{"id":477,"date":"2012-07-17T12:47:54","date_gmt":"2012-07-17T12:47:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ivyrun.com\/wordpress\/?p=477"},"modified":"2012-07-17T12:47:54","modified_gmt":"2012-07-17T12:47:54","slug":"learning-as-you-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/?p=477","title":{"rendered":"Learning As You Go"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I am in the midst of playing several time management games and one thing they have in common is that they don&#8217;t come with any help files. \u00a0Unlike the board games I played as a kid, there are no directions printed on the lid. In her book <em>Reality is Broken<\/em>, Jane McGonigal points out that this is the big difference between digital and predigital games:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Many, if not most, computer and video games today are structured this way. Players begin each game by tackling the obstacle of not knowing what to do and not knowing how to play. This kind of ambiguous play is markedly different from historical, predigital games. Traditionally, we have needed instructions in order to play a game. But now we&#8217;re often invited to learn as we go. We explore the game space, and the computer code effectively constrains and guides us. We learn how to play by carefully observing what the game allows us to do and how it responds to our input. As a result, most gamers never read game manuals. In fact, it&#8217;s a truism in the game industry that a well-designed game should be playable immediately, with no instruction whatsoever.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This observation resonated with me and reminded me of an experience I had with a group of non-gamers in graduate school. \u00a0I was charged with showing a group of educators a simulation, and I chose <a href=\"Greetings:  I added some comments to your reflections blogs and am looking forward to reading your learning about TPACK.  (It's close to my heart since it was the conceptual framework for my dissertation work.)  So, now that you know WHAT TPACK is, we turn to the real leadership question (this IS a leadership class, after all): HOW do we get teachers to that sweet spot at the intersection of PK, CK and TK? In other words, if you're a school leader and you want your teachers to integrate technology more, how do you make that happen?  So, we move from the WHAT to the HOW...  One way to help teachers is to introduce them to Activity Types being developed by two professors at William and Mary.  You can view their work here:http:\/\/activitytypes.wmwikis.net.   Spend some time reading about and browsing their lists of different types of instructional activities and how they are connected to technology.  Also take a look at the assessment instruments being developed.  In addition, read the two articles about professional development attached to this page.  Using the information about TPACK, activity types and professional development,  use your blog to draft a letter to your faculty about your expectations of how they should plan for and use educational technology. In addition, you should describe the kinds of professional development that will be available to them.  This is due by the end of the week.  A reminder that you should also be working on the Building Professional Learning Network assignment: https:\/\/sites.google.com\/site\/adms647summer2012\/assignments\/shadowing-reflection\">Food Force<\/a>, a game developed by the World Food Programme. \u00a0I gave them the overview of the game, showed them how the various virtual aid workers would guide them and then let them go.<\/p>\n<p>The biggest complaint at the end was that I did not give them enough information and background in order to play the game. \u00a0Essentially, they wanted me to take them through each section of the game and show them how to be successful before they ever started. \u00a0Learning as they went meant that they often &#8220;failed&#8221; and this was not something that doctoral students liked doing. \u00a0The mind set was that you either did it right the first time or you were a failure and I couldn&#8217;t help wondering how that translated into the way they worked with their students in their classrooms.<\/p>\n<p>Learning as you go and learning as you fail are part of the lessons of digital games and I wonder how those lessons play out in the game of life? \u00a0Are gamers more observant in the real world? \u00a0Are they better able to navigate an unfamiliar landscape?<\/p>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am in the midst of playing several time management games and one thing they have in common is that they don&#8217;t come with any help files. \u00a0Unlike the board games I played as a kid, there are no directions printed on the lid. In her book Reality is Broken, Jane McGonigal points out that &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/?p=477\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Learning As You Go<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[48,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-21st-century-skills","category-gaming"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4X3L0-7H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}