Hello folks -

As the leader of the "Gaming" Birds of a Feather discussion, I thought it would be valuable to open up a blog thread to collect various thoughts and opinions people have about exploring gaming as a tool for educators. Funny thing here - although I teach digital technology to secondary school students all day, it is for a very different reason that I took on this role. I really strongly believe in the power of play and the depth of its engagement and what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls "flow". Gaming, it sems to me, offers a wonderfully flexible way to engage learners and yes, it just might not hurt at all, especially compared to the intricacies of more academic approaches to teaching and classrooms and lessons, etc. Since I teach quite a wide range of students it has become increasingly apparent to me that less academic students need a different approach at times to academic learning. Gaming, it seems to me, may hold opportunities that other classroom alternatives simply cannot offer. Re: those who vigourously oppose the concept of games as teaching tools I ask - "What are you afraid of?"  Having said that, I can realistically see limitations to how games are built, used and "marked".... and now its your turn.

In our Birds of Feather discussion I would love to hear from a variety of points of view... please start that ball rolling now... and the door is open for you to take the discussion wherever you wish.

cheers, Peter French

Hi, as a follow up to my earlier posting, I'm interested in hearing your views about "digital natives" in the classroom. I'll incorporate your feedback into my keynote Monday morning. Please click on http://www.yorku.ca/surveys/survey.php?sid=224 and it'll only take a few minutes.

Ron

Hi Everyone,

 

The Birds of a Feather on Best Practices in Video Conferencing now has its Wiki  set up at:

http://www.commun-it.org/wiki/index.php/Best_practice_in_Video_Conferenceing 

and available for edits.  If you are planning on going to this session on  Monday May 7th @ 1:45-2:30 in the Tom Thompson Room, please take a minute and go to the Wiki, and add your discussion topics, ideas or questions.

 See you next week!

 

/shawn

That is my question. How has literacy changed in terms of processes, products and mediating technologies?

I have been using Facebook for a very limited amount of time, but as I go through the environment I have noticed quite a bit of what I have heard from different presenters on the topic may not be true.  A few of my thoughts:

1. If I join a group in Facebook not everyone in Faceback has access to my profile, this only occurs if I am the creator of a group.  I can also limit this access within the Privacy settings of Facebook.

2. I can set a limited access profile that contains only the information that I want to share with anyone. 

3. Many Elementary and Secondary schools keep track of their Alumni through Facebook.  They use it to inform their alumni of upcoming events in order to spread the word.

4. You have a choice whether or not someone adds you as a firend and what kind of access that person has to your profile.  You can also block certain users from having access to your profile or what items they do have access to.

5.  It is a low commitment way to reconnect with those people that you want to reconnect with, as well as people that you currently do connect with. 

Opinions?