Today on this beautiful Monday afternoon in ENG 101, my group is experimenting with making a blog post about one of our discourse communities. The discourse community we chose for the group was future educators. The orgin for this discourse community of future educators is future educators in SAY Village ( Students Advocating for Youth) at NCSU. Within thus discourse community individuals share the common goal of advocating for the youth in whatever means possible. Despite sharing this unified goal, every individual brings different characteristics to the table.
Motto of the Day:
“Changing the world one desk at a time!” – Group #2
Considering all I can think about is my brother coming to visit and a home cooked Thanksgiving meal, bare with me with this blog post on Transmedia 🙂
WHAT IS TRANSMEDIA?
Transmedia is the technique of telling a single story or story experience across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies. Prior to class we read articles on trans media. The definition was pretty much the only thing I could wrap my head around after reading these articles. It wasn’t until I was provided a visual in class of what transmedia actually looks like, that I understood its purpose. (For more insight on transmedia and its uses click on the word trans media to be connected to an extremely informative article and podcast.)
EXAMPLES OF TRANSMEDIA
The examples of transmedia that we were shown in classwere interactive websites like Pottermore and the Capitol. Each interactive website we got the chance to explore, gave us an extension of the original story it derived from. For example, Pottermore is an interactive platform that developed from the Harry Potter series. This transmedia website allows you to dive right into the world of Harry Potter and become part of the plot yourself. It emerges you in this online experience through a quiz to discover your Hogwarts house, applications to create your own wand, and other wizardly games. On the other hand, The Capitol is a sight representing the government of Panem. Panem is a fictional place from The Hungergames book series. This website allows you to go more in depth with the story. Not only do you get to see past victors, but you get to learn more about each faction within the government itself. Both sites are incredibly beneficial in engaging with the books itself.
I was so intrigued after playing with Pottermore and the Capitol, that I decided I wanted to create a similar platform. For my trandmedia project I wished to create something for the book Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief. This book was my favorite as a child, so I saw fit to bring it to lifefor others who want to be part of this world in which I’ve dreamed of as a child. I know my aspirations might appear too large to complete within such a short amount of time, but with the help of my friends it began to all come together. My group consisted of Spencer, Anna, Autumn, Sarah, and Myself. Each of us worked hard on a separate part of this platform that would extend the book. Autumn worked on creating your own weapon to fight in battles. Spencer worked on a messaging system to the gods for complaints fromimmortal creatures on Earth. Anna worked on an interactive game, and Sarah worked on a virtual reality quest.Each part equally awesome, but my addition to the group is of course is my favorite part of the project. I created apersonality quiz on Buzz Feed that sorts which greek god you’re descended from and what house you would live in at Camp Half Blood. The quiz that I constructed is akin to the one in Pottermore that sorts which house you live in through asking questions about your daily life. I loved every or shall I say most minutes of creating this quiz. With a few minor technical errors, my quiz is finally perfected and I couldn’t have been more proud of myself.
If you’re interested, please feel free to try out my quiz!! linked right here:
For a great perspective on transmedia and its transformative qualities watch the attached video below
!!!!Considering Thanksgiving is on the way, I’d like to give a quick shout out to my professor Ms. Davis who I am extremely grateful for. She challenges me in every possible way, but never fails to give me guidance, and without her none of this would be possible!!!!
IF YOUR READING THIS I ENCOURAGE YOU TO SHOUT OUT SOMEONE WHO HAS MADE A DIFFERENCE IN YOUR LIFE AS WELL
When I walked into my ECI 201 class last Thursday, I was prepared for a normal day of power points and note taking. What I wasn’t expecting was a whole itinerary of a day filled with games. When I saw all the games layed out on a document to play that day, I had to do a double take. Although I was beyond excited to play all these games during class, I did not understand how this was going to relate to education.
My Face When I Had to Do a Double Take on Today’s Lesson
Just as my confusion escalated, Ms. Davis reintroduced the idea of gamification that we briefly went over the class prior.Gamification is the application of typical elements of game playing like point scoring, competition with others, rules of play to other areas of activity for engagement. For more on gamification and how to gasify things in your life visit: https://www.shoutmeloud.com/how-to-add-gamification-to-your-website-to-increase-engagement.html
Last class we were taught our lesson by Ms. Smith while simultaneously playing a game for badges on an excel sheet. You would earn each badge by doing certain tasks that coincided. In addition to this, yips could also earn badges by completing Radom tasks which made the class more entertaining. For example, one of the badges in last class’s lesson was for standing up randomly and dancing during the lesson. Not only is this humoricav to the students, but it also gives them a quick brain break from the lesson at hand. At the end of the lesson, Ms. Smith announced a winner to give credit to the winner. Considering my extremely completive personality, it was no suprise that I won with a total score of 24 badges. The whole time I was so caught up in earning badges, I didn’t realize how much I was learning along the way. It is easy to day that I gained more information from thus activity than I have from other standard powerpoint in the past.
