Why Should Educators Care About Games?

To continue my Genius Hour research, I decided to dig deeper into the topic of video games. I asked myself, why should we care about video games? What makes video games so great? What I found through my research is this: in virtual games, students can act as investigators, reporters, scientists, and historians, who solve meaningful dilemmas. Not only are video games fun, but they also offer players a chance to take on roles and problem solve. Using video games in the classroom can help students find a passion for curricular content, engaging in transformational play (Baraba et al., 2009). To play games transformationally, students must become protagonists who use the knowledge, skills, and concepts embedded in curricular content to make choices that influence situations. Having students experience this type of learning sparks their interests and leads to deeper engagement with content. So, why are educational video games a good thing to implement? Because using a game-based learning environment where students not only play an important role but also use academic knowledge to make decisions can transform students from being passive within the classroom to an empowered member with agency!

SimCity

This weekend, I decided to play SimCity. SimCity is an open-ended game, where you create your own city as the mayor. While playing the game, I put my educator cap on to critically examine the benefits of implementing SimCity in the classroom. One of the most significant benefits of the game is that it incorporates intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation throughout the duration of game play. Here is how:

Intrinsic Motivation

● Messages popping up telling you if something is going wrong

● A scale is included which marks the percent of your Sim’s happiness/sadness

● You have to budget and maintain your money properly in order to succeed within this game

Extrinsic Motivation

● SimCity provides rewards such as coins and tools in which you earn from completing challenges and tasks.

● The coins or tools you earn help you to then advance your city

         The main concepts relate to modern urban planning. All of the scenarios within the game have challenges, such as reaching a certain population, reaching a certain bank balance, and reaching a certain popularity rating. Thus, many of the concepts taught through the game can easily be interwoven into curriculum material. Supply and demand, budgeting, urban planning, managing the environment, and designing transport systems are just some of the concepts that the game teaches. If students played this game in the classroom, I believe their creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking skills would increase. Students need to be creative towards individualizing their own cities with different specializations. Students need to think critically about which strategies and resources to use, the decisions and responsibilities of being a mayor, and about being proactive and prepared for novel situations. Through the multi-player mode, students can gain collaboration skills by working with their peers. Due to all of this being imbedded within the game, I believe SimCity could be a great resource to use to teach Financial Literacy (budgeting, taxes, and handling and managing the finances for the city), Mathematics (arithmetic skills), Geography (resources, such as building transportation, landforms, and water resources), Environmental Literacy (students could be taught how to be environmentally eco-friendly through purchasing energy-saving resources, like wind-mills), and Social Studies (the players can learn what makes a good economy in relation to citizenship).

         I think this game would be a great resource to use to supplement the curriculum in Grade 8 subjects, particularly Geography, Science and Mathematics. Not only is it fun and engaging, but it also incorporates 21st Century literacies, such as Financial Literacy and Environmental Literacy. As well, realistic global issues can be discussed through a critical lens using this game, such as overpopulation, lack of renewable resources, and sustainability, which can help strengthen the learning experience for students. For a small glimpse of the game, check out this trailer! 

Google Forms

Google Forms was introduced this week in Tech class and how to utilize Google Forms in blog postings. After reading a book on Storyline, I created a quiz to correspond to the content in the book. Feel free to try out the quiz I made!

Let's Play Roller Coaster Tycoon in Class!

Roller Coaster Tycoon is one of my favourite video games! This weekend, for my Genius Hour project, I decided to play it for the purpose of seeing how I could potentially implement it into my future classroom. For those of you who have never played the amazing Roller Coaster Tycoon game, it is a construction and management simulation video game. In the game, you act as a theme park manager, trying to complete a series of present scenarios by building a successfully maintaining an amusement park.

 
Why is this game so great? It can be implemented throughout grades 4-8, as there is enough complexity and difficulty that it can be enjoyed by older players who make use of more complex features. It also employs critical thinking and problem solving strategies. For optimal success in the game, one needs higher-order thinking skills.

While I was playing the game, I brainstormed some main concepts that students could learn:

• Spatial management and design
• Financial literacy
• Marketing
• Scientific principles of structural forms and forces

Thus, in order to be successful, students need to acquire:

• Problem solving skills
• Critical thinking skills
• Financial literacy
• Spatial management 
• Self-efficacy
• Digital literacy
• Creativity
• Decision making

Many of these skills are important 21st Century skills. 

One element of gamification that this game includes is feedback. The game provides feedback in numerous ways, including approval ratings of the park, statistics of how the player is doing, and receiving awards based on park performance. This immediate feedback is beneficial because it can increase engagement and motivation within the game. 

If I were to incorporate this game into the classroom, I would implement it in a Grade 7 Science or Mathematics class. For Grade 7 Science, it connects to the strand Understanding Structures and Mechanisms: Forms and Functions. It connects to the specific expectation 1.1 (evaluate the importance for individuals, society, the economy, and the environment of factors that should be considered in designing and building structures and devices to meet specific needs). A potential lesson could include exploring 5 different guests with the intentions of improving park experience. Students could describe the factors that might have influenced or affected the guests' state of mind and what needs to be met to help improve their park experience, and how they could meet those needs. The game could also connect to specific expectation 2.5 (investigate methods used by engineers to ensure structural safety). A potential lesson could be to explore structural safety methods and apply such findings to create a safe amusement park. For example, after exploring the various rides on Roller Coaster Tycoon, students can submit a written piece describing the methods used by engineers to ensure the structural safety of their chosen ride. In addition, they can assess if the Roller Coaster Tycoon ride has applied those methods to their virtual rides.

