Because our instructor was at a conference in Paris, France, we had our second last tech class online in a Zoom room. Although we have had many guests join us via Zoom, this time it was we that attended virtually, which I find to be a fitting end to a tech class. I may have even been disappointed had we not had at least one class via Zoom to reaffirm this ability to have a synchronous classroom forum in times when getting together in the same physical space is challenging or impossible as an obvious benefit to using tech in the classroom. Although I could sense my eyes were tired by the end, I did find it easier to take notes during the class.

Gamification

The subject of today’s class was gamification, and, although I haven’t played many games, I was happy to hear when someone mentioned Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? I also agree that gamification can take dry content and make it engaging to students. I have had many experiences in Japan relating to this very idea…

While a kindergarten teacher in Japan, my role was divided into two – a homeroom teacher during the day and an afterschool English teacher for graduates of the kindergarten in the afternoons. A lot of those students who came once a week to learn English, especially as they moved into the middle school and high school years, had so much regular school work to do, that they didn’t really care about learning English. If language is a tool for survival in a social setting, the students probably realized that there was no immanent need for English, as there was no one in their microsystem that required them to speak in English. This meant that my job wasn’t primarily about teaching English – it was about making the class environment enjoyable enough that the children wanted to be there. And what better way to do that than through games?

I used games to introduce content, do informal formative assessments during content, and informal summative assessments at the end of the content. I also came to the realization that games need to be used sparingly, or at least, not overused. For some classes, games became the carrot on the stick to get through content, or a way to manage classroom behaviour. Using games is such an easy way into the social world of the child, but the teacher always needs to be reflective and continually consider the cost/benefit of using games with particular students, particular subjects, and particular classrooms. The whole child always needs to be considered, as the whole child in relation to all the other whole children in the classroom and beyond into the macrosystem. But, for me, the point of using games was to make the classroom environment fun, engaging, with a space for natural consequences, teamwork, and life lessons.

(Image edited from this image)

Our guest today, Lara Kehler, talked about particular qualities that make a good game a good game – the game provides feedback, challenges are leveled and become increasingly more difficult, requiring more skill. This made me think of Csikszenmihalyi’s (2004) model of flow as related to challenge and ability. When the challenge is high and the ability is high, a person can reach a state of flow. And that is probably why children get so into games – they are experiencing flow, and it’s an experience that we naturally strive to return to. What we, as educators, as parents, should be cognizant of is that if video games are the only way a student/child can experience the flow state, of course they will use video games to seek the experience again and again. We may wish to ensure that there other outlets for students/children to experience flow.

Another interesting concept that our guest, Lara Kehler, briefly introduced was the term grit pathways, which I took to be related to perseverance, endurance, patience, goal-setting, bearing with and working through difficulties until success is gained. Again, I am reminded of Japan and two of the social values/qualities that are taught to Japanese children from a young age and into adulthood: 頑張る and 我慢; two values/qualities I wish Canadians would put to the forefront of our enacted values.

Other tech talked about in class that seemed appealing and that I will spend some time checking out over the break are:

Interland – a digital skills game with a Mario Bros-esque sound; Octalysis – a site that talks about the fundamentals of gamification; and, Lost Garden – a blog resource for game design theory.