Week 5

Assignment #1:

Gamestar Mechanic is a website for students to design their own video game. Students learn the basic rules and principles of designing a game, and then games can be published to an online community within the platform called Game Alley where the game can be shared and rated by the others. Players can play, repair and build games using the in-game design tools. As they advance in the Quest, players also earn "sprites" (characters, avatars, enemies, etc...) for use in their own games. At any time, players can switch to their Workshops and make an original game using the assets they have earned. It is a very useful tool for ELA teaching because the work is being improved by players all the time after suggestions.

Assignment #2:

As we all know, games take a big part of children’s life. They play games throughout the day and children absorb new knowledge during the process of playing. Although some teachers use game in class, most teachers still don’t recognize the huge benefit of it. If I were a teacher, I would like to insert games into my lessons to promote student’s learning motivation. Actually the best way of learning is that you didn’t even realize you are learning. But there are still problems when using games. I found those who always achieve high grades did better and those who are less enthusiastic would be ignored sometime. Especially nowadays, technology brings in more interesting and awesome games that may attract students' attention. Teachrs may lose their control in the classroom when students are addicted to it.


Assignmet #3:

Here is the link of my game script.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sto75j4cyl9nxmj/Welcome%20to%20the%20DarkCastle.pptx


Assignment #4

Edmodo is a social web similar to facebook, but it is more education-oriented. As a teacher, you should make a brief introduction on your own page and let the other know better before following you. There are badges for teachers to earn which can show their vitality. You may also connected with the other teachers on Edmodo.

Edmodo can be applied to ELA teaching as well. Teachers are able to create groups, give out reading assignments, collect students’ reflection and create quiz for them for assessment. Everyone can take part in the class. It is really a good tool for both teacher and students to share their thoughts and discuss together online.

Week 4:

Assignment #1

 

1.      What gaming elements provide users the learning content and how?

The game is called “What pics?” is something like a word puzzle game. I played it on iPad with my little niece. It is shown as a 5*5 square and you can uncover at most 7 pieces to see a part of the whole picture and to guess the right word. The less you uncover the picture, the higher score you will achieve. Spelling is required as well and there are a bunch of letters given below which learners can choose from.

2. What is the goal of the game?

The goal of the game is to develop learners’ ability of spelling and logic. Through this game, students can learn words visually which  helps them better in memorizing new words. Actually,  a lot of us are visual learners.

3.      What are rules of playing this game?

There aren’t any complicated rules in this game. Learners just need to come up with the word matches the required blanks.

4. Does this game have any scenario design? (Refer to the journal article page 5.) If yes, is this a fabricated or embedded in curriculum-related content?

    There isn’t any scenario design in this game but a very simple puzzle game.

Assignment#2

Grade level: Grade 2

Common Core standards: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.2.4d Use knowledge of the meaning of individual words to predict the meaning of compound words (e.g., birdhouse, lighthouse, housefly; bookshelf, notebook, bookmark).

Learning Outcomes: By connecting two seperated words, students are able to increase their ability of absorbing compound words built on simple individual words.

Instructional activities: Teachers will present two individual words in the form of pictures and then present the compound word related these two words (also with a picture) as an example. After that, other pairs of individual words are given for students to guess. Finally, the process can be reversed for students to seperate the compound words into individual.

Assessment: Students will be asked to find out this kind of compound words themselves (at least five) and in addition, create a small quiz for other classmates to filling the blanks.

What cognitive skills do this game help to cultivate?  Students learn to predict the meaning of complicated words. They can use their existed knowledge to absorb new information. This also improves students ability of logical inference.

What new literacy skills do this game help to cultivate?  A couple of games of predicting related new words can be found on the Internet. This also helps improve students’ ability of connecting and operating. They are able to predict the meaning of strange word when reading.

 

Week 3

Assignment #1: 

      The three articles are all talking about the new literacies. Actually it is combining technology into our study process. The new literacies include innovative text formats, and new activities. They extend traditional literacy experiences with comprehension of information on the Internet; effective use of search engines to locate information; evaluation of Internet sources; communication using e-mail, texts, and chats; and the use of word processing programs. Though it takes time to adjust to the new stuff, both teachers and students should be able to make use of this resource.

