Exit Interview

Check out Maitreyi Doshi's exit interview filmed on the car ride to the airport on her last day of work. We already miss you Maitreyi and wish you the best of luck!

Globaloria Workshop: Prototypes and Flash

In day two of the Globaloria workshop everyone did a great job prototyping their games. As educators were divided into four groups and given only about an hour, they all came up with some great ideas. The teams, Team Green, Team Go, Team Odd Man Out, and Team EnviroBalance, all pulled together a paper prototype and presented it to everyone. Each of the games really started to take shape and all were based on great educational or social change issues.

Later in the afternoon everyone got to really take a look at Flash and how to draw their prototypes in Flash. It was cool how everyone educator in the class stepped up and was drawing a section of their game. This is Team Greens Game flash file based on their game pitch.






Today, day three, the educators will continue to build their game design concepts and will be presenting their final ideas, in Flash, to the entire group. It should be exciting.

Barry Joseph on Gaming in Education

We are sitting in Barry Joseph's session on Games for Social Change. He started the session by asking us to interrupt him. He is providing a history of serious games and games for change. Mention's Senator Clinton's legislation regarding the indecency of games. He has stepped through and is now talking about SecondLife. Mention's program from MacAuthor Foundation.

Mentions Games For Change conference. MacAuthor announces a Game school in New York City. Scratch. - helps with game design.

Video clip of Principal who likes Global Kids.

Jan 2008 - interest in program continues.

Study said the making a game was useful for learning. A single game could teach a complex issue.

June 2008 - Library gaming... Librains guide to gaming.

AMD Foundation announces games initiative. "Changing the Game". Shows a video clip.

Gaming langauge has become acceptable over the past six years.

The question for us is.... Are we ready?

Rezed.org - best practices for education.

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The Session continues....

UPDATED

Continued Live Blogging from Barry Joseph Session...

http://holymeatballs.org/
Barry is providing a quick overview of a list of games and we will decide what we want to play. We decided to play Free Rice. The game helps you with language and the rice you win will be donated to those in need. Heidi scored 560.

Idit discusses how we might be able to better show the community gain at large.

Next Game: Consumer Consequences... really not a game at all, but students experience it as a game. The main goal is to be aware of the concept. Just get the idea across. You have to make decisions in your own time and own space and that is often where issues come from.

Next Game: September 12... it is not really a game.... talked about issues around the game.

The session went into a great group activity that I will go into in another post soon.

Globaloria Academy Final Plans

The WorldWideWorkshop Foundation has been working hard these last two weeks creating the first of two Globaloria Academy Workshops to be held in West Virginia this summer. Finalizing agendas, talking with speakers, getting the logistics in place.... everything needed to support a learning experience. It is also so great to be working with our partners at WVCPD on this, they are always so helpful!

This first workshop is all about putting our educators in the "learner" role. We will be providing some overview of the network, some context on the program, and then we are going to jump into learning about conceiving, designing, and building a game that provides value for anyone who plays it. The three day workshop will engage our educators in becoming part of the virtual social network that we call MyGLife and help them become participants in the network. As part of that participation they will begin to shape their ideas and start the process necessary to bring them to life, that is, create a playable game.

It is our goal to really model how the Globaloria program can be implemented in the classroom and provide the educators with a context for collaboration and game creation through technologies that mirror 21st century work models and skills. I am particularly excited to observe last years educators begin to build on their existing skills and experiences and take their games to a new level. Of course, that does come with the concern that they might go to work for EA Sports! For those of you coming next.... see you there!

Workshop Follow-up

I wanted to take some time to pull together a post-workshop post for the blog. I think we had a good workshop and I really saw some progress in some of our teachers. It is always exciting to see a group "dig in' and really start to understand the process and the technologies. I also want to take this opportunity to thank everyone involved for making it a great learning experience.

The workshop focused on some key things for the group of existing educators including the Globaloria platform, using the wiki, collaborating virtually within the community, and a lot of time learning Flash.

Each school was able to go into their wiki and make edits and updates, some worked through their semester schedule, while others began to re-organize their wikis to improve the overall platform.

During the second day of the workshop, we had a great discussion about some of the issues that we face in the schools, like Getting Started, Recruiting Students, Grading Student Work, and transferring Globaloria skills and techniques into other curriculum areas or classes. Everyone participated in the discussion and a lot great ideas surfaced.

The final afternoon was one big Flash workshop. The educators produced a complete Flash movie before they left that evening and presented it during dinner. We were really able to see a lot of great ideas emerge and great learning happen.

Go here and check out what they produced. The video above is one that Bill did during the workshop. It isn't the final version, but pretty great anyway.

In-Progress Workshop Update

We have one day under our belt and we have had some really good discussions and presentations. Denise and Patrick gave provided some great insight by giving us a demonstration of their students games and we watched some video of their classroom.



The evening was also highlighted by a visit by the First Lady Gayle Manchin, who attend the presentation and spoke with us about her support for the program.


While we did have some presentations, there was also some time for hands on. The new educators started to learn Flash and get a feel for how the program can allow you to create games. There will be a lot more of that today. This afternoon we are spending the entire afternoon working in Flash.

If any participants are reading this blog. Leave a comment, tell me your view of the workshop.

Preparing for the Workshop

We are in the Capital City preparing for the Globaloria Educators Workshop that starts this afternoon and runs through tomorrow. We are very excited to get everyone together and have some fun and learn. There are several things scheduled that will make this workshop worth the effort of attending.

1) We are going to give our experienced teachers an opportunity to share their stories.

2) We are going to have a very special guest this afternoon to talk about our program.

3) You are going to have a lot of time to work on your wiki and in Flash.

4) You are going to be able to talk to everyone else about how they are doing things.


This is just the short list, we are all really excited to see you again (or to meet you if you are new). Be safe traveling to Charleston and we will see you this afternoon.