Award Day and Leadership Training: Leaders of Today cultivating Leaders of Tomorrow

After spending four days with teachers, it was soon time to celebrate with the students. That means: The Globeys!

Who needs the Olympics when you have this?

For those who don’t know, The Globeys is Globaloria’s annual award ceremony for student games. We have a ceremony for each of the states we work with, this year’s being Texas, California, and West Virginia. Because Globaloria focuses on effort and creativity, we don’t solely look at whose games work the best. We look for a good idea, originality, education factor, and how much effort went into the production of the game. So, potential is just as important in doing well in this competition as quality would be.

The energy during the ceremony was fantastic! Everyone was very excited to be there. It was especially nice to see the smiling students and their hard work being shown off. In addition, for me, it was nice to see how everyone’s hard work – from the school’s side, with teachers, students, and administrators to the World Wide Workshop side, with Shannon, Denise, and many others – came together. It really helped me understand the impact that everyone’s roles have. Kudos to everyone making this all possible!

The Winners!

After the Globeys, we had another training session devoted to training administrators. We did not have them make games, but we did show them the tools they needed to support their teachers. It was nice to see the administrators take such an active role in Globaloria.

After getting the administrators up to speed, we all headed to the Leadership Inspiration Awards at the Caperton manor. Being a newcomer to Globaloria, it was a very eye-opening experience. Various principals and superintendents shared their Globaloria stories, which really showed me how devoted everyone was to the mission of Globaloria. Overall, the entire trip was amazing, and I encourage anyone that has an opportunity to go to a Globaloria training to go and do it!

- Jonathan

The Hidden Object Game: Old faces, new problems.

The latter two days were focused on actual game design aspect of the curriculum. This was also the time that the returning educators joined the fray. Flash design and programming was a new concept to the new educators. The returning educators had experience programming in Flash after going through their first year, but they had to work on a Hidden Object game, a new addition to the curriculum this year. So, ultimately everyone was on the same page as far as the project goes!

The new educators working on their games.

The new educators did a great job in the short period that they used Flash! The games weren’t perfect (what game is, really?), but they had some really wonderful ideas in the scope of a Hidden Object game. There were games about literature, game about history, and some about science. All of them were great! It was especially nice to see the educators grow more confident with Flash (quite literally) overnight! A lot of them surprised themselves on how much they understood about the program after a few hours of tinkering and experimenting with the features and with the curriculum. Future educators, please note: You can do it too!

The returning educators working on their games.

Watching the returning educators tackle the Hidden Object game was very encouraging to me. They really showed what a difference a year of experience can make. The returners were in the same shoes as the newcomers last year, so seeing them so confident with Flash after about a year of use was nice to see. Once again, future educators: You can do it too!

Overall, everyone did a great job! Kudos to all of the educators!

WV New Educators 2012: Stepping up to the plate.

Shannon talking more about the curriculum.

The first two out of the four days were dedicated getting the new educators up to speed about Globaloria at large. This means getting them acquainted with who we are, what we do, and what their roles are. Shannon and veteran teachers Denise, Bill, and Diane lead the discussions. Me and interns (and Globaloria alumni) Lindsey and Valerie were also there to help. All of the educators had eager faces, and were a combination of being excited about the program, and being terrified about programming Flash. Nonetheless, they were all willing to give the program a try, which is what the program encourages – effort.

Bill leads the discussion about Blogger.

Training in Charleston, WV 2012

Hello everyone! My name is Jonathan, the new kid on the block running the Help Desk for Globaloria, among other things. To further facilitate my training, Shannon invited me to join her with her trip to Charleston, West Virginia. There I helped out with training both the new and returning educators of WV (and one from TX). It was a great time, and I have some neat pictures showcasing the busyness and energy of the event. I also stayed for the West Virginia Globies, which was a blast as well! Without further ado, let’s get started!

CA Summer Training Academy - Day Two & Three!

Educators working hard on their games

Phew! We just finished day three of our California Summer Training Academy at the Krause Center for Innovation, here's a recap of the past two days. On Sunday, our superstar educators worked on converting their paper prototypes into drawings in flash, and adding game ingredients to make their Hidden Object Games come to life!

Mentor Educator Bill Dorsey and his presentation group

On Monday, all educators broke up into groups and presented their final games and their projects pages, showing all the hard work they did so far. We were so impressed by all the awesome games and ideas that we saw. Can't wait to see what their students come up with!

Shannon Sullivan and her presentation group

Looking forward to tomorrow, when we'll go over all the awesome new tools you can use to manage your Globaloria class!

Whee Training!!

Music Men

There were so many memorable moments from the Globaloria Summer Academy worth writing about, but only a precious few are preserved for posterity in video. It's lucky for us that one such moment was the spontaneous concert put on by our rock stars: Jim Allder, Kevin Warfield and Bob Turbanic -- a true highlight of the Academy. I'm happy to announce that thanks to the masterful uploading skills of our intern Trevor, these talented men have been officially launched into the glamorous world of YouTube celebrity!

Jim and Kevin's update of (and improvement upon) Bryan Adams' "Summer of '69" with a Web 2.0-centric "Summer of 2009" got things off to a lively start:



Watch Jim's rendition of "The Cat Came Back", and the group sing-along of "Summer of 2009" here. Also check out Jim's vintage clip from 1986 on his GEHS Band Blog.

The festivities concluded with an impromptu performance by Bob of "The Train Carrying Jimmy Rogers Home." This blew us all away:



For those who don't know the music of Jimmy Rogers, you can find a playlist here.

I'm only grieved that the video quality isn't worthy of its subjects. You guys will have to give us an encore at the August Academy!

For the musically inclined, I've listed below some web 2.0 music websites you may want to experiment with:

www.imeem.com
www.blip.fm
www.pandora.com
www.rhapsody.com

Your GB,
Rachel

Reports from the Blogosphere

After an eventful 24+ hour trip home (thunder storms in New York, stranded in Washington D.C., oy vey), I'm finally back at the World Wide Workshop headquarters and still feel exhilarated after such an amazing Summer Academy! It was such a pleasure to get to know you all.

I have a lot to share with you, but I thought it would be nice to first put the spotlight on what your reflections have been in the blogosphere since we all parted ways:

Denise writes:

"It is very motivating for me to be in a room with a group of West Virginia teachers who care and are willing to give up your summer time to take training that is so intense. You are willing to learn new curriculum and go out on a limb to offer a new class that you think will benefit your students. It makes me proud to watch everyone work and learn. It inspires me to be a better teacher because I want to keep up with everyone else and what they are doing. In fact I wish my own children could of had all of you as teachers because they would have learned so much."

The RED team honing their skills.

Bill offers a great tip for organizing Flash files, and reflects,

"We didn't do physical labor, break a sweat, or lift a finer for much more than typing and eating the incredible meals over the past three days but we had really worked our brains, imaginations, and our mental limits."

And in his inspiring Global Biology blog (which is now added to my blogroll along the right), Bill challenges us to consider what our legacy will be.

Tracy turns in a late homework assignment (tsk, tsk), but at least has a good excuse:

"I purposefully did not complete the homework assignment for the last day of the academy, because for me one of the most powerful learning moments has occurred in the past few days. I became a teacher because I connect with kids and feel like I have an understanding of how to teach content in a way that they can easily grasp. With the Globaloria program, I will have to completely revamp my teaching style."

The NED team learning Flash.

Great stuff! I look forward to hearing more from you all in the coming months, and please have fun with it! This summer is the perfect time to "tinker" with your blogs, and really get energy generated behind our blogosphere for a more vibrant virtual educator's community than ever before.

Your GB,
Rachel