Terry's+Journal

1. I have a mixed background with computer games. I have played myself, I have played with my kids, and I have taught classes in computer games development.
 * Entry 1 (7-15)**
 * 1) Describe your background and history with video and computer games.
 * 2) What are some of the real and/or virtual ‘identities’ you take on?
 * 3) What impact might James Paul Gee’s definition of ‘literacy’ have on your teaching?
 * 4) What experiences have you had learning in new ‘semiotic domains’?
 * 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//.

Myself - I used to play more than I do now. I have been hooked on early versions of Zelda, Jak and Daxter, and time filling games like solitaire, tetris, and others.

My kids - I have researched, purchased, and played computer games with my kids from an early age but not much recently as they are too old now to choose educational games over recreational. We've done Reader Rabbit type games, critical thinking games, learning chess, Pajama Sam. Recreationally, we all got hooked on ToonTown for a long time. It was a good way for extended family to place together across distances.

Computer Game development - I coach an OGPC team (Oregon Game Project Challenge) with my two sons and 6 other high school students. This is a team computer game development competition. I'll add a middle school team next year with my daughter and her peers. I also teach a computer game modding class for Minecraft. The goal is to take the love of games, especially Minecraft, and turn it into an interest in programming.

2. I haven't really played much with identities, but I like the idea of playing around with who you are as virtual character. I have a gender neutral name, Terry, which is kind of fun already that people who know me online don't know if I'm male or female until I tell them or use a pronoun that gives it away. Since I have worked in a male dominated field that has been useful. If they don't know I'm female right off the bat, it won't influence their first impressions. I also know that the sexist treatment of female identity in game characters bothers me a lot.

3. His definition of literacy seems to match the way we see the term when we talk about people being computer literate. I teach programming, to be literate in a programming language includes understanding the syntax as well as structure of that language. To be able to read and write code and know what it will do from the code itself, without running it. I also teach math and physics. Math is another good example of literacy. Math literacy is more symbolic and analytical. To be able to read math can be simple or very complex. To be able to break down a complex math problem into smaller components and make sense of it is definitely a learned skill but it all starts with 1+1.

4. I like the concept of semiotic domains. One particular domain I joined a few years ago was First Tech Challenge robotics. I joined as a coach and in our rookie year I knew the basic goals and had the documentation and knew names of people involved. I didn't know the language well and it took a year of learning, participating, talking to people, to feel like I belonged in this domain. Now, after a couple of years, I know what is current and interesting to talk about. I know who to talk to about different things. I know where to go for information and how to find new methods that would be interesting for other coaches. I can bring new rookie coaches up to speed in the domain and help them learn. This is the semiotic domain that came to mind when I was reading the chapter. Everything he said strikes true with this experience.

5.I played Ludwig and I enjoyed it read away. It was attractive, with good graphics and game control. The story was compelling. I spent most of the play time learning the mechanics of the game. I want to play more to get to the physics, so I can't actually judge the science yet. I learned the objectives, how to navigate, how to find and store items and what they will be used for later in the game. I installed the first item but it didn't really involve science, I think it was still a training mission. I want to play more, I can see it being attractive to kids even when compared to other entertainment games, especially if there are additional classroom or family incentives to choose the game.


 * Entry 2 (7-21)**
 * 1) How might virtual and projective identities be important in your teaching?
 * 2) Describe an experience you’ve had in teaching a student with a “damaged” identity.
 * 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.
 * 4) Describe a recent learning experience that involved using the probe, hypothesize, re-probe, and rethink cycle.
 * 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//.

1. As a STEM teacher, I like the fact that the learning environment in my classes can be pretty different from other classes. I think it gives students an opportunity to create a new virtual identity. I have had cases where I have discussed a good student with their classroom teacher and we are at such a disconnect that we both have doubted that we are talking about the same person. I had a boy in an elementary school robotics club who was one of my most focused students. He demonstrated a real interest and ability in engineering. He turned into my go-to student for mastering and demonstrating new concepts. When I talked to his classroom teacher, it turns out is often off task in the classroom and struggles to stay engaged. I think that the fresh slate of the club as well as the affinity for the material gave him a chance to develop a new identity as a student engineer. The positive feedback of his success in the club helped it grow. This was a turning point for this boy, the traits he projected into this engineering identity started showing up in the classroom as well. His test score went up and the last time I was at the school, a couple years after this occurred, I found him in an advanced math pullout which is only available to the best math students. I have multiple identities too. As I developed my teaching identity I have taken risks that I wouldn't feel as comfortable with before. I feel like I am starting fresh so I can change some things about who I am to the outside world.

2. While teaching a programming class for beginners I began with introductions as I usually do. I asked the students to tell their names and what programming experience they had so far. I stressed that having had no experience at all is a perfectly good answer and if they stated that they had none, I responded with enthusiasm for the journey they were about to start. One ten year old boy told me that he was not good at programming. He is a ten year old, I have no idea how he could have a damaged identity towards something that he is so early in the process of learning that there is no way he could be considered bad at it by anybody. I told him this is words that I hoped he understood. I also made a note that this boy needed specific encouragement in order to help him change his self identity. As we progressed in the class I made sure that I gave him feedback for specific things that he did well. I think it was early enough that the damage could be turned around. A negative self identity as a learner can really influence the success of a student. By the end of the class I even teased him a bit, he had built a pretty impressive masterpiece. I told him that for someone who was not good at programming, he was a pretty amazing programmer.

