integration at a local school site with some of my colleagues. The site chose a "convertible" laptop that claims to be a laptop AND a tablet. It really isn't, it is more like a laptop with a touch screen but that is not the point I would like to make here.

In the course of discussion about the use of the devices I pointed out that some of the advantages of the laptop, stability and a keyboard, are also its limitations that truely limit mobility.

Justin then raised the idea of having a diversty of devices in the classroom. To be honest I have been so fixated on the idea of 1:1 with the same device that I have not really thought of the potential benefits of different devices that answer very differnt needs.

Don Leu repeatedly observed that the only constant in this area is that it keeps changing. As Kristin Javorsky and I presented recently in a Reading Teacher article the key to teach students to deal with the ever changing environment is to teach cognitive flexibility. Then why not do that with choice of device? The late Steve Jobs repeatedly made comparisons between vehicle and device diversity- fit the tool to the job. That can and probably should start in school, where else can you learn to be flexible, experiment and learn to match the tool to the task?

Education is about differentiation we can do that with devices as well.

Coaching Tech Integration in Elementary Schools- Second Year

Dr. Laurie Friedrich (newly minted) and I are back to Rousseau elementary coaching teachers in technology integration. This is one of the most productive ways we can explore working with teachers.

In many ways it is the ultimate low stakes environment. We use our own time and teachers have volunteered their plan time. We pose no demands we just ask, encourage, and explore dimensions of technology integration as we go.

As we work with each grade level team we fit our suggestions and ideas to the style of the team. Each team is different in their goals, the way they interact and where they are on technology integration. What is clear is that now in our second year each team has ideas and internal leadership. They are building on the work done last year and cautiously expanding their integration. The biggest obstacle right now is lack of access to devices that students can actually use individually or in small groups.

I am most excited about the potential for integration in the Arts as it will play out in the Music and Visual Arts rooms. There much promise there, but it is a promise that can be realized only with enough devices so students have access.

As we move forward the low stakes coaching model seems to be a success. Though I might add that the gentle but solid support by administration is an important component as well. In the next few weeks we will start an expanded model in some new schools and so test the boundaries of such a model.

Four things your students can learn from watching Minecraft videos

My two youngest kids have been playing minecraft for quite a long time. For those who are not familiar with minecraft think of a game platform with lego like blocks of many kinds that allows you to create or explore worlds created by others.

This summer, however, my kids got hooked on YouTube videos documenting the adventures of of others online. An example can be the Dumb and Dumber videos for an example click on the pic to the right. 

In the beginning I thought this was just a way to pass the time when they did not have access to Netflix or were not allowed to play (we have restriction on play time). Soon I found out that they sometimes prefer to watch the videos over other shows. This is something that is hard for me to understand. I like playing games but watching somebody else do it? That's something you do when you run out of quarters...

The phenomenon intrigued me. Why watch someone else play? Well I started with the obvious and asked my kids what they liked about it. Their answer was simple, we just like it. When I watched carefully I discovered a few ways that the videos afforded a great learning opportunity.

1. The video makers usually play in pairs or even three and a majority of the video centers around their collaboration. This model of collaboration has actually helped my kids learn to collaborate while playing and I even hear them produce a banter similar to the ones online.

2. In the videos that are usually in survival mode and require the players to solve many challenges. Since audio is a huge part of the attraction they actually produce something akin to a think aloud while engaged in problem solving. This model helps viewers get a window into complex problem solving.

3. Following different videos and finding new ones are part of information literacy skills that my kids who usually spend very little time on YouTube developed rather quickly.

4. The videos often share the creativity of the creators by sharing approaches ideas and actions. They provide a great model of divergent thinking and the joy of creation.

In short the videos provide a model for engagement with 21st century skills. As adults struggle to provide relevant 21st century models finding worthy individuals willing to share what and how they engage in creative activities provides exceptional learning opportunities.

Motivation to Innovate- or five reasons to risk failure

The lens I most often use to view motivation is Bandura's concept of self efficacy. The idea is that we are more likely to succeed when we believe we can be successful. There is quite a bit of empirical work supporting this construct. More than that self efficacy is the best motivational predictor of academic success.

