Open Badges Game-Based Learning Units for the Everyday Teacher Game-based learning (GBL) is getting a lot press. It is an innovative practice that is working to engage kids in learning important 21st century skills and content. Dr. Judy Willis in a previous post wrote about the neurological benefits and rationale around using games for learning. She also gives tips about using the game model in the classroom. Myths About Game-Based Learning First, let's clarify a couple things. Gee refers to teachers as "learning designers," and I couldn't agree more. Inspired by the work I've seen, here is an overview of components and structure for the everyday teacher to implement game-based learning Overall Structure: Individual Quests and Boss Levels A game-based learning unit should consist of both smaller quests and more robust boss levels. Boss levels are more rigorous missions that require students to synthesize the content and skills learned in the quests. Overall Theme Need to Know Game-Based Learning demands a "need to know" the content. Incentives Avatar
Open Badges Community 3D GameLab | Heroic learning, come play! Maria's blog: Learn with Passion KEY... Keep Educating Yourself When I was invited by Shelly Sanchez Terrell to participate in the The 30 Goals Challenge for Educators I thought about the tittle "Learn with Passion" but not from the students' point of view but... from the teachers' point of view. Why? Because we always think about students and never about us! With the availability of new technologies, with thousands of resources inside the Internet, we teachers don't know where to start and how to start to look for material, support and other colleagues with the same problems. The first one and my "guiding star" is the The Webheads in Action. The second must-site is Simple K12. "Lean with Passion" is one of the best activities you can do while you are on holidays, while you are working, while you are in bed... Take 10 minutes of your time, "Learn with Passion" and ... think that the only thing you can do is to ... ... because the more you know, the happier and the most satisfied you will feel. Smiles, Maria :)
Badges, Do We Need Them? #3dgamelab Not sure, jury’s still out on that one for me. In my brief, 22 year career, I’ve tried incentives such as grades, stickers, beans in a jar, lotto tickets, class money, awards all the way to abolishing all of those, even the grades. The change to no rewards and punishments worked, but not as well as I imagined. I still wasn’t reaching all my students. So I tried gamification. I’ve been going back and forth on the use of rewards in class. Here’s a sample screenshot from the 3DGL interface showing all the badges, achievements, and awards available to students for successful completion of work in my 6th grade Science classes: The badges, along with XP, are to show the student, the parent, and me what they have completed successfully. Is it too much? Here’s what a student will see when he or she logs in to 3DGL on their device: Available quests show up in the middle part there. Be Sociable, Share!
Rewards and Gaming #3dgamelab The idea of badges and achievements in gaming is a problem for teachers who have abolished extrinsic motivators in their classrooms. In 3DGL there is a Badges section, an Achievements section and an Awards section. I’m really conflicted by the awards section because it’s more like rewards than badges and achievements in my eyes. I wrote a blog post years ago that led me to raise the discussion of awards ceremonies at my school. We used to have monthly awards ceremonies where we’d give out awards to some kids and choose a few students of the month. It never felt good and the many kids who sat with no award were not being motivated to try harder. We actually put a stop to it. So I’m thinking of not offering any awards and making sure the badges and achievements are tied directly to actual completion of work. Be Sociable, Share!
Send Them on Learning Missions Posted by Shelly Terrell on Wednesday, December 4th 2013 Included in the Digital Tips Advent Calendar and part of the Effective Technology Integration category “If you think of learning as a path, you can picture yourself walking beside her rather than either pushing or dragging or carrying her along.” ~ Polly Berrien Berends We are born curious. Observe toddlers playing and you will notice their eyes questioning the objects around them. I want to be the kind of teacher who inspires my students to actively learn beyond my class, because they are curious. Create an online community Set up a class blog, wiki, Facebook group, Google Plus Community, Twitter, Instagram and/or Edmodo site.Keep it active by posting video and image challenges, polling them, posting fill-in-the blank statements, featuring their work, and hosting events like chats or Hang-outs on AirLet the students organize their own chat topics and times. Give them a choice of missions that are engaging. Integrate games Challenge:
Teaching English Digital badges Digital badges are a validated indicator of accomplishment, skill, quality or interest that can be earned in various learning environments.[1] Origin and Development[edit] Showing a user's group of badges from Mozilla's Badge Backpack. Traditional physical badges have been used for many years by various organizations such as the United States Army[2] and the Boy Scouts of America[3] to give members a physical emblem to display the accomplishment of various achievements. While physical badges have been in use for hundreds of years, the idea of digital badges is a relatively recent development drawn from research into gamification. In 2007, Eva Baker, the President of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), gave the Presidential Address at their annual conference on the need to develop Merit badge-like “Qualifications” that certify accomplishments, not through standardized tests, but as “an integrated experience with performance requirements.” Functions of Badges[edit]
Georgia Virtual Learning Open Online Teacher Training Want to issue open badges? Here are some options. NOTE: If you notice a service in this list that is no longer active or you see one that is missing, please use the form at the bottom of the post to submit changes. As I’ve written a bit about micro-credentials and digital badges this year, I have a growing number of people asking me about how they can start designing and issuing badges. While I like getting into the strategic planning part of things, most of these questions are just about what tools and technologies exist to issue badges. So, this post is my initial answer to that question. Of course, one’s decision depends upon a number of factors: goals, desired features, essential features, reporting requirements, technical acumen, financial resources, whether there is need for long-term record-keeping, whether the badges are part of a formal academic offering, etc. My one criterion for including an option is that it is compliant with the Mozilla Open Badge Infrastructure. Like everything I write on this blog, this is a rough draft.