My random gizmoz

Express Yourself with Gizmoz Video Clips

Wisdom from the eMe

During my time here at the University of Minnesota, I have been through many classes where there have been some sort of online component or technical aspect that was either required or was provided for additional support for the students. In Aaron Doering and George Veletsianos’ article Conversational Agents and their Longitudinal Affordances on Communication and Interaction, I had a very personal reaction to this piece because I recently completed the EDHD 5007 class through the I.L.P./M.Ed where I was required to create my own eFolio to record my personal accomplishments and what I did to complete all of the various standards and benchmarks in order to receive my Minnesota board approved teaching license. As the paper noted, the class only met once, every other week, for about three hours at a time, and the amount of time in the classroom was dedicated to learning about the new technologies that we could possibly be encountering or instigating as new teachers in our future teaching placements. This left little time for us to actually learn about how to use the eFolio site and how to go about creating the most effective portfolio. Because we learned little more than how to upload a photo or a document, most of use had to figure out on our own time outside of class how to navigate this non-user friendly site. Our instructor made sure to inform my class that there were online-help tutorials, but I don’t ever remember being told about the Conversational Agents to help out with this daunting task.

While I was working on my own eFolio, I was able to figure out what to do for the most part, but it did take hours upon hours of trial and error to actually get a decent looking semi-final product. If I had known about the Conversational Agents before I started to work on it individually, I wonder if the process would have been much easier for me? Would I have taken full advantage of them? Would I have saved time? Would I have a better-finalized eFolio? I don’t know if the Conversational Agents would be the best option for me, as I like to have quick and direct instruction. When I’m not talking to a real person, it becomes very easy for me to zone out or not completely understand what the avatar tells me. I know this because when I was listening to this week’s assignment through the Gizmoz avatar that Thom sent to us last week, and had to repeat it several times before catching everything I needed to know. I prefer to either have the directions right in front of me, or to have a real life person whose body language I can read at the same time. I rely on so much more than just a floating head talking to me. I can definitely see how the Conversational Agents can be more beneficial and supportive than if the user had no help at all.

Speaking of Gizmoz, after trying my hand at creating my own avatar, I spent some time trying to think of how I could use this program as an assignment in my own future classrooms. At first it was really hard for me to think of ways in which this product could be used in the classroom to ENHANCE my lesson, rather than just use Gizmoz for the sake of using them. I had a classmate who informed me that she tried using the Gizmoz in the class she will be teaching, by using it to introduce an assignment. Her students were surprised and slightly confused as to why she was using it (and in my opinion, I was a bit confused as well. I couldn’t figure out how using it to introduce their free-writing assignment really enhanced her lesson). Here is a layout of an assignment that I came up with for how to use the Gizmoz/avatars with my future students:

Digital-You Book Reporting

In today’s day and age, so many things are resorting to using the digital world to get their points across. In this assignment, you will be creating an avatar and reporting on your independent reading book through this innovative technology!

1.) Write your book report. Make sure to include a quick plot summary, 3 important findings from the book, if you would recommend this text, and why or why not? Make sure that you have this completed before we go to the computer lab.

2.) Practice reading this out loud. This is what your classmates will hear during your presentation on the book. This part must be clear, understandable, and loud enough for us to hear what you are saying. When spoken, the book report should be 2-4 minutes long.

3.) Create an avatar- this is the digital-you who will be presenting your book report. Be creative; make it you; be appropriate. If you have to ask me if it is appropriate for school, it’s probably not… (See yellow handout with instructions on how to create your avatar!) We will be in the computer lab on _____________ and ______________ to work on this.

4.) Bring your avatar to life! Using the avatar program, record yourself saying your book report aloud. It may take several tries to get your recording just perfect, so take your time, and have fun with it. Write your book report. Make sure to include a quick plot summary, 3 important findings from the book, if you would recommend this text, and why or why not? Save often. Once you have a finished product MAKE SURE TO COPY DOWN THE URL HERE:

_________________________________________________________________

5.) Presentation: Let your avatar do the talking! On the last day, each student will have the opportunity to play his or her avatar for the class.

**After the presentations, we will have a short discussion on the pros and cons of using avatars instead of paper copies of reports like these.**



DUE DATES:

Written script of book report: ______________________

Presentation date:______________________

Let's get some SHOES!

From the Washington Post article, this quote stuck out to me the most: “Bush seems to have calculated -- cynically but correctly -- that prolonging the credit-fueled consumer binge could help keep complaints about his performance as commander in chief from becoming more than a nuisance.” I became very mad upon reading this. When Bush told us to “go to Disneyland,” I was only a sophomore in high school, and was probably comforted by this statement. Now knowing what it has caused our nation with the present recession, I am very upset with what our former president told us. As a teenager, the shopping mall was where I went with my friends to socialize, and with my mom to kill time (and always bought random things that I “just had to have” and we spent money without even thinking). Even through my junior year in college, I spent a lot of time at the Mall of America because there wasn’t much to do on a Sunday afternoon (especially when I didn’t want to be doing homework). My fiancé and I live right next to the Light Rail station, and would just pop on the train and head down to the mall whenever we felt like it. That was when we didn’t have to worry about bills or future student loan payments, ect. Even though we didn’t go there with anything in particular to buy, but sure enough, we’d be riding the train back home with multiple bags in our hands.

