The EdTech Experience

Moved to a new area and started teaching at a new school.  I haven't had the chance to start any gamification due to all the changes I've had to get used to when switching districts and schools.  I'll be working on that soon. 

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New additions to the game:

- Occasionally, students will work together with their guild on guild notes.  They share a reading together and take notes together.  They then get to use these notes for a part of the time during a quiz and earn XP for the guild if they all do well.  I'm trying to incentivize them working together and helping each other out as much as possible.

- To go along with the previous theme.  I've created items that they can purchase with their gold that can help out their entire guild.  Students are now discussing with their guilds about what is the best option to further them in the game.  Some guilds are actually planning to save up and make bigger purchases as we get closer to the grand finale.  

- The storyline is now more complex as students have now fought a Volcanic Dragon from Indonesia and are going to use that dragon to face off against their ultimate villain who has been stalking them.  

- Along with the storyline, I've been posting clues that all line up with a location for each test.  Students put the location on the test and they get some additional XP.  

I mentioned before that I was creating a storyline for my gamification class.  

The current storyline has them tracking a sorceress who is unleashing mythological beasts on the world in Asia.  They have traveled across India and China and have failed to defeat her.  They just discovered her location at the Forbidden City following a number of clues that I'd been posting in Chinese around the room (and they were very obscure things even when translated).  

This past semester, I gamified my World Cultures class.  As students learned about Europe and the Middle East, they traveled across those realms and fought off folklore and dragons throughout.  Even though they were facing opponents and having quests, there wasn't really a big storyline to engage them with.  It all took place in a medieval or Game of Thrones like realm and I'd like to continue this into the next semester.

This next semester we will be journeying through the rest of Asia and into Africa.  Help me come up with a storyline that could go along with the journey for the semester or the quarter.  Maybe fighting off a wizard that is unlocking stuff...not sure...but I'd like to tie it into the continents we are studying.

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Another important part of my gamification of my social studies class has been the addition of guilds.  Guilds are essentially small groups.  Students work with these guilds on about half of the projects during this semester.  The rest of the group activities, students are required to make groups of students from all different guilds (so no guild members can be together in one of these groups).

This twist to my classroom has added a whole new level of motivation.  Each guild is ranked by their total XP (averaged because of the odd number of students) and displayed on a chart that students can view online.  

Students are feeling even more motivated because they want their guild to win or at least not drop back because of them.  This has also created a lot of encouragement within groups and I've seen a few of the groups setting up study sessions with each other to ensure that everyone is prepared for the test.  These students may not have ever interacted with each other at all had it not been for this class.  

Also, there is a ton of high fives and excitement when students see their guild doing well.  One of the big struggles is that this doesn't necessarily motivate the guilds that are on the bottom.  I know that it wouldn't take too much to start moving up the guild chart but they seem to feel they are too far out at this point.  Despite this, I still find members of these guilds are fighting for their own individual rankings through the main leaderboard. 

Confused?  Read Parts 1 & 2!

Part 2

Another major component of my gamified classroom is that we have our own economy.  Students earn XP and move up levels in the game.  As they move up a level, they each get a certain amount of gold.  The gold is our in game currency and students are always wondering how much they have.  

They can then spend their gold on a number of different items.  These items consist of swords that cut multiple choice questions in half, shields that give you more review time right before a test, bonus points on specific assignments, late passes, and much more.  We also have special auctions where I auction off decals for their MacBooks, candy, and even the best seat in the house (my desk and desk chair).  

These incentives add another layer of motivation for those students that aren't just competitive, but it still provides an additional motivation for those students that are competitive.  

I'm not really teaching anything different and the students aren't really doing anything different but they are being more motivated because the class is now a game.

Confused?  Read Parts 1 & 3!

PART 1

I have been skeptical of gamification for a while now.  I have taken a few workshops on the strategy and I always felt like it was something that would only work with elementary or middle school students.  This past summer, I ran into a few books on the topic and a lot of them were aimed at the college level.  As a high school teacher, I was very surprised but I am always looking to try out something new that will motivate my students.  So...I gamified my social studies world studies class.  

In the class, we are journeying throughout Europe on a mission to defeat creatures and gain XP.  Students gain XP by doing well on tests, completing specific assignments, doing special side quests or going above and beyond in order to get XP, and most importantly by participation.  I've never seen participation as thoughtful and frequent as it has been with this gamification going.  

As part of some new strategies I am trying out in my classroom, I've decided to include a number of different options for how students can complete projects.  I include options that are artsy, options that involve video-making, options that involve writing, options that involve demonstrating something, and options that involve more in-depth research.  It has actually helped me out tremendously as I don't have to watch, read, or view the same things every single time because students move a little towards their strengths.  

Our school is very unique in that every student must complete an extensive project before they are able to graduate.  Some schools require community service but our school goes to the beyond.  Every student must complete the following:

- One project that takes place outside of school and is a stretch for the student.  Projects have to meet two of four major criteria (community service, personal growth, career preparation, or advanced academic learning).  Some examples of projects have been a student running a homelessness night, a student raising money for two girl's basketball teams to have pink jerseys and have a night dedicated to raising money for fight breast cancer, students that build things or make huge modifications to vehicles, and even a student that created a disc golf course on our campus.  

- One 10 page paper that must be argumentative and relate to their project in some way.

- Presentation of their project and paper to community members that grade them.

A lot of schools have been coming to our school to watch the process and see how it works.  Many have been looking for some sort of capstone project for their seniors.  The person running it, left our school last year and I've been added as one of the leaders of this amazing project.  Students may gripe about the work but it really shows what they've learned over these years and gets students to push themselves further than they've ever been before.  

I'll share some great projects as the school year goes on...

We were discussing the question of whether or not the world needs governments which will eventually lead to me talking about the purpose of government in our world today.  A student basically took over the discussion talking about the idea that the world would be better without government and that everything could just be run by the free market.  That was an okay idea and students poked a lot of holes in it (as per usual debates), but then he began to talk about Obama.

He began to "ramble" about Obama being a secret Muslim and that his middle name is evidence and the fact that he wants to get involved in wars in the Middle East.  I tried to explain to the class and that student that it doesn't really matter what religion he is and that almost all of the recent presidents have interfered in the Middle East at some time.  He began then to talk about Obama not having a birth certificate and that his Social Security card is a fake.  

All of this is ridiculous in my own mind and I don't want me students to get a lot of mixed thoughts...but I didn't want to crush the student or make them feel like their feelings weren't welcome.

I pulled them into the hallway and discussed that he is allowed to have opinions about people but he shouldn't take it to a personal attack level during class time and keep it to himself.  I explained that I love debate but I don't want someone to be slandered for something without any real evidence and I don't want to get that far off of topic.  Lastly, I explained that a religion is someone's own personal beliefs and who cares what religion Obama is and there is no way of knowing what his faith is about or like without truly being him.  

challengebasedlearning.org is a social networking site for educators and students interested in Challenge Based Learning (CBL). Find other educators interested in CBL, propose challenges and share solutions. Take action and make a difference! This is a browse challenges page.

I'm in training today on challenge-based learning.  Getting a lot of great ideas but here is one website that has a lot of challenges already planned out with guiding questions and everything.  Challenge-based learning is just like PBL and basically has students taking a problem into their own hands and trying to solve it.