3. With new programmers object oriented programming is a difficult concept to understand. You can look at the definition of it, here is one found in a beginner book on Java programming: One of the most fundamental concept of OOPs  is **Abstraction**. Abstraction is a powerful methodology to manage complex systems. Abstraction is managed by well-defined objects and their hierarchical classification. For example a car in itself is a well-defined object, which is composed of several other smaller objects like a gearing system, steering mechanism, engine, which are again have their own subsystems. But for humans car is a one single object, which can be managed by the help of its subsystems, even if their inner details are unknown. Java is an object oriented language because it provides the features to implement an object oriented model. These features includes **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;">encapsulation **, **<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;">inheritance ** and**<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif;">polymorphism **.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">Students struggle with this definition in several ways. It is very situational, terms like encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism are not intuitive in the domain of computer science. They are meaningless words to a novice. On the other hand, the example of a car as an object is too abstract. This is a very typical example, but to someone who is learning to program, giving a car as an example of a programming concept can be seem very unrelated. I have found that spending some time using objects in programs first, then drawing attention to the way information is accessed and stored, is a good approach to take before looking at a more academic description of object oriented programming.

<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">4. While homeschooling my son, I was tutoring him in a very advanced online Geometry class. It is a problem solving class where the challenge problems were complex and could take several hours to solve. The process would look like this: <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">1. Look at the given information, diagram, and the question asked. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">2. Identify known geometric relationships in the problem, for instance here are two triangles that are similar. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">3. Use properties of similar triangles to solve equations and get more information. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">4. See if this reveals a path to the answer. If not, continue. <span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">5. Repeat from step 1 and identify another geometric relationship in the problem to work with. Eventually enough information is gathered that you are able to see a path to an answer and complete the problem.

5. I played Mission US. It was a little confusing at first, trying to figure out what the goal was but once I started exploring I realized that the exploration itself was the way to learn. There is a lot of information tied to different objects, reflecting life in the times. Details were made about the printing press when that wasn't necessary for the game, unless it comes later, but is part of the learning experience. I found it to be fun, I think kids would enjoy playing this game over other educational activities but not over recreational games.


 * Entry 3 (7-26)**
 * 1) <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">Give an example of 'Just in Time' information presentation in a classroom activity.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">In a content area of your choice, how might you incorporate teaching in a 'subdomain' of the 'real' domain?
 * 3) <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">Describe a technique that you might use to help students 'transfer' early learning to more complex problems.
 * 4) <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">Describe a learning experience you've had where one of your 'cultural models' was challenged.
 * 5) <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 8pt;">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//


 * 1) I teach a class at Saturday Academy called Java programming in Minecraft. The students are middle school students, mostly novice programmers. There are several area of complexity for the programming including using the development environment, Eclipse, for Java development, learning the Java programming language, learning the Bukkit library which is the program interface to Minecraft, and Minecraft itself. This is a lot of pretty technical information so much of it is doled out "just in time" in order to keep from overwhelming the students at any point in time. For instance, the Bukkit interface is not introduced until everyone is successful in writing a pure Java program. Exporting the Bukkit plugin that they just wrote is saved as its own topic and not introduced until everyone feels good about their Java and Bukkit code. It's important that the student is in a good mindset each time that a new area of complexity is introduced or the complexity becomes to much at one time.
 * 2) The first program written in a new programming language is traditionally "Hello World." This program is the simplest possible program, usually writing the words "Hello world." to the screen. Its like a training mission, you are going through the motions of learning how to create a program, have the correct syntax for even the simplest program, how to run the interpreter or compiler, and how to run it. All of these tasks are important to know before trying to write anything more complex.
 * 3) Debugging in programming is very similar to the scientific method. In both cases one must control the variables, that is, change only one thing at a time. This is good advice for a lot of different situations but is critical in both of these. If you are running a science experiment, it is important to change only one variable at a time, otherwise you cannot be sure of the relationship between the variable and the result. The same can be said for programming. To fix a problem (debug) one must make a change and test the results. If you make multiple changes then you don't know which one was responsible for the new behavior of the program.
 * 4) In college, working on my BS in Physics, I took a class on the physics of nuclear war. At one point we were asked to play a nuclear war game and were told that in order to get an A, we needed to survive against another student. We were both playing the parts of nuclear capable nations. I bombed by partner. (I wanted an A.) Many other students refused to go that far even though it was a game and even though their grade was at stake. I still regret my decision. I felt really bad that I didn't just put up a moral front and refuse to compromise it.
 * 5) I played the demo version of After the Storm. It was a compelling topic to me because I know people who have been through the experience of a bad storm and the effects that it has afterwards. I also remember the communication problems they had in the time right after the storm. The game offered a lot to learn, including job descriptions and sample work from different employees in the media workplace. There was also basic reading and writing tasks that are portrayed as part of your character's job that are to be done by the student. They were pretty basic assignments but from the description in the educators information about the game, this work starts out very approachable with scaffolding to help struggling students who need extra practice but progresses to higher level work which is more independent and challenging. This is a nice model for addressing the needs of many students.