Caleb's+Journal

1. Describe your background and history with video and computer games. As a child I played quite a few video and computer games. I grew up with a Super Nintendo but didn’t really hit my gaming stride until I acquired the PlayStation 1. During this point in my life I was quite young (around 8 years old). Mainly I used video games as a way to socialize with my friends and family. I did this by playing games with others either at my parents’ home or at their homes. We would play age appropriate games and some that weren’t quite age appropriate (Twisted Metal series). From there my gaming continued through the PlayStation 2 and the games of that console (Tony Hawk, NCAA Football, Ratchet and Clank, etc.). As I entered high school my gaming time slowed down due to my involvement in other activities like sports and clubs. It wasn’t until my senior year that I again became engulfed with video games. During my senior year of high school, I got an Xbox 360 and my gaming style changed. I started playing the COD (Call of Duty) games and first person shooters online. Again my gaming was a source of social activities, as I mainly played with friends (in person and online). Since then I have continued to enjoy playing first person shooters with friends. However, as I grow older I find myself not playing with friends anymore and enjoying more open world type games. In brief I would say that I have a prevalent background and history with gaming, especially console gaming. I however, do not associate myself as a “gamer” as I feel that I don’t play as much as a true “gamer” does. 2. What are some of the real and/or virtual ‘identities’ you take on? Some real identities I take on include: student, teacher, friend, citizen, and many more. I take on these different identities when I am performing tasks that require me to be in that frame of mind. An easy example is that I am in my student identity while I am writing this journal. In this day and age, I feel that some of my real and virtual identities overlap. Some of these overlapping could be friend(Facebook), student or other online sources that I participate in. Other virtual identities that I have include the online gaming profiles I posses. To go further into the virtual identities, I take on I would say that when playing games, I take on the identity of the main character. For example, this past Spring I completed Far Cry 4, during my game play I took on the identity of Ajay Ghale the main character in the game. Through this I played through a part of this fictional character’s life. In brief I would say that I take on any virtual identity that I actively participate in. Likewise, I take on any real identity that I actively participate in. 3. What impact might James Paul Gee’s definition of ‘literacy’ have on your teaching? From my interpretation of James Paul Gee’s definition of “literacy” I gathered that each subject or “semiotic domain” has its’ own literacy or way to understand (read) and produce (write). While these different subjects have their own literacy they may still be very similar in their literacies. Thusly, as a teacher I feel that this definition of literacy has huge implication in how I evaluate student learning. For example, while I would like students to be able to write well, it is not necessary for a student to write an essay when they are solving an algebra problem. To go a little further I would say that this definition would also impact the way I expect students to learn a subject. I would say that I expect them to learn the “literacy” of the subject. Meaning I would want my students to be able to understand the subject they are learning and be able to reproduce the same subject. 4. What experiences have you had learning in new ‘semiotic domains’? I feel that the easy answer here, given that this is a video game course, would be an example from a video game. When learning a new “semiotic domain” I first like to learn everything that it has to offer, like the rules and boundaries for play. I find it very difficult to engage in a new “semiotic domain” before I know about it. As for a particular example I could use that of playing COD where I would use trial and error to determine the rules of the game. Another experience I have had would be that of online courses. Growing up in public schools my mind works well with the bigger “semiotic domain” of education. However, I find it more difficult to engage in the distinct “semiotic domain” of online education. To better engage, I find myself constantly looking over assignment rubrics and descriptions. 5. Reflections on any games you played or examined during the week. Educational games for the week include: //Resilient Planet//, //Evolver//, //Dragon Box Algebra, Fair Play//, and //Ludwig//. For this week’s educational game, I played Dragon Box Algebra. I found this game mildly entertaining, probably because it seemed remedial. I did find myself struggling at times to figure out the mechanics of this game, although I did jump ahead to side B, as I was getting bored with side A. Overall, I feel that this game flows well and would be engaging for students at that academic level. This game provided flashing objects to assist the player in working out the mechanics of the game. Since I am a math person I found this game to be a little difficult at times to work out how I wanted to solve the problem. Nonetheless, I feel that it would be easy for students to work through these problems and solve, even with a last resort of trial and error. I liked how this game gave the player some freedom in how they solved the algebra problems. I believe that this game could be a great supplement to a math class. But as with any game, I don’t think it could replace other curriculum.
 * Week 1 Questions (Chapters 1-2) **

