Dian Schaffhauser from THE Journal interviews a young innovator, a futurist and the CEO of the One-to-One Institute to capture their thoughts on what students will be using for learning one day. Here are their predictions, from the fantastical to the practical.
Video games are a collaborative effort. They bring together different people and cultures that would normally never communicate with one another. Hordes of players from different continents and time zones ‘game’ for a shared goal. Despite many of the popular video game titles being interlaced with violence and vulgar material, many games have been published for an educational purpose and can bridge different cultures and teach tolerance and peace. Written by Ryan Schaaf and Nicky Mohan, this is an InfoSavvy21 original.
“We can’t undo the past, we have no idea what the future holds. Today, we have the ability to do something which can shape our lives and the lives of those around us.”
— Unknown
While many observers consider playing video games to be a complete waste of time, gamers play with extreme commitment and passion. What motivates gamers, especially those of the digital generations, to devote countless hours to their gaming worlds; and can education benefit from the use of gaming in the classroom.
Jordan Shapiro at Forbes explores the mindsets associated with how schools should serve their students in the 21st century. His arguments do not mean to condemn schools, but to shine a light on them and determine if they are constructed to prepare students for the future, not our past.
Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor navigation and orienteering activity using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location. Cheryl Phillips at eSchool News introduces us to the exciting activity and links it to learning experiences in the classroom.
posted by Ryan Schaaf
Several years ago I attended a Discovery Education Teacher Institute in San Francisco, and was pulled into the adventurous world of geocaching. It was there, near the windy shores of the San Francisco Bay, that I experienced my first techy treasure hunt. After giving a speedy lesson how to use a GPS device, facilitators helped split attendees into groups of three as we locked in a given set of coordinates to begin our search for a series of “caches,” or containers with coupons for free swag hidden inside. It was a terrific bonding experience for the group and friendships were quickly formed.
Geocaching is a location-based technology treasure hunting activity that combines the great outdoors with technology and learning. With a GPS device in hand, one can look for hidden containers anywhere on earth—anywhere! Like a homing pigeon, the device zeroes in on a hidden cache and the hunt is on—often through terrain and landscapes that otherwise go unnoticed. Most containers include a logbook of those who have found it in the past, and as a result, connect a community of geocachers.
As my school’s Instructional Technology Coach, I’m constantly in search of new and inventive ways to incorporate technology both inside and outside the classroom. And as I soon learned, geocaching is not only a unique way to integrate your standards, it also teaches responsibility and caring for the environment, as geocachers are expected to adhere to the movement’s creed of “Cache In Trash Out.”
Moving into fields and forests and making learning different and more enjoyable, geocaching creates unforgettable experiences for students that go well beyond the four walls of the classroom. Of course, there are a few hurdles to jump before diving in, but with a bit of planning teachers can be on their way to creating a fun activity for their students. First and foremost, a GPS device is needed, along with a solid lesson plan, and a safe place to hide the cache.
Geocaching no longer requires expensive equipment, making it much more accessible to beginners. For students, an expensive and elaborate GPS device isn’t necessary. GPS enabled smartphones offer the most economic option for geocaching, as many students already own the equipment, and need only purchase a geocaching app to participate.
For younger students, or those without smartphones, look for a device that is user friendly for inputting waypoints, accessible—and most importantly—durable. Expect to pay around sixty dollars per unit. I use the Garmin eTrex 10 Worldwide Handheld GPS Navigator with my students—though it is a bit more expensive than the Geomate Jr. Geocaching GPS.
Most geocaching is done in groups, so regardless of the device used, a successful geocaching lesson only requires a few devices. I have seven devices, which works out beautifully with a class of 25-30 students. For financial support, don’t forget to use the school’s PTO/PTA grants, fund raisers and Donors Choose (of course, purchasing a device will be a tax write-off!).
Here are a few of the smartphone apps I use with my students:
Geocaching ($9.99). The official geocaching app from Geocaching.com (the Mothership of geochaching), this is the most expensive app on the market as well as the highest quality. Users will get access to the locations of registered caches and clues, and the app even offers the ability to submit your finds. This app is very easy to use and perfect for beginners and pros.
Geocaching Intro (Free). This is the free version of the GroundSpeak geocaching app, the company that runs the Geocaching.com website. This is the app that I recommend to my students. While limited, this app reveals three geocaches near your current location per day; provides the necessary coordinates, hints, and descriptions; and delivers the directions to the hidden cache. I love the vibrating-chirping alert that warns you when you’re getting close to the cache site—a feature not included on the more expensive sister geocaching app.
Once equipped with devices, it’s time to engage the students in a meaningful lesson that will challenge their map-reading skills while affording them opportunities to work collaboratively and solve a problem.
There are several activities I have done with my students, from upper elementary to high school. To start, all students were taught how the device worked and learned how to input data as well as retrieve and set their own waypoints. Our fifth grade students became such experts that the principal asked them to lead the staff in professional development. From there, our principal hid staff handbooks all around the campus and had the teachers use the coordinates (and help of their fifth-grade buddies) to locate their handbook.