Recently, however, I've had read personal narratives of failure from teachers who are innovating in their classroom and school. The thing that immediately emerged is that self-efficacy cannot be the prime motivator because they actually do NOT always think they will be successful. Often they actually say "I don't know if it's going to work". In my work on democratic education I actually said "I don't even know what it looks like but I think it is important to do."

So what are some ways to think about the motivation to innovate despite the high probability of failure:

1. Value- while self-efficacy is important we also have to consider the value of our actions. If the value is high enough we may be able to consider failure and the potential personal fallout from it.
2. Long term success- while we may not believe that we have it figured out right now we have a belief in our ability to work it out through trial and error. This is closely connected to the idea of grit or stick-with-it-ness/stick-to-it-ness recently highlighted.
3. Self delusion- you can have self-efficacy that is completely unjustified. Sometimes it is better to believe that you are going to be successful despite best evidence to the contrary.
4. Identity- when individuals assume the identity of an innovator (or even entrepreneur) makes self efficacy for a specific action less important than your sense of competence as an innovator. You believe not that you can do the next step but in your ability to overcome the odds and problem solve.
5. A community of innovators. The knowledge that peers around you will support your efforts, share your experiences and appreciate your willingness to dare.

For me it comes down to "surfer attitude" (temporary name)- this is what I am calling it now. It is the deep understanding that to gain expertise you have to fail, since you are constantly pushing the envelope without quite knowing your limits or whether you can hang on. For me it is all five previous aspects wrapped into one. It is what keeps teachers innovating despite not knowing if they will be ultimately successful.

It's good to be back blogging.

Telling Stories

This week we held our annual iPads in the Classroom workshop. Laurie and I used last year's work as a foundation but added many new components. Most importantly like many other iPad academies around the nation we kept things open and let our learners guide much of the work. It is very interesting to start the week by asking everyone to set their own goals. In interesting ways we got a lot of "what do you want us to do" during the first two days. Then everyone settled into the routine and expectations and did an outstanding job learning and extending.

You can take a peek at the work we all did here.

The week of working with teachers has reinforced the ideas that have been guiding my work in the last year. Mobile devices are the perfect tool to enhance identity and literacy through shared story telling. We envision families recording oral histories, creating in vivo memories, and composing personally relevant texts. Using the affordance of the digital device itself and specific apps within it can create rich personal tapestries with fairly low user knowledge.

We now have a chance to try it out in Nebraska and perhaps within the year in a parallel project in China. I am excited!

iPads in China- Excerpts from the Chinese media (loosely translated)

Working in China exposes the cultural differences AND the similarities of concerns. Despite all the concerns and challenges our project just won first prize in a National competition for Technology Integrated classroom. This is a great boost to our work and I am excited to continue.
I think that in the following excerpt from Chinese media in Chengdu you can see what concerns the Chinese public and how my comments are interpreted.

WCC: With the introduction of technology into traditional teaching, whiteboard, book bag, IPAD all applied to the classroom, how do you see the development proceeding? 
　　Dr. Guy Trainin: Today's kids are exposed to smart phones, computers every day. Their parents and teachers are still from the 20th century. Without technology the teacher, the school can not meet the needs of 21st century child's development. So the idea of how we can use technology to help teachers to teach  21st century kids. 
　　WCC: Chinese schools require the exam, how will students do on traditional exams? Do you have parental support? 
　　Dr. Guy Trainin: In our classroom (with Du Yu as teacher) students have mastered more words, electronic production than other classrooms, their overall quality has improved significantly. Support from parents is not difficult to imagine, as long as parents to see the students really active and growing, parents will be supportive. 
　　Today, young parents are more willing to accept new ways of education. If schools do nothing to change the direction, either to promote any new technology or method, students will not be ready to learn and work in the 21st century. Technology integration with our project TechEDGE has been practiced for several years in the United States, transfer to other countries with different national and cultural backgrounds, ideas differences, makes us need to find a new path to our ultimate goal and effect. 
Link to original story.