Cory's+Journal


 * Week 1 Questions (Chapters 1-2) **
 * 1) 1. Describe your background and history with video and computer games.

I started my gaming career with the super Nintendo in the late 1990’s. During middle school I graduated to a Gamecube (early 2000’s) and at the same time begin playing the online game Runescape. By the time I got to high school, I had forged my ongoing allegiance to xbox and had started a long-lived World of Warcraft career. Now, due to the brief amount of time I get to play, I’ll maybe play games like Minecraft or Diablo III on my laptop.
 * 1) 2. What are some of the real and/or virtual ‘identities’ you take on?

The virtual identity I take on in video games depends on what I’m playing. The most memorable is the role I played during the five years I spent playing World of Warcraft. During this time I played the virtual roles of damage support and group leader. When I was co-managing a guild, I would assume the identity of the leader and make execute decision like when the guild would hold events, positive and negative actions towards guild members, advertising for the guild, and financial decisions for the betterment of the group.
 * 1) 3. What impact might James Paul Gee’s definition of ‘literacy’ have on your teaching?

By defining literacy broadly, Gee’s definition of literacy can help impact my teaching by creating a new lens for looking at students. Encouraging disengaged students is important to building social equity. I feel that many times the nonperformers are dismissed, however it becomes problematic to assume a student is unintelligent. By getting to know the students’ likes and dislikes you can find semiotic domains that the students are familiar with, and then design lessons that link these domains to the ones you’re trying to give them access to. This not only provides a more engaging environment, but also helps create relevancy to the students you’re trying to motivate.
 * 1) 4. What experiences have you had learning in new ‘semiotic domains’?

I have had to learn new and vastly different semiotic domains. When I was in high school, I began a long relationship. This new domain required me to learn multiple facets of the girl I was with in order to be happy. Pet names, sensitive issues, and communication was entirely different. I grew up with parents who never went to college, so when I did I had to learn everything myself. I had to learn the diction and environment of not only the campus, but also the varying classes that I had to take as an undergraduate. The college domain also required me to learn about financial aid, college credits, and social protocols of college-age individuals. Thinking forward, when I entered graduate school, I had to learn about the teacher side of the education domain. I had no idea about curriculum mapping or multiple intelligences.
 * 1) 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//.

I played Ludwig. It was incredible. I haven’t tried playing any educational games since I was in middle school, and at that time the ones available online were incredibly uninteresting and felt like doing schoolwork. As I played through this game, I kept wondering when the ball would drop and I would be asked to do some kind of homework. It never happened. I never felt like this game had some secret agenda, it was just fun and visually incredible for a free game. The art and physics has greatly improved for free games even in the ten years since I left middle school. The game was very reminiscent of the game Pikmin that was referenced in the book.


 * Weeks 2-3 Questions (Chapters 3-4)**
 * 1) How might virtual and projective identities be important in your teaching?

Students have an idea of what kind of student that they are and want to be. Many of my honors students, for example, want to go on to college and do as well as they can in high school. This is important to take notice of because these students will either want or be more receptive of additional materials and challenging work. The person they want to become is their projected identity, and the role that they play in school is their virtual identity. Sometimes these identities don’t align however, and I see this when students will tell me what their life goals are but aren’t taking on the responsibilities that they should in the classroom.
 * 1) Describe an experience you’ve had in teaching a student with a “damaged” identity.

In English, many many students come in with already damaged identities. The broader damaged identity that they have is that they are not a good student. The more specific ones are that many students see themselves as bad writers and non-readers. One student in particular was particularly bright in an 8th grade class I was teaching. During the silent reading time, he would never bring a book to read and sat there. This student told me that he didn’t read often. After I suggested a book that I thought he might like, he was actually excited. This student read the book I brought it for the entire last month I was at that position.
 * 1) 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.