Activities can range from solving riddles to searching for hidden rubber ducks to embarking on geometry scavenger hunts. For a beginner lesson, hide caches near a specific tree, bush, or flower. Once students have located the cache, have them take a picture and identify the species of flora. (Placing a leaf from the tree or plant in the container would also work). You could also place a toy animal, picture, tooth, claw or hair sample inside the cache container and have students identify the object. Once all caches have been found, have them create a photo/identification booklet.
If you want students to develop curiosity about geography, math, science, and the world around them, then give geocaching a try. It’s a great activity for ESL and special needs students, allowing them the opportunity to work collaboratively and solve problems while incorporating the characteristics of an active and engaged learning environment.
For more, check out GoingApeForApps – Geocaching with Mobile Devices, which includes more lesson plans and ideas for getting started. Happy hunting!
Cheryl Phillips is an instructional technology coach in Prince William County, Va.
Jordan Shapiro has written a wonderful post at Forbes identifying video games as wonderful tools for deep and immersive learning. Many game designers and educational advocates are crafting games to play in school. Games provide a natural space for rewarding metacognitive skills – the more the gamer plays and reflects, the more the gamer learns through experience and failure.
posted by Ryan Schaaf
Around a billion and a half people all play video games of some sort. That’s more than 20% of the world’s population. Video games have become a part of life. They are now more than just leisure and entertainment. They are mainstream media, an everyday method of storytelling and representation. Games have become a common form of rhetoric for the 21st century.
Therefore, it is not surprising that educators, policy makers, investors, and developers are trying to build games for schools. However, the real reason game-based learning is so popular is not only because video games are extremely effective teaching tools; they are also relatively inexpensive to build and to distribute. In other words, they’re scalable, and replicable, and extensible, and all those other buzzwords that philanthropists, and venture capitalists, and policy makers like to hear. Video games have a lot going for them in a world that loves digital technologies and worships the concept of innovation.
Luckily, it is not all about semantics. Using video games as classroom tools that help teachers do their jobs with more impact is also good pedagogy. Video games can be exceptional teaching tools. To understand why, you don’t need any fancy education or psychology terms. All have to do is think about the avatar…the game character. In video games there are almost always two “I”s. There’s the “I” who holds the controller and the “I” that’s within the bezel of the monitor. Gamers are distanced from their avatar and are accustomed to thinking about their actions like an outsider looking in.
The fancy way to say that is: there is a metacognitive distance built right in. The term metacognition is a key term in educational psychology. It describes the ability to think about your own thinking. Strong metacognitive functions give students an awareness, or an understanding, of their own thought processes. Metacognitive functions provide one with autonomy or control of one’s own intellectual capacity. This matters in education because strong metacognitive functions lead to good academic skills. Through metacognitive functions, learners recognize their own strengths and weaknesses and adapt or iterate their performance accordingly.
In other words, academia can be understood like a video game: something students play again and again, practicing and improving with each new attempt. But what about the digital divide? If video games are so great, doesn’t that mean equal access to educational technologies is even more important? Certainly. But in an imperfect world, it is also important to remember that you don’t need fancy laptops or tablets to implement game-based learning. It is really just about imaginative play.
In his excellent soon to be released book (April 21), “The Game Believes In You: How Games Can Make Our Kids Smarter,” Greg Toppo writes: “Kids make mud pies and paper airplanes, they climb trees and play the piano. The entire time they’re exploring and learning about the world.”
This is why folks have been using play therapy with children for more than a century. Both the Kleinians and the Jungians fill their consultation rooms with toy menageries and mandalas and sandboxes. They’ve always known that games and play strengthen metacognitive functions. They’ve always known that along with the guidance of a mentor–a great teacher–games and play can help individuals learn to recognize their own context. Play helps one recognize the structures, the systems, and the economies in which one participates.
Toppo continues:
What looks like escapist fun is actually deep concentration. What looks like instant gratification is, in fact, delayed gratification in clever disguise. What looks like spectacle is a system that’s training players to ignore the spectacle and focus on the real work at hand. What looks like anything-goes freedom is submission to strict rules. What looks like a twenty-first-century, flashy, high-tech way to keep kids entertained is in fact a tool that taps into an ancient way to process, explore, and understand the world.
In the presentation that I gave at the 2015 Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai, I explain how and why learning games and game-design-thinking can help to develop students’ metacognitive skills. I also explain why this is an essential part of creating innovative citizens. What’s more, I make a philosophical argument that this kind of thinking is an foundational component of basic human dignity.
VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNo8Fxn238Y
Jordan Shapiro is the author of FREEPLAY: A Video Game Guide To Maximum Euphoric Bliss and The Mindshift Guide To Digital Games and Learning.
The pre-release page for my new book has launched on the Solution Tree website. As part of the Solutions for Digital Learner-Centered Classrooms series, Using Digital Games as Assessment and Instruction Tools is a book filled with ideas on finding and incorporating digital games into the learning and assessment process. It is jammed-pack with practical content that a teacher can turn around and use in their classroom the very next day.
posted by: Ryan Schaaf
Click HERE to order!
Combine hard work and deep fun in classrooms with digital game-based learning. Students of the always-on generation gain information through different tools and learn differently than generations before them. Discover how to incorporate digital games and use them to craft engaging, academically applicable classroom activities that address content standards and revitalize learning for both teachers and students.