Through my “Game Evaluation Rubric” created with Michael Moynihan and Michelle Kennedy, I was able to construct a piece of work that will aid me in my selection of video games for my student’s learning needs. Similarly we also created an “App Evaluation Rubric” which will serve to choose appropriate learning applications for use in my teaching. These particular evaluations work well with my philosophy of teaching and others may find it will work well for them as well. These tasks made me aware of what I seek in an educational app and game that I want my students to use to further their learning. It also made me realize that I already evaluated my apps prior to students' use; I now simply have a concrete piece of evidence to show my rationale. As an online facilitator it is valuable to my students that I put the time and effort into choosing quality learning apps and games for their use. I need to be able to rationalize their use in my teaching and this type of evaluation is clear for others to see my reasoning for use of such apps. In my “Mine Craft Lesson Critique” I was able to use the “Game Evaluation Rubric” to give it a rating that would help me decide if it was a worthy learning tool. It turns out that it is a worthy learning tool and my students are already keen to use it at school! However, there is the challenge of convincing administrators to purchase licenses for the game. This mind shift will take some time, but I believe it will happen.
Through my “Application of the 4Cs” project I created a small unit that included three major lessons that use the 4Cs (content, capture, communicate, compute). Creating these lesson plans allowed me to envision how I want to use technology and tools in my teaching, and how I want my students to use them in their learning. By completing this task I was able to implement my knowledge of mobile learning gained thus far and apply it to a real world situation. I learned the importance of making a well-rounded mobile learning activity by utilizing as many of the 4Cs as possible. As an online facilitator I want my students to feel confident that I have the knowledge and skills to produce rich learning experiences for them where they are experiencing a variety of mobile learning techniques. I know it's important to have background information and solid understanding of the theory behind implementing mobile learning into my teaching and my students' learning.
Overall this was an amazing course! It was a lot of work and I would have liked more time developing my skills in Mine Craft and even experimenting with another game suitable for learning. I have taken away many new skills and much knowledge and I look forward to being a game based learning leader through my teaching.
Gee, James Paul (2013). Principles on Gaming. Youtube. Retrieved from:
http://youtu.be/4aQAgAjTozk