One thing that the students have a particularly hard time developing is their use of formal language. Students have a difficult time straying away from I, you, and we. Because students have a such a hard time with this, I have learned that the best way to get them to develop this skill is to assign meaning and purpose to what they write, informing them that formal writing is mandatory for inciting professional influence.
 * 1) Describe a recent learning experience that involved using the probe, hypothesize, re-probe, and rethink cycle.

When I was chaperoning a school dance last weekend, I had to probe the environment of the dance and find all of the exits and notice all of the decorations that were assembled. I hypothesized that about 50 students would probably show based on the location and size of the school population. After students had filtered in, I reprobed and noticed that a total of 27 students were there at the peak. Now, any time the school hosts a dance, I will assume that that few students will show.
 * 1) Reflections on any games you played or examined during the week. Educational games for the week include: //ReDistricting Game//, //Mission US//, //iCivics//, and //Quandary//

I played Quandary this week. While this game was interactive, you didn’t have the option of moving around and all of the players were stationary. Instead of animation or cinematics, the game used a comic strips to show what was happening. The game is essentially making executive decisions after researching information from the inhabitants of the settlement on a new planet. You, are the leader, are responsible for making these decisions and left to either suffer or enjoy the consequences.

I just gave a lesson where I asked the students to close read a passage and write down any information they found important to the story or confusing. This activity required the students to work their way through the text without any teacher guidance. The text was full of difficult words. Knowing that the students wouldn’t know these words, I intentionally didn’t give them the definitions beforehand. This was because we are working on a content standard that deals with working with context. By having the students read, they had to interpret word meanings through context. I gave them the definitions later after asking them what they thought the words meant. I believe this created a more of a lasting effect on their knowledge than front-loaded definitions because they had to struggle with the words. In the domain of Language Arts, I like to be sure to teach the subdomain of vocabulary. Before and during any lesson, if that lessons contains unfamiliar or domain-specific language I make a mini-lesson out of it. For example, I am teaching Catcher in the Rye in class right now. I made a simple two-minute lesson on the word Bourgeois today in class to make sure the students had access the language and that they could understand the text better as a whole when they encounter that word. Students have learned the critical thinking skills that they need for English class when they read literature or informational texts. For example, students have learned tone through direct dialogue. They can pick up on facial features, body language, and intonations in people’s voices in order to decipher how people are feeling. They are experts at being able to decide what kind of mood their parents are in before asking for favors. A skill like this is directly transferrable to the classroom when teaching a subject like tone. I have had the students act out scenes of books in order for them to hear character tone out loud. By revealing to them that an author or character’s tone is no different than the ones they hear out loud.
 * Weeks 4-5 Questions (Chapters 5-6) **
 * 1) 1. Give an example of 'Just in Time' information presentation in a classroom activity.
 * 1) 2. In a content area of your choice, how might you incorporate teaching in a 'subdomain' of the 'real' domain
 * 1) 3. Describe a technique that you might use to help students 'transfer' early learning to more complex problems.

Like our author, I also played Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. This game was my life for months. I absolutely loved it. I remember that I always played as Sonic and my friend always played as Shadow. I always attributed always playing a “good” character to being a nicer person than my friend. One of my large cultural models was changed when I was in college. I had built this cultural model that many people have and that I see being perpetuated all the time. This model is kind of like the cultural model mentioned in the text that was referred to romanticizing the individual. The model I had was that the individual had limitless future possibilities. There are some things that I learned that I cannot be either due to my social class or intelligence. It wasn’t until college until I realized that. It’s a nice sounding message to send to students, but one that I cannot bring myself to give. I played After the Storm. This game is browser based. You are the boss of a journal and you have to use journalism skills in order to fulfill a to-do list that requires a lot of reading, comprehension, and writing. I can see using a game like this when introducing journalism as a topic. The game is entirely 2D and the only sounds that play are reward-type sounds. You have to read dialogue and make up the voices. I can’t see myself or anyone else playing this on their free time, but I can definitely see the educational value in it.
 * 1) 4. Describe a learning experience you've had where one of your 'cultural models' was challenged.
 * 1) 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//.