Room With A View

A couple of weekends ago I found myself on the Assessment Committee at ISB’s Middle School Planning Summit. Assessment is on my mind a lot these days. I have Robert Marzano’s recent book Classroom Assessment and Grading that Work on the table in front of me. I’ve read a couple of chapters so far. It’s very good.

Assessment in the area of technology is especially challenging. For example, games and simulations are a very effective ways to learn but how can we assess them? Traditionally, students move through content linearly. Formal and informal assessment is administered as students progress through a unit and a final assessment is given at the end of a unit. The challenge with games and simulations is that students do not move through material linearly. Instead they weave their way through material and may or may not end up in the same place with the same knowledge and understandings at the end. How then should this be assessed? If students don’t end up in the same place at the end, do games and simulations have a place in K-12 education? How does one teach with games or simulations when one is held accountable through standardized tests or IB exams?

The Horizon report recognizes these challenges when it states that:

Assessment of new forms of work continues to present a challenge to educators and peer reviewers. Both at the student and at the professional level, assessment is lagging behind creative work. Learning that takes place in interdisciplinary, context-rich environments such as games and simulations is still difficult to evaluate. Capturing a portfolio of work, when much of that work takes place in new media forms like blogs, podcasts, and videos, poses a problem for learners and for professors seeking tenure.

Hmmm, no answers here, just a recognition of the challenges.

The folks at the Bit by Bit podcast referred to the Horizon 2007 Report. It’s written by the The New Media Consortium. I read the report a while ago but the podcast inspired me to go back and have another read. I’ve been holding off writing about it because there’s too much to write and I have too little time. So, I’ve decided to write about the report in stages. Here’s my first post.

The report is “a research-oriented effort that seeks to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, or creative expression within higher education.”

I work in K-12 education and though several of the report’s finding do not apply to my field of education many of the findings do.

The report identifies 6 technologies to watch and a time frame for each.

1. User-Created Content–1 year
2. Social Networking–1 year
3. Mobile Phones–2 to 3 years
4. Virtual Worlds–2 to 3 years
5. The New Scholarship and Emerging Forms of Publication–4 to 5 years
6. Massively Multiplayer Educational Gaming–4 to 5 years

All but perhaps the fifth technology have direct implications for K-12 education.

It’s well worth a read to learn more.

Peacemaker is a simulation game where one plays either the leader of Israel or the leader of Palestine. I’ve been watching it’s development for several months and it’s now finished.

PeaceMaker challenges you to succeed as a leader where others have failed. Experience the joy of winning the Nobel Prize or the agony of plunging the Middle East into disaster. PeaceMaker will test your skills, assumptions and prior knowledge. Play it and you will never read the news the same way again.

It’s tough. I installed it on a desktop machine in my computer lab in hopes that I’d be able to review it–no way. Five minutes here and ten minutes there just didn’t work. It’s way too involved for that. Last week I bought a license for my personal MacBook so I could play it on the plane on the way to Thailand. Even so I’ve barely got started. It’s involved, there’s a lot to learn, and there’s no easy solution–pretty much a realistic simulation.

If you’re at ISB and you want to check it out, let me know. I’ll sort out a way for you to try it out. I’m dieing to see how we can use this with kids. Right now I think it has potential for high school social studies, Theory of Knowledge, and MUN classes. I look forward to hear what you think.

In keeping with my recent post about simulations, I’ve been looking at some simulation and game sites. The Nobel Prize Website has several educational games dealing with lasers, conductive polymers, international trade and more. I’ve only looked at a couple of the games but they look to be geared to upper elementary and middle school students.

In the March 2007 issue of Edutopia, Marc Prensky writes about the usefulness and importance of using simulations in the classroom. In the article he states that

Computer-simulation technology is a way of looking at objects or systems that encourage a learner not only to wonder, “What would happen if . . . ?” but also to try out those alternatives virtually and see the consequences. It is a way for learners to acquire experience about how things and systems in the world behave, without actually touching them.

He calls simulations “interactive pretending.” After making his case for using simulations in the classroom, he outlines why simulation use is not widespread. Reasons include,

• Lack of Money
• Lack of Time
• Lack of Knowledge.
• Lack of Technology
• Lack of Sharing.

Finally, he outlines several ways to “eliminate the barriers” to the use of simulations.

His article is well worth a read. I followed a link to another of Prensky’s articles A Side of Sims which has many useful links.

Here’s an interesting study on game use in education. A quote I particulary like is

Far from being sidelined, teachers were required to take a central role in scaffolding and supporting students’ learning through games.

I’m not a gamer. In fact, games drive me nuts. Once in a while I’ll sit with one of my kids and try to play but within a few minutes frustration builds inside me to the point that I’m ready to throw the controller across the room. I’m not a gamer but I try to be open-minded. I’m not anti-gaming.

I’ve read about Marc Prensky’s work and I’ve listened to a couple of podcasts by him. To those that don’t know his work, he writes about gaming and what kids learn through it. Most recently I listened to Prensky being interviewed for Apple’s Cut To The Core: Essential Podcasts for Educators. (subscribe here)

Last class yesterday afternoon I used the podcast with a seventh grade class. It was the last block of a long week. It was our mentoring trip week so half the middle school students went on trips at the beginning of the week while half went on trips at the end of the week. This group had traveled at the beginning of the week so it meant we were all a bit tired by Friday. It seemed like a good time to change things up and see what they thought about Prensky’s ideas. I played clips from the podcast, pausing periodically to get their feedback on what he was saying. I was blown away.

At one point Prensky comments that parents should really thank their kids for playing games because they learn so much. Of course the kids loved that idea. They gave examples of what they’ve learned from games. One student pointed out that what he knows about WWII he learned from a game. (He named the game but I didn’t catch it.) Another student—one of the quietest in the class—said that when playing games he learns about how he learns. (The conversation veered in another direction before I could flesh out this idea properly but I’d like to follow up on the idea later.)

The students felt very strongly that gaming is a social activity. They play with other people either on-line or in the same room. Even when they’re not playing they talk to other kids about the games in order to learn how to advance to the next level.

One thing we didn’t resolve was the idea of violence in games and it’s acceptability. We ran out of time while we were discussing it. There was some division among the kids on this issue. Many students felt that games were fantasy and as such violence was okay. Other students brought up stories of kids doing violent acts and saying it was because of violence in games.

It was a great discussion. I learned a lot from them. As good as the discussion was, we still only heard from a handful of students. Perhaps small group discussions would help. More Web 2.0 tools like blogging or discussion boards may work as well. Also, Web 2.0 tools would have the advantage of keeping the conversation going even when we run out of time in class.