Presentation time nears...

Well, the students are almost finished with their individual units and are starting on their game scenes, which brings a lot of creativity, frustration, and seeking for answers into play. The presentation at the board is in three weeks, so I encouraged the students to produce a game demo and talk about their learning process within the course. They are worried about talking in front of the board, but that will help them in the long run.

Our assistant principal and I are trying something this semester. Her acquaintance is an owner of a graphic design company in Florida. We got in touch with him about possibly talking to the kids about this industry and his experiences with it. The guy is very willing to talk to the kids, so we might be setting up Skype session with him some time in future. I am very excited because this session would let our students see the significance and reak world application of what they are doing in this class. Of course, none of my students need to be really nudged to attend Globaloria. They perceive it as "fun learning", with some spending more time on playing rather than working for a specific goal- their game. However, work or play, they are still learning, so I am not complaining much.

Our progress...

My students are increasingly surprising me with the complexity and creativity of their work. Collaboration between these kids is amazing as they find resources and share them with each other constantly! However, they "play" with Flash a lot and sometimes forget about adding the newly learned stuff to their game! Thus, they need constant reminders to stay on task in addition to having "boss-ladies": Phyllis, Karri, and Chelsey!

Recently, we have organized a parent night at school, with one of the topics for sharing being Globaloria. Josh and Tyler decided to represent the group and talk about their learning in this class. Parents were impressed, which means that we might get a number of willing participants next year. Interestingly, many parents wanted to see this program continue in high school because it was evidently something the students would enjoy tremendously! This night was a good rehearsal for the boys as they have a presentation with the board coming up in April, with the final presentation of the games taking place in May. Knowing about these presentations and working in groups keeps these students accountable towards each other and towards this class, which eliminates my need for grading as a sole means to evaluate the learning process and actually see it take place.

I am excited about the things that the students are learning. They definitely know more than me even though I have progressed a lot further since last June myself!!!

Are we ever going to get back to work???

Well, snow days have provided a nice relief here and there, but I am sooo ready to do away with them and have a decent work week. I guess, we haven't had many cancellations as other schools have, but they still messed with the schedule. Through the chaos of snow days and semester changes, the groups switched schedules, and now the second group is coming in for eighty minutes. The kids are absolutely loving it! The first group, however, are not happy with the change, but so far it hasn't affected them that greatly.



We are starting to reap the effects of Globaloria by... letting our students help teachers who want to find out more about new Web 2.0 tools. Yesterday Sara and I were asked by a teacher who is happy to have evolved from a digital dinosaur into "just a big lizard" (her own words :) to help her learn more about wikis, blogs, and podcasts. Instead of jumping in right away, we offered... Josh to help her out. So, as soon as our snow days are over, they are going to meet every morning to learn more about these tools. The growing confidence and belief I have in these kids are another proof that this class helps not only students but also teachers to embrace the 21st century teaching and learning. Of course, I still have long ways to go in the means of acquiring knowledge and prefer conventional ways rather than skyping Jeff far away in NY to help me out with the glitch in the game (Josh :), but I am definitely moving along. What's the next stage of evolution from a digital lizard, I wonder???

Reflections on Globaloria coming into 2009...

Yesterday, while celebrating the coming of year 2009, I started evaluating our work in Globaloria in 2008. What have we accomplished? What have we learned, on our own and from each other? What have we struggled through? Where have we succeeded? The term "we" for me includes the students and the teachers, because in this class we are all learners, which, as hard and impossible as it seemed to me in the beginning, has proven to be the most rewarding aspect of the class. The end of the physical year is sort of a mid check point for the class, which is getting more challenging but more rewarding at the same time. So, if going back to August...

We have originally started with a diverse group of 15 students, 15 different personalities, ambitions, working habits, etc. that totally "made" the group. The beginning of the semester was chaotic because the structure of the class, the independence in learning, as well as the need for collaboration and dealing with new software to all of us required constant attention, reinforcement of rules, and reevaluation of practices in close collaboration with Denise. Of course, we could not have done anything without the support from our school and district administration as well as the Globaloria team, which ensured quick install of Flash...

From there on, the life in class has taken a form of its own. Up to date, we have lost two students and have accepted a new one, these being the changes that made us reevaluate our grouping practices for the next year because of the huge role collaboration plays throughout the course. The class has also opened various talents in our students and heightened their interest in school (the testimony of one of the parents!). Their game ideas are very relevant to the social issues of today and are overflowing with creativity.

The students constantly surprise me with their catching on to the new things with Flash. Whatever I could not figure out in a million of years, they get it in a snap! However, not everybody is this way, so these students and I slowly go through the tutorials and learn something new ourselves! Of course, if the overachievers don't jump in and explain everything in an instant! I cannot wait to see what this class will bring during the second semester, especially teh final product, which is not only the games, but also my students' social learning, collaboration, and work skills honed throughout the course.

Just moving along... or are we?

I have just noticed that I haven't blogged for a while. November has been a crazy month, with all the holidays and snow days to get over, but now we seem to be back to our routine. The students are becoming more and more independent in thier learning endeavors even though I have to get on to some of them here and there to get them to work more productively. The students are really enjoying the class even more so, after we have installed Flash on our wireless lab. Now we can spend time in the comfort of my classroom where the students don't get as distracted as they did in the big lab. This arrangement is benefiting even more so for our second group who are not as advanced as the kids in the first group. But they are learning quickly because, besides tutorials and videos, the students from the first group are more than eager to help!

I have noticed that I have learned quite a bit about Flash myself. I have become one of the students either experimenting with Flash by myself or getting throug the tutorials with some of my students. This is probably the best way to learn! During the summer academies, I was plunged into Flash adn thought it would always be a dark domain for me. However, I am gradually becoming comfortable with some aspects of Flash, which tremendously boosts my confidence in using this software. Yay!!! Denise was right- you will learn it alongside your students, with the students becoming your occasional teachers!

Navigation is fun!

For the past two weeks Group 1 have worked on adding navigation to the scenes- creating buttons and adding action script to navigate between the scenes. I was worried about this unit because my skills leave much to aspire for. Thus, all the work was left to the students and their questions for the webinar, which we had on Thursday! And, again, I sighed with relief- the students did not cling to me for answers- they put in extra effort to make the buttons work and fix the glitches in action script. Of course, I am learning along, but I cannot stop being amazed at the skills of collaboration, investigation, and learning from each other my students display. It was so genius of Globaloria to tap into the kids' social habits to enhance their learning. Our students do not think of Globaloria class as a class, really. It's their time to be themselves, in the setting they are comfortable with, doing what they like- learning something new and not being banned to talk to each other, run around the computer lab sharing something new and exciting they know others will love for them to explain.

We had glitches with the action script firts, and even Josh, our expert so far, couldn't figure it out. Finally, Tyler found out how to get the buttons work from scene to scene, and you should have seen his excitement!!! He has done something others did not expect him to have accomplished!!! Josh, of course, was jealous, but eventually they both took charge of videotaping their explanation of the things to do in this unit for Group 2, who are behind a unit. These two were the ones with the most questions for the WebEx session we have conducted on Thurday. It was the kids' first experience with this type of class, and they were nervous. However, now they want to have more of these because the session proved to be informative to them because they experimented with the topics Brian talked about later on, on Friday.

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!