After reading about the history of the shopping center and mall, it got me wondering about when was it within that history that marked the time when going to the mall became more than just a trip to get necessities for the home? When did it become a social phenomenon? As a kid growing up, I had always been somewhat aware of the fact that Southdale Mall in Edina was the first fully enclosed shopping center in the states, but to think about what an impact it had on the rest of the nation is incredible! From 1956 to 1968, shopping centers became more than just a place where you could go buy clothing for the family, or pick up some new towels at the department store. It became a place where one could go to admire the architecture and the wonderful décor of the interiors.


This is all I can post at the moment, as my computer/internet is being wonky. I'll get the rest posted before the end of the week!

Gaming, Gender, and Education

GAMING + GENDER

Reading these articles got me thinking about my own relationship with video games, and being in a household with five women and only one man all living under the same roof (my poor dad- even the pets were all female!), and how we got our first Sega Genesis system when I was about 8 or nine years old. The video games we had in the house that I can distinctly remember playing included: “The Little Mermaid,” “Echo” (about a dolphin), “Sonic” (probably the most violent of the games that were given to us), “Bugsy,” and one other game where you were a newspaper boy and you had to go around delivering papers to clients in a certain amount of time. When my male cousin, Andy (who is only 6 days older than I am) would come over, we had to start hiding the Sega or else he would spend the whole time playing our “lame” games (as he would call them). If he got his hands on the controllers, he wouldn’t put it down until it was a.) Time for him to leave, or b.) He had beaten the game completely (something my sisters and I could never do, and to this day still haven’t). As the years passed, my family eventually became the owners of a PlayStation, Play Station II, PC computer, and various handheld devices after relentless begging on my sisters’ and my part. My parents never limited how much time we could play them based on the fact that we would get bored if we played for more than an hour at a time. Our game collection gained a few more violent games (ranging from a couple of World War II games, to Cabella’s Deer Hunting), but the game I see most often in the disc drive is The Sims. I moved from home for freshman year of college and found myself constantly surrounded by people who were video game fanatics! My boyfriend, Luke (now fiancé) lived in a room with three other guys, and if I walked into their dorm room at any given time, I would more than likely find at least 3 of them playing various video games all at the same time. I spent a lot of my time in that room, and learned more about video games than I ever thought I would. Who knew that watching the plot progress in Halo, Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto could be so interesting? Or how detailed the character development is in BioShock or Gears of War? While I never actually actively partook in the games (except for a few lame attempts at Halo where I ran around in circles and get stuck against a wall), I found myself asking Luke to keep playing just so I could see what happened next. Now that I live with Luke, I am still surrounded by all sorts of gaming consoles including: an Xbox360, Nintendo Game Cube, N64, multiple computers, and a Nintendo DS.

After my two different living situations, I’ve had the chance to see how members of opposite genders approach video games. Not only do the majority of males and females seem to have different views and priorities concerning video games, the actual gender roles that are portrayed within these games. In Game+Girl=Advance, the author wrote early on that “As a woman who plays video games, I've had to think about gender in videogames, because it's so obvious that I'm playing in a boys' world.” When you look at women in video games (i.e., Lara Croft, etc.), they are the ideal women with tiny waists, and huge breasts. They can kick ass while looking gorgeous at the same time. This got me thinking about a good friend that I have who is in school to become an animator, and out of the sketches and final projects that I have seen of hers; her characters mimic the ideals of society. The men are tall with great hair and chiseled jaws, while the women are how I described them before. While her work is beautiful, and she has a great grasp on the art of animating, these standards are not going to go away. After reading the 4 aspects of “Genderspace,” I can definitely see why characters are made the way they are and the thought that has to go into them. The creators have to remember that “some people either take great pains to distance themselves from the avatar, or conversely, create avatars with which they identify very closely,” and need to take this into account to be successful.


GAMNG + EDUCATION

There are many people (parents, educators, ect.) who believe that video games are doing more harm than good when it comes to adolescents’ education. While to some it may seem like a waste of time, to others, it is a precious tool that can be used in the classroom to help reach out to students who don’t fully understand what is going on in class. Since I am on my way to become a high school English teacher, I want to try to use video games to enhance my lessons when necessary. Video games can be used in a variety of ways across a school campus, and in the English class, it can prove to be a valuable tool to get students to understand plot development, and different aspects of literature. Take for instance, if you were teaching a regular Language Arts class and you are trying to explain the concept of plot, climax, and character development to a group of young students who just aren’t grasping these important concepts. Many video games have cut scenes that they go to after the player has made it through a level. These cut scenes add to the story and let the player know what is going to happen next. As the player gets further and further into the game, they become more immersed in the plot of the game and often times become emotionally connected to the characters. This goes along the same lines as reading a novel. You get through a chapter and want to know what is going to happen next. You can sense the building climax through a novel just as you can through Halo or Bio Shock. While I wouldn’t want to have video games take over the classroom, I am very open to using pop culture and media with my students and I realize that video games can be used to enhance one’s classroom, and the power it can have when used correctly.

Parting quote (taken from Confessions of an Aca/Fan):
“Our approach respects all that is inventive and exploratory in play while challenging students to grow intellectually. If we succeed in these goals, we hope to offer a model for what a good learning game should be, one that resolves the contradictory demands schools place on this emerging technology.”