Welcome to the Class Wiki** for MEDI506 -- Evaluating and Understanding Media
This is a graduate course for the NLDL and READ programs that focuses on understanding and evaluating not just "educational" media (films through unitedstreaming or Accelerated Reader for example) but a variety of media you and your students may know. The focus of the course is on understanding media, learning theory, games and simulations, curriculum integration, and literacy theory as these things apply to the media your students know. Today, media means not only films, television, and radio but also games, simulations, collaborative software, social networking sites, and so much more.
This is also a hybrid course. We will meet face to face in the computer lab downstairs for the first two classes of the semester, certain classes throughout the semester, and the last two classes. The rest of our learning and teaching and thinking and talking will take place online, at your convenience, wherever you use a computer. I will help you understand this and set up your blogs and other tools during the first class.
My goals are that you will:
- Become familiar with a wide range of educational media, including more than one type of game (simulation, first-person shooter, skill development, massively multiplayer online games, PC-based and more
- Be able to understand how different kinds of media work
- Understand learning theory and how students learn from a variety of media (especially multimedia that incorporate a variety of aspects of medis simultaneously)
- Choose a game to learn in more detail, and chronicle your learning experience in order to reflect upon your own learning through new media
- Make reasoned decisions in choosing or helping others choose new media for educational purposes, including adopting a critical stance and helping students learn to critique the media they are exposed to
- Be able to research and design a learning experience around a particular medium or media and present that design to an audience of your peers
From here, you can:
- Go to the blogs page to learn guidelines for blogging for this class and read classmates' blogs -- blogs for year 2 -- blogs for year 3
- Link to the readings and questions schedule
- Visit the class collaborative space, where I will post my thoughts, podcasts, and notes for each week (think of this space as being like a lecture/class discussion) -- class collaborative space for year 2 -- class collaborative space for year 3
- Read the project description for your final, cumulative project
- Access a list of non-required but interesting readings that may help you put some of what we talk about into additional perspective
- Links and stuff
- Second Life links and videos
**A wiki is a series of pages that everyone can edit. After the first class, you will have a password to edit the wiki and add your questions and thoughts to mine and your classmates'.
Comments (1)
Dawn Uttel said
at 10:21 am on Feb 26, 2011
I do think that there might be some benefit to identity play. Gee stated that the student was, a thinker, problem solver, and doer. I strive for my students to be thinkers and doers. The game has them take on identities and encourages identity work. They have to solve problems, find ways into certain areas of a game. This is a benefit in being a thinker and a problem solver.
Gee stated that there are limitations though. In real life, our students would have no limitations. That if they took on an identity as a hard worker, that the hard work would continue to lead them to more success.
I do feel that there can be a benefit to taking on an identity within the game.
Yes, I think that identity play in games compares to reading a novel or taking on a character perspective? I teach my students to put themselves in the shoes of the characters that they read about. How you they feel if they were in that novel and in that situation? There is a difference in terms of the level of excitement. In a game, players practice a myriad of skills and they enjoy these practice sessions. This is more hands-on learning for them. With the novel, the student must be motivated to read and reread and visualize themselves within the text of the story. I truly believe that if the teacher has the motivation and instills that into the novel with activities, the student can gain the same level of identity play!
I teach my students how to feel what the characters in a book are feeling. Offering them activities and teaching them to visualize themselves within the book, can bring a great feeling to them. This takes dedication on the part of the teacher. We are competing with a video game. As Gee stated, "Children cannot learn in a deep way if they have no opportunities to practice what they are learning." This holds true in both playing the video game and reading the novel. Even though the video game puts them within a different world, I feel that a book can do the same thing!!
You don't have permission to comment on this page.