Edmodo and ClassDojo

Peter McAsh is Computer Studies (programming, applications) and Geography teacher who has been teaching since 1979 and is a self proclaimed advocate of  integrating technology into all areas of education.  From viewing his blog http://dcvi.typepad.com/mcash/, Twitter page https://twitter.com/#!/pmcash and Edmodo site http://www.edmodo.com/pmcash , I have learned a lot about gaming in the classroom and the use of Edmodo as a teaching tool. Here is a good review of Edmodo as posted by AppAppeal:

"Edmodo.com is a private online social platform for teachers and students to share ideas, files, events and assignments. Built on a microblogging model, the site allows teachers the ability to handle a good deal of class activity online. Teachers can send out assignments, receive completed assignments and assign grades using the online platform. In addition, they can maintain a class calendar, store and share files, have a public (RSS) stream, and conduct polls. Teachers can also use the site to send text (SMS) alerts to students. Users have a home page where they can see a summary of recent activity for their class. The home page allows the teacher to make a new assignments, assign an event to the calendar, send out an alert, write a note to an individual or a group of students, and share links or files with students. When a link or file is shared, a message can be added that explains the contents. A number of filters can be applied to the summary view, including notes, alerts, events, assignments, links and files. Teachers can also assign grades to assignments, and students can easily view a summary of their grades on all assignments. " This looks like a cool teaching tool and I plan to try using it.

One more teaching tool that was introduced to me through Peter's bloggs is ClassDojo:

"ClassDojo is an in-classroom tool that helps teachers manage behavior and boost engagement in class. ClassDojo enables you to recognise specific behaviors and accomplishments in real-time, with just one click of a smartphone or laptop button. ClassDojo works by setting up real-time feedback loops in the classroom, to recognise and reinforce desirable behaviors and values. All recognition is logged automatically, and student behavior records are automatically created and updated.  ClassDojo automatically generates analytics, shareable character report cards and insight into your classroom that has never before been possible."

These are two web 2.0 teaching tools worth checking out.

Jane McGonigal's "Gaming can make a better world"

I was tweeting with Peter McAsh ("Computer Studies (programming, applications) teacher. Interested in the integration of technology in all areas of education. Teaching since September 1979, still enjoying it, and, at least in my opinion, still having a positive impact! ")
about the use of gaming as a teaching tool and he gave me a link to an amazing talk given by Jane McGonigal on Ted Talks. I recommend everyone spend 20 minutes watching this video:

 http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html . Jane McGonigal is a game designer and a researcher. In her talk she makes the seemingly outrageous statement that she foresees we could make the world a better place by increasing our global gaming to 21 billion hours of game play per week in the next decade. She concludes that this would mean individually gaming for 1 hour every day. In her talk McGonical referenced World of Warcraft as the exemplar game. She explained that playing games like this allow gamers to become experts at altruistic optimistic problem solving and relationship building. She quotes statistics that the average child in developed countries currently will have logged at least 10,000 hours of gaming by the age of 21. This is remarkably aligned with the number of hours spent in school for a child with perfect attendance from grade 5 to graduation. 10,000 hours is the recognised standard requirement for study/practise at any particular field or skill in order to achieve "expert" status. Thus McGonigal states we have  a generation of gaming experts. Why is this a good thing? McGonical and her associates have developed on line games such as "World without oil" and most recently "Evoke". Over 8,000 on line gamers have played each of these games which are designed such that the gamer must solve relevant real world problems to survive such as lack of non-renewable resources. She believes that as individuals we are not driven to find solutions to these problems but when gaming as our on line persona we believe we are invincible and we play for the "epic win".

I have concerns about my own son playing video games and whether the constant positive stimulation and feedback he gets from this makes it difficult for him to sit passively in the classroom. Perhaps the problem is not only how much gaming he is doing but what type of game. We need to get hooked into this genre and use gaming as a way to engage our students in the subject areas we teach.