Connecting this game to Grade 7 Mathematics, it aligns well with the strand Data Management and Probability. The specific expectations that connect to the game include:

- Collect and organize categorical, discrete, or continuous primary data and secondary data and display the data in charts, tables, and graphs that have appropriate titles, labels, and scales that suit the range and distribution of the data, using a variety of tools
- Select an appropriate type of graph to represent a set of data, graph the data using technology, and justify the choice of graph
- Read, interpret, and draw conclusions from primary data and from secondary data presented in charts, tables, and graphs

A potential Mathematics lesson which incorporates this game could be asking students to create graphs and charts depicting their gameplay data from Roller Coaster Tycoon. Roller Coaster Tycoon provides various data regarding the player's gameplay. Once students have completed one of the parks (successful or not), they can collect the provided data, and create their own sets of graphs, tables, and charts to explain what they did well, what they could have done better, and how to improve their next park. As well, an extension could include the students playing a second round of the game using their interpretations of their data, and comparing the second round of data to the previous round, to see if they improved.

Ultimately, one of the greatest things about this game is its affordability. Therefore, it is an effective teaching tool that can be implemented into the classroom to increase student engagement and motivation in curriculum content at an affordable cost!

What is a Virtual Field Trip?

Before embarking on my journey in technology class, I have never in my educational experience heard of a virtual field trip. When I first heard of the idea, I was blown away with how amazing it was. So, what exactly is it? A virtual field trip enables teachers and students to go just about anywhere on Earth, through the use of the Internet. I think it is great that I can go on a virtual trip with my students at an extremely low cost! It is almost too good to be true... Imagine teaching about something in the curriculum and being able to show the students exactly what it looks like through the use of a virtual field trip. Teaching and learning is becoming more and more innovative and I am so excited to implement a virtual field trip in my future classroom. Not only is it a fun and engaging way to learn curriculum content, but it also connects to the 21st Century. Students are immersed in a technology advanced society, so why not use technology to make learning in the classroom fun and engaging by travelling the world?

Genius Hour was also discussed in today's tech class. I have heard of Genius Hour before, but had very limited knowledge on what it actually encompassed. Genius Hour is a project in the classroom where passions come to life. Students are able to explore their own passions for a set amount of time. Here's a quick video that can explain Genius Hour in more depth:



I am so excited that I can embark on my own Genius Hour! I decided to focus mine on implementing video games in the classroom, to make learning curricular content more fun and engaging. Recently, I have realized how much video games help with decreasing stress. So I thought, how can I implement video games into the classroom to make learning the curriculum content more fun? I cannot wait to learn more about this topic, especially because of how innovative schools are becoming in the 21st Century. Technology is embedded so much in contemporary classrooms already, so why not bring in some video games that can not only relate to students' interests but also make learning motivating and engaging!

Welcome to my educational blog!
My name is Melody Bishop (or Miss Bishop) and I am pre-service teacher studying at Brock University. I am in the Junior/Intermediate stream, with a major in English and a minor in Geography. I am a firm believer in using 21st century literacies to emanate student success in the classroom. If you would like to know more about me, follow me on Pinterest!

A few of my interests include...

Here is a great video to view for some positivity:

What Matters? Copyright Matters!

As an educator, it is important to model for my students the correct copyright procedures. In the 21st Century, digital tools have become immensely popular. Digital tools are available to students in the classroom and at home. This means that students are able to constantly take media from the Internet and upload it for shareable purposes. By doing this, students can infringe on copyright, therefore it is important as an educator in the 21st Century to inform and model to students the correct copyright procedures so infringement can be avoided.

But what exactly is copyright? I would describe basic copyright laws as meaning that all rights are reserved to the person who originally produced the digital material- the copying, distributing, displaying, or adapting of digital media found online is prohibited (Figg, 2013). This means, as a Canadian teacher, that in order to use online material, I must ensure that it has a Creative Common (CC) license that allows distribution.

I believe the most important thing to teach students is exactly what copyright really means. Having a whole class discussion on what copyright means is a great way to probe questions that invite critical thinking, as well as inform students about infringement and how to avoid infringement all together. A great way to begin this discussion is by asking students how they would feel if a stranger or one of their friends took their homework without asking permission. This is essentially the same thing as finding someone else's idea or information on the Internet and taking it without permission. It is important to ensure that students know that the information found online has been created by someone else, and we can not take it without permission and providing credit to that person. As an educator, it is my job to each my students about copyright and to model correct behaviour in the classroom by ensuring that all materials I use is copyright-friendly.

This image of children and computers is attribution-free. The link for others to use: https://pixabay.com/en/children-win-success-video-game-5993313/

A great way to teach students about copyright using a hands-on method is to have students create their own images and get them to apply the Creative Commons license (CC) for others to use. This activity is an excellent way to give students the opportunity to be creative, learn about technology, and learn about copyright by applying their knowledge of proper attribution.

Ribeiro, Lucelia (2008). Children at School (image). Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/lupuca/8720604364/in/photolist-ehBnRE-4JX9-pa1tU5-5JnWNz-o3wN4Z-e2QMS5-5r6ss8-8Jzfg7-abfPT5-28rtGN-8Vy1nk-fvT5PN-5b495D-3oxYh-pyrM81-bqVQtj-6WtbrL-e2QMHQ-8vBVTe-8vEXjo-bFrCvg-4m5ojv-8vEXd9-9iEkhF-8vBWaH-6Wp8Nk-8vEXtU-8vEXmG-6Wtc4J-8GmvbX-6naKtj-6WpcBi-68mS5h-CH3be-6wnx18-8vEXbY-6wo5vG-5bwe6M-8vEXpw-8vBVYn-sjCDK-jzmHbi-62Y6XP-7LRPcs-8vBVWt-5mP2XB-8vBW9D-7QhLB-eenL8S-hcbzps