My Digital Footprint

Videogames do not turn all brains to mush

As someone whose parents almost immediately regretted purchasing me a Super Nintendo when I was five I am used to hearing how videogames “rot your brain”. Videogames can do a lot and mean a lot to a variety of people. To some they truly are the simple medium of escaping day-to-day pressures and just relaxing. Others view games as a work of art that can be appreciated while offering rich experiences. I fall into both categories personally, but I lean more towards the latter. The truth is, videogames are now so embedded into society that they will not be going away anytime soon. This presents a unique challenge never before encountered. 

The stigma of video-games being treated as “useless” or “mind-numbing” must be handled in a different light. Video-games are being used currently to help educate in small amounts and by overcoming these stigma they can grow in usage and in efficiency. Attached to my Diigo account you can find some interesting links about using video-games in education. The largest PC game platform company, Valve, has published multiple lesson plans that are certified to teach in the Common Core methods for a variety of disciplines including, physics, literature, and mathematics. This is just one way that video-games are being implemented in the classroom in an approved way. As is referenced in our class textbook, The Connected Educator, students sometimes feel they have to “turn down” when they enter a class due to the lower level of technology present versus what they have at home. By teaching up with a variety of mediums including video-games, educators are making an active effort to give their students the best possible learning experience. 

Like all tools however they can be misused. Unless specifically using video-games that are programmed for education a video-game as a tool is only as good as the facilitator using it. A lesson plan must be top to bottom designed around implementing the game as a medium and not a simple, “play the game to learn” plan. The facilitator must be mindful as well in the type of game chosen, as well as the maturity of their class. Like picking a movie for the right demographic it would certainly be easy, especially with a video-game, to lose track of your class.

Literature Review, Classroom Technology

Course Objectives met through this review:

1.      Demonstrate the understanding of how technologies can effectively promote student learning.

2.      Reflect upon and demonstrate effective use of digital tools and resources.

In Classroom Technology by William Day, he writes about the importance of utilizing technology in the classroom and the effectiveness of certain listed technologies. Day makes a point of explaining how for two decades educational institutions have been spending millions of dollars on technology without a clear purpose or a goal in mind. He reflects on a mindset of schools that believe just by putting technology into a classroom the students are benefiting from it when what they really need is to interact with it.

To reinforce this goal he explains how a must in classroom technology is an interactive whiteboard. This allows students to interact with each other and their teacher and enriches the learning experience overall.

This reading pertains to course objectives because it is demonstrating the understanding of how technologies can effectively promote student learning and it reflects upon and demonstrates an effective use of digital tools and resources. Technology is a crucial component of current day education and Day does an excellent job weighing the pros and cons of specific technologies in his article. For example, he discusses that laptops are a great tool for students to use during class because it allows them to take notes and bring their work home. However he explains that smaller, lighter, netbooks are a much better upgrade because they are more portable for a smaller individual like a middle-schooler. (Day, 2010) If I was a teacher using this article as a point-of-reference I would be even more motivated to use technology in my classroom. I would heed his advice in utilizing an interactive whiteboard and create lesson plans around class participation with the whiteboard.

What I found most interesting about this article is Day’s emphasis on netbooks over laptops. This article was written 4 years ago and due to the ever moving pace of technology netbooks have seemingly gone extinct. In their place a consumer has access to Chromebooks which are Google’s take on the netbook running their own custom operating system. I would be curious to see a revision of this article taking Chromebooks into account as they are a departure from the norm. Overall, this article is a good baseline for sharing the importance of technology in the classroom with someone. Day demonstrates and discusses the benefits of each piece of technology and I feel that the possibilities are endless.

Works Cited

Day, W. C. (2010). Classroom Technology. American School & University, 43.

Vision of Technology Integration

Understanding where technology will take human society is a daunting and interesting thought experiment. The things we are capable of today is exponentially more advanced than we were capable of even a shy decade ago. A popular concept is that of Moore’s Law. A theory that states technology exponentially grows as time moves on. This is represented by a conclusion that processors double in speed every 2 years. (Keyes, 2006) This concept is one that I swear by in my everyday understanding of technology and as I have aged I have become more open believing in “impossibilities” with technology.

This could not be any more clear than a memory of a conversation I had with an English teacher my freshman year of high school in 2005. This particular teacher predicted a future where teachers and students would have “hand held paper computers” that would be the size of a notebook that a student could take with them between classes and to home. As a naïve 15 year-old I scoffed at this concept thinking that battery life would not be sustainable. I proved to be more than sufficiently wrong and since then I have refused to underestimate the power of technology.

Examining the everyday uses of technology in the classroom now can give some foresight into where the trend will take us. Tablets will no doubt become incredibly ingrained in education and teaching, that students will rarely be seen without them. Tablets still however can be large devices with an IPad mini having a seven inch screen and weighing about a pound or two. If one were to go into a Brookstone store they would happen across a laser projection virtual keyboard. Where once activated projects a keyboard onto a surface that is fully functional. In the future this technology can be expanded on so that devices that are either carried or worn will have the capability of projecting a graphical user interface (GUI) onto a surface. This will shrink a student’s load of scholastic equipment substantially and will virtually remove the need for a knapsack.

The projection technology to make something like this already exists and is in stores. All that would be required is a way to install the proper software onto the device and make it practical to run. Once that is achieved this device could be market ready. Something so small that can fit into a pocket or clipped onto a shirt that allows a user to interact on massive surfaces could revolutionize education. Imagine a teacher using such a technology to lecture on chemistry projecting the structure and composition of a molecule in real time 3D in a classroom. This would give students an interactive component to learning because they could manipulate and “feel” their education.

A real world existing technology that will be improved on is virtual reality. There exists blueprints to fold cardboard up into a certain design that allows a user to place their phone in it and hold it to their face like a layman’s VR headset. This technology could be expanded on to allow students to “visit” exotic places around the world. Or it could allow students who may be bed ridden to still attend a “virtual” class. The possibilities of something like virtual reality are endless because as graphics advance the ability to “project” yourself someplace else will increase.

Works Cited

Keyes, R. W. (2006). The Impact of Moore's Law. Solid State Circuits, 28.

Nussbaum-Beach, S., & Hall, L. R. (2012). The Connected Educator: Learning and Leading in a Digital Age. Bloomington: Solution Tree Press.