Week 6 Reflection

It has been challenging to get back into the rhythm of blogs and commenting after two weeks of group work. Monday’s Twitter session helped to spark the ideas for serious games in the classroom. Some districts that I have worked at had standard games that they added to the iPads for everyone and this was good, but it was not as specified to the students and grades to be the most beneficial. The Twitter session was also the first time I though deeply about the difference between games and serious games. I had not heard of that terminology before, but feel that I have a far better understanding now.

The blog post this week was somewhat confusing for me. From what I understood we were supposed to answer the essential question with references in video format. I am not supper comfortable with video assignments, but hopefully it was kind of what you had in mind. At first I only saw blog posts and no videos and got quite concerned. Then a few days later I went back to read some other posts and started to see more videos which was reassuring.

I learned about some new educational games websites this week and how they could be implemented into the classroom. There were a few that really caught my eye. The website code.org looks like it could be a fun gateway for students to start building their coding knowledge without really knowing it. It can also start off simple for young or slower learners. I was also interested in considering using the website Get the Math to work on the smart board so that the whole class could work on problems together.

Gerald commented on my post this week and we talked a little bit about MathXL and how it is used in the classroom. I also commented on his blog and wanted to know more about hew he implemented cool math games within his classroom. I was hoping to see specifics about how he set up time for his students to go on the website, but he talked more about how the games are learning for many things, like logic, skill, and strategy. I also commented on Cherie’s Blog, I really liked how she talked about a website that could be used in the classroom and asked her about the specifics of how her school used the website throughout the day.