1. How might virtual and projective identities be important in your teaching? From our reading I gathered that virtual and projective identities are important in learning as they allow students the ability to transcend their real reality of learning. An example from the book was that of a science classroom, where students take on the virtual role of being a scientist. And while they are not yet scientists they behave the way scientists do and thusly develop a sense of how to be a scientist. Through activities students are then able to use their projective identity by actually being involved in the class’s activities. This type of approach seems to be great in that it provides intrinsic motivation for students to learn. It also gives students an idea how scientists work, although it need not be a scientist, as it would work the same with any other discipline. In short, from our reading I took that using different identities allows students to behave in ways that they might not normally (in real life) behave. Therefore, the student is learning that they can truly be the scientist, writer, physicist. Etc.
 * Weeks 2-3 Questions (Chapters 3-4) **

2. Describe an experience you’ve had in teaching a student with a “damaged” identity. As I am an Instructional Assistant I don’t have a plethora of experiences working with students who I have identified as possessing damaged identities. Nonetheless, during my time working in an afterschool math help program I did work with a particular student who was not very motivated to complete their math homework. As a math guy, I took this opportunity to try to explain to this student the beauty of math. This student however was persistent in believing that math was difficult and not important for their future. I told this student that math would be very important to them as it forms basic problem solving skills. I explained that all math is, is taking the things that you know and solving for the things that you don’t know. This approach didn’t seem to be beneficial to my argument. I should note that this was a middle school after school program. In the end, the way that I was able to get this student back on track was by explaining that they would need to pass math courses to graduate high school. While I am sure this wasn’t the best approach, it seemed to be the only thing that would work at the time.

3. Give an example of a situated meaning in your content area, and describe how you might help students gain a more embodied understanding of it. My content area will be math MS/HS. A situated meaning that I can think of could be that of learning what the summation notation ( S ) sign is. This is situational because this symbol is only used in math and to mean the sum of something. To help students fully understand this I would first teach the though process of what it means to add things together, like the first five numbers being 1+2+3+4+5=15. After this I might ask my students if they can think of any other numbers that add to 15. After this I might ask my students if they can think of any other sequences of numbers that can be added together. From my students examples I would try to tie in their number sequences into real life situations. Maybe like a growth pattern or something. Then I would show my students that there are real life connections to adding sets of numbers together. Thusly, giving them a more embodied understanding. After showing a few, I would then teach my class the symbol that means to add things together, the summation notation. And with any luck my students would be able to transfer their definitions of adding sets of numbers to the math world with the symbols.

4. Describe a recent learning experience that involved using the probe, hypothesize, re-probe, and rethink cycle. A recent learning experience that involved using this cycle was my learning process for the entertainment game I chose, //The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt//. During this learning experience I used trial and error to figure out the controls to the game. The game was decent at providing cues for how to move around. However, when it came to actually playing the game, I found myself probing for buttons that I thought would work. I typically guessed correctly, as most games have similar controls. But, when I would guess incorrectly I would find my self hypothesizing that I pressed the wrong button. From there I would probe again until I found the correct button and then rethink and remember what that button was for. This process happened very quickly and happened multiple times during the first fight scene I played in the game.

