Be a Hooker

Ah, got your attention with that one didn’t I? And that is what we have to do, to find the hook that will make students want to learn because the learning has become the most important thing to them. We snag them with the hook of ‘you get to create video games' but it turns into the students buying into the system of the process of gathering information,assimilating the information and then turning that information into a relevant, viable learning situation via a video game format. It goes back to my last post I think, we have to create the environment where their first priority (at the very least while they are in the classroom) is to work on building the best, most informative game ever designed.
I think that I sometimes I go about it the wrong way, telling the students that there are deadlines that they have to meet. I believe that I will begin appealing to their pride a little more, showing them examples of what has been done and appealing to their competitive spirit. I hope that it will begin as extrinsic motivation that morphs into a more intrinsic style of learning. I do know that different students have different motivators and that we need to find the ‘hook’ for each one.

Priorities

Priorities, priorities, what do we do first? Quite often we neglect what needs to be done, like this blog. As you can see from my previous one, it has been a while since I posted anything. I've noticed that students have a difficult time putting their education at the front of their own priority list. Why is that? Right now, especially for a high school student, their education should be at the top. Some high school students work, some are in sports or other extra-curricular activities and they forget that their Number 1 priority is their education. IF you don't have a good education it will be very difficult to be where you want to be later in life.
Scene 1: Teacher meets former student out in the community a couple of years after the student has graduated from high school. "Hey there 'former student' (names protected), how's it going?" Former student replies "Well Mrs. Neal, not so good, I really wish that I had not missed as much school as I did" or "I wish I had paid more attention in class"; I'm just not able to get a job like I want". Some will say that they just couldn't make it in college or they just don't understand why they can't keep a job or get a higher paying job.
Students need to learn how to process information, apply the knowledge they have gained to real world situations, critical problem solve ON THEIR OWN and to have long term goals and work towards them. Coming to school and wanting to learn as much as possible is the way to achieve their goals.
Scene 2: Teacher meets former student out in the community a couple of years after the student has graduated from high school. "Hey there 'former student' (names protected), how's it going?" "Well, Mrs. Neal, do you remember when I thought about getting a job after school so I could get a car? And we talked about it and I decided that maybe it was too much to do and still keep up with school stuff?" " I remember" "Well, it has paid off, I've made the Dean's list in College and I've earned another scholarship! I've even got a really good job lined up for when I graduate doing what I've always wanted to do!"
Too simplified? Obviously! But you should get the point, we all need to figure out what our top priorities should be FOR THAT MOMENT and act accordingly. We would all get much more accomplished and be more successful.

A Busy Fall

Well, it has been quite a while since I posted anything to the blog, what can I say, like everyone else extremely busy on different projects. One item I did want to post though was a link to a site that can be very beneficial to those who like to work on the web. This site is geared towards art teachers but can be very useful for anyone who likes to explore new methods. Here is the link: http://www.artjunction.org/workout.php . The students have been working on their videography requirements for the class and have taken a little break from their flash projects. I do believe that it is sometimes helpful to 'step away' from a project, whether it be a drawing or painting or on our game design. Ideas will percolate (sp?) in our subconcious while we are working or playing with something else and quite often we are able to come up with solutions to problems or brand new ideas that are better than our originals. I will try and post my avatars/photos that I created through this site.

left brain, right brain

Which are you, left brain or right brain dominate? Did you know that effects how you think, how you process information, how you even learn? GO to the following links and check out these online tests to see which side is more dominate for you and maybe learn why you do better in some subjects more than others.
http://www.testcafe.com/lbrb/ this one goes right to the test
http://similarminds.com/left-brain-brain-test.html Click on link at close to top that says personality test, click on right brain, left brain test
http://frank.mtsu.edu/~studskl/hd/learn.html click on left hand column where it says 'hemisphere dominance test'
Perhaps these will help you figure out how to do something better than you have before. When you have read through and completed these first three, go back to similarminds.com link and try some of the other tests to discover about yourself.

What's your thoughts about this?

News story this week - a 15 year old boy in another state had his cell phone taken away as a disciplinary action by his mother. The boy reacted by kicking his mother in the throat, head-butting his brother and biting and kicking his father who, being a corrections officer, had handcuffs and proceded to handcuff his son. Police were called and the boy is now in jail on $1000 bond. Your thoughts on this please; causes, effects, solutions?

Never Assume!

Never assume that assets that were posted a week or two ago will always be available. I've tried to open the links to the webex sessions about creating buttons and various other sessions and I'm getting the message that the urls have expired. Is that the case for other Globaloria teachers? I would like to know if that is true or if it is a glich in our program alone.
The good news is that several of our students are picking up flash techniques at a pretty good rate, without these tutorials. Have a look at the projects pages of our students and check out some of their first efforts.
We plan to have our students 'go surfing' tomorrow, checking out other schools' postings, so if you have some new flash creations posted and read this in time, let me know so I can guide our students to them.
Happy flashing!

Students,
It has been an interesting week, a great deal of new information has been brought forth from the wikis, blogs and new Adobe Flash. It has been very interesting to see the varying levels of adeptness with the new information; some students hesitant to go too quickly (which is perfectly ok) and others trying to see as fast as possible what will work (which is perfectly ok). Everyone learns and adapts differently and we are still feeling our way through on building a class 'team spirit'. As we learn and grow roles will be established, who's good at this, who's good at that, ways for us to work together and build a repertoire of knowledge that everyone can tap into. The number issue for me as a classroom teacher is to make sure that you are being safe on the Internet. Go to Ingrida Barker's blog at http://ingridasblog.blogspot.com:80/ and read her posting and review the two short movies that are posted there. She also has some good links to places to get information about working in Flash and the Web. Look those over and write in your blog about these entries.
Happy blogging!