Assignment #2:

1.      Which ideas from the video reflect what the ELA teachers you interviewed are currently doing to integrate technology with their literacy instruction?

      Among those ideas given in the video, the high-end hardware requirements and the difficulty to guide text chat meet the ones mentioned by the teacher I interviewed. He spent a lot of time getting used to it. But he still feels somewhat losing his control when using technology in class.

2.      How can you help change their instructional practices to include the use of technology and the Internet in their literacy and content-area curriculum?

      The best way is to combine both advanced and traditional teaching methods. To keep both the most efficiency way of learning and face-to-face interaction in class is my suggestion of learning. Students should have their own blogger to show their learning results, thought and they can also discuss with classmates both online or in reality

3.      What professional development and/or resources will they need in order to make these changes?

      Each of the students should be able to access to the Internet in class. They can be equipped with a laptop or an iPad in class. That is more convenient for learners to do researches.

4.      What ideas do you have for grouping students so they will have equal access to technology in the classroom?

      Each of the students has to get an account for themselves in order to achieve goals given by teachers. Teachers can easily assess students’ performance by reviewing their work by the Internet.

  Assignment #3

Grade Level: Grade 2

Topic: Hangman

o        Standards addressed:

o        CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.2.1b Form and use frequently occurring irregular plural nouns (e.g., feet, children, teeth, mice, fish).

      CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.2.2a Capitalize holidays, product names, and geographic names.

Learning outcomes:

This lesson helps students to increase their vocabulary and assist them to know how words are spelled exactly.

Technologies needed: Computer with Internet and Projector

Timeline for implementation: Just one class

How can it be integrated and implemented in the lessons?

Teacher will separate students into two groups. And each group has chances to set a representative to guess the letters given by the computer. Once they came up with the right word, they got one point. Groups compete with word learnt in class.

Assessment:

After the game, students can be given a quiz of those words appeared in the game. They can pass if they did 80% correct.

Week 1: Self Introduction

My name is Jingyi Yuan. I am an international student from China and this is my second semester in the program of Early Childhood Education. I am not a teacher yet, but I plan to teach languages in the future. I mean bilingual teaching so this course interested me a lot. If I were to write a book about myself, I would name it “Daisy” because this kind of flower is my favorite which remains its own style, not trying to attract any attention. For the “new literacies”, I haven’t heard it before and hope to learn more with you.

Here is the joke I heard recently: A man was at the airport for a business trip, he settled down to wait for the boarding announcement at Gate 35. Then he heard the voice on the public address system saying, "We apologize for the inconvenience, but Delta Flight 570 will board from Gate 41." So he picked up his luggage and carried it over to Gate 41. Not ten minutes later the public address voice told that Flight 570 would in fact be boarding from Gate 35. So, again, he gathered his luggage and returned to the original gate. Just as he was settling down, the public address voice spoke again: “Thank you for participating in Delta's physical fitness program.” Hope you enjoy it :)

Week 2: Reflection of ELA

In ELA learning process, reading, writing, speaking, listening and language are five essential components. I believe all of these are basic elements in learning any language.

Trading children to read can help them learn to make connections among different ideas and create their own ideas. By reading, children can gradually build up their ability to discern and logicality. Writing is always related to reading which requires learner’s ability to plan, revise, edit and so on. Writing makes people thoughtful and having a better comprehension of what they learn. Speaking and listening are the most basic skills during our daily communication because people live and work together, and they need to express, share and integrate information by what they see or hear. Any of the above skills are built on the language which specifically means vocabulary and grammar.

I believe iPad is the best technology tool in assisting language learning. It provides multiple methods for learners to learn a new language and even other subjects. It provides applications for people to receive information visibly and audibly. Games in it will attract learner's attention and increase their learning motivation as well.

A friend of mine is an English teacher (Teaching English as a Foreign Language). He said that there is the issue of resources, course fit, skills, context, culture and usefulness, and also the issue of control. Teachers do feel that they are losing control through technology use.