5. Reflections on any games you played or examined during the week. Educational games for the week include: //ReDistricting Game//, //Mission US//, //iCivics//, and //Quandary//. During this week I played my entertainment game of choice, //The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt//. During my playing of this game I was mainly focusing on the educational side of the game, as that is what I will need to eventually be reporting on. In short though, I enjoyed playing a little and found it relaxing to entertain myself this way again. For this week’s educational games, I chose to play //Quandary// first. From my playing of this game I found the controls to be very easy. I enjoyed solving the problems that were presented to me as the captain of my settlement. I found this ability to choose very intriguing. This reminded me of something that we learned involving, how giving students or players choices allows them to be more engaged and construct better meaning. The downside to this game for me was how short it was. I was only able to find three levels to play, which went fairly quickly. Since my game went so quickly I chose to also examine //ReDistricting//, which seemed to be very politically based. This game also seemed to be focused only on providing learning for redistricting of states for voting purposes. Again this game like the previous was easy to control and gave instructions to explain what it wanted. Overall I think it was a decent game for learning redistricting. But, I didn’t like how focused it was on only that topic.

1. Give an example of 'Just in Time' information presentation in a classroom activity.
 * Weeks 4-5 Questions (Chapters 5-6) **

Like in James Paul Gee’s video game example of ‘Just in Time’ learning with how he would defeat the boss from //System Shock 2//, in an educational setting the learner would learn this new information right when they need to. An example of this could be that of the Science classroom where students work on projects that they may not fully understand yet and then when a problem arises, the teacher is there to teach this new concept just when the students need it. For a specific example let’s consider finding area in math and say that the students just learned how to calculate area using blocks. A teacher could then give the students a problem of finding the area of something bigger, where blocks would be hard to use. Then while letting the students attempt to solve this new area problem, an issue arises, the teacher reminds the students of multiplication and shows a connection between the area from the blocks and the formula for area being length times width. Thus, the students get the new information just when they need it and can now find the area of the bigger object that would have been difficult with blocks.

2. In a content area of your choice, how might you incorporate teaching in a 'subdomain' of the 'real' domain?

For this question again, I will use the content area and ‘real’ domain of mathematics. Let’s say even more specifically that the domain is Geometry and the subdomain is Pythagoreans theorem. So, the goal would be teaching Geometry and to do this I would break it down into the subdomains, one being Pythagoreans theorem. Now, Pythagoreans theorem seems a little algebraic in its formula sense. So, I would teach it again like the subdomain piece by piece telling students that it is true for all right triangles. Of course, I would demonstrate a proof to help build belief in the theorem. From there I would have students practice using Pythagoreans theorem by using the formula and then, hopefully, they would be able to find the side lengths of a right triangle, which is a part of Geometry.

3. Describe a technique that you might use to help students 'transfer' early learning to more complex problems.

From our text, James Paul Gee describes transfer in how he transferred his knowledge of how to play one game to another. A technique that I could use to help students transfer early learning to more complex could be using the idea of think, pair and share, to help students discover the similar patterns in the early learning and the new more complex problem.

4. Describe a learning experience you've had where one of your 'cultural models' was challenged.

Since the game //Grand Theft Auto//, and the sequels, were discussed in this week’s readings, it had me thinking about my own thoughts and cultural models when I played this game. I first played this game series when I was probably in high school. I found my self going through the psychosocial moratorium principle. I found myself questioning if I should follow my ideals of being responsible, polite, nice, safe or if I should just go on a rampage and killing spree. During this learning experience I ended up breaking down and rampaging. I found this ability to let loose invigorating, however, I did understand that this was only acceptable in the game and not in real life. It was interesting to look back at that time and think about how my cultural model was challenged.

5. Reflections on any games you played or examined during the week. Educational games for the week include: //Villainy, Inc.//, //CSI: The Experience//, //Oncology//, //After the Storm//, and the //Sports Network 2//.

After playing //Villainy, Inc.// this week I was quite intrigued by the story it offered. I felt that for an educational game, it had a decent amount of story to go along with the questions. I did find that the questions were a little limited, probably around 8 questions for the first mission. I was only able to play for the 45 minutes this week, otherwise I would have liked to have tried out mission 2. The game offered instructions in both oral and written formats. When working through the questions it also offered help and advise for struggling players. This game seems to be geared for lower grades like middle school and maybe elementary. I feel that a high school student would feel insulted if they were asked to play this game. Overall, I was happy with my experience while playing this game.