Reaping the effects of Globaloria

I have spent most of the week in Charleston at a conference and was very worried that I would feel out of loop with what was going on with my students. However, my worries were unsubstantiated- all I had to do was to look at the kids' project pages and get caught up in 10 minutes! The conference was very productive- we talked about using data to drive student achievement and shared the positives and negatives of what was going on at our schools. I proudly talked about Globaloria and its effect on our student learning, as now I can see how their independence in learning is developing so well in addition to their collaboration skills and, very importantly to me, writing skills. Many people from other schools were very interested in the program and wanted to know more. It is really amazing that the way of delivering content I am still considering challenging but already "normal" was a completely new way of teaching for the educators in other schools. I can say that the program wowed them in many ways.

I have also realized that I am still not completely detached from being "a sage ib a stage" because I did not give kids enough credit for keeping up with their work and not get too distracted with experimenting in Flash. The students amazed me with their quite detailed project pages and thorough game descriptions. I guess, I will have to catch up with them, not vice versa! But I am not intending on going away again for a couple of months, so catching up should not be a problem!

Paper prototyping- done!!!

Paper prototyping has let our students truly work on their collaborative skills, with even the shyest ones and the most distracted ones being forced to step out of their comfort zone. The students had to join the team to come up with a good project and abandon their "slacking" or shying off habits. Now we are starting on drawing in Flash, and the students just take off on their own. Tutorials have helped them greatly in developing better skills of following directions because we struggled with this aspect in the beginning of the course. However, the students like to also experiment on their own and find out stuff works in this manner. I would have never done that- I go by the manual :) But, that's where the major difference between my student generation and my generation lies: they learn new stuff by playing with it whereas we need to go to the instructions manual:)

I am learning a lot from my students and learning more about myself as a teacher. I don't scare away when group work comes in with its noise and perceived chaos levels and have become more comfortable with using technology in my other classes even though I cannot say I was completely ignorant about it before. I believe that this class is equally beneficial to me as it is for my students.

Paper Prototyping

This week, after we have finally separated the schedules for both groups, things slowed down and proved not to be as hectic or frustrating as they were before, when we were making the second group rush with their work, so that the first group wouldn't have to wait. This week was also the first in trying out Flash, and even though I was worried about it, Denise was right- the kids will teach themselves, even though some of them don't like the idea that their teacher is not a 'know-it-all". While reading the students' blogs, I have stumbled across their "pacts" with each other to help if one finds something new on Flash. So far, this has been the way to go. Josh has read and experimented with Flash more than anybody else and discovered motion tweening, and before we knew, he has taught half the class how to work it! And this is all before we even hit any of these tutorials!!! I am impressed, and now I need to ask Josh to teach me, even though he generously noted that I am still cool even though I am struggling with frames and layers:D

Paper prototyping has started smoothly. The Alliance are working so well together, even though this group has some really strong opinionated people! They, however, hear each other out and do come to a consensus within a group. Fourth Column is a lot more argumentative, but good ideas come from these arguments, so we might enjoy good products in the end of the class. We have slackers who do not want to admit that besides fun, this class is tons of work. But, we'll bring them up to date.