This Thursday, my class continued with this idea of gamification in the classroom with a whole day filled with games. As a class, we divided into four groups to play four different games. This games included VAX!, Lemonade Stand, Oregon Trail, and Kinect Disneyland (All shown at the bottom of the post). Although these games were your standard kid games, each one brought more tot he table than just entertainment. Instead of just playing these games like I originally thought, we speculated how each could be used in a classroom setting. For example, the first game I played with my group was Disneyland Kinect (Shown on the right).
To me this game reminded me of the days I use to come home and play Xbox Kinect games to get a break from my homework. Little did I know, this game could bring so many positive elements to a classroom setting. For one, I could use this game to work on narrative stories and detailed writing by making students write down what they saw while playing the game. Then using what they write down and compare it with other students to show how each student brings different elements and perspectives to the table. I could also use it in a social studies lesson about geography and maps, by using the Disneyland Kinect map, and so on.
For more on gamification watch the TED talk below:
Video games have become an important part of our students’ lives outside of the classroom. After a long day at school, kids turn to their Xbox, Wii, Playstation, or Nintendo consoles to have fun. This event is now repeated to the point that some kids return home from school and go straight to their video games every single day. According to a study byPew Research Center (linked here)97% of teens ages 12-17 play computer, web, portable, or console games. If you really think about it, there are so many possibilities games can open up in education. Therefore If more teachers recognize this and start to incorporate video games into their lesson plans, students will show more interest in school.
Me when my professor introduced today’s class topic as PLN’s and Twitter Chats
What is a PLN?
I don’t know about you, but I have never heard of the term PLN before today when we learned about them in my ECI 201 class. Apparently what I thought was a short abbreviation for the word plan actually stands for a Professional Learning Network hence the PLN. One interesting thing I learned about PLN’s is anyone can use these networks to share their ideas and learn new ones with their fellow peers. Although specifically for our class, we discussed teachers using PLNs to be more connected as educators. This concept of connected educators was redressed in this article below: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/245025207_Professional_Learning_Networks_Designed_for_Teacher_Learning
According to Torrey Trust, author of the article above, “teachers need PLNs to collaborate online through social media and build their own personal learning network to interact with other educators”. Some may call a PLN now a “Personal” Learning Network, because now educators can create their own network to fit their own standards and interests. I believe that this is important because allowing teachers to share their knowledge and experiences in the classroom can help prepare them for future challenges they will face. In the future, I plan to use these Personal Learning Networks to see how other teachers think and apply it to my own classroom.
In addition to PLN’s we got to explore what using twitter in a classroom setting may look like through twitter chats. Prior to this class, I used Twitter to ‘tweet’ my thoughts or retweet funny pictures and videos for my viewers. I always just assumed that twitter was for entertainment and engagement between friends. It was not until taking this class, that I realized twitter could be used in a professional setting or to further learning within classrooms. I was especially skeptical on how using social media with children in the classroom was really going to be beneficial, but engaging in the twitter chat in ECI 201 changed my mind. During the twitter chat that took place in class I discovered that it can be a very useful tool to allow students to create their own tweets and also collaborate with each other.By encouraging kids to tweet about things around them can enhance their learning experience and make sure they are getting the most out of what they are being taught. Just through simply allowing children to express their creativity through #hashtags, pictures and videos, it already gives them a new tool for a fun learning experience.
❣️❣️❣️❣️❣️❣️For more information on twitter chats, watch the video below: ❣️❣️❣️❣️❣️❣️
MY OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH PLN AND TWITTER CHAT USE:
The Twitter chat I chose to participate in on my own time was located under #edchat. At first I had no clue what this chat was going to encompass besides the fact it was centered around education. As I continued to read, the discussion went on and on. It started by covering topics like women in higher positions in Education. Some questioned if women were just too comfortable where they were while others questioned what if every child doesn’t have access to resources in education. There were so many minor discussion topics within this chat that really peaked my interest. It sparked my interest so much, I responded to with my own two cents and even questioned some peoples thoughts. Suddenly it hit me, that engaging in this chat was the whole point of our lesson. Just the amount of information I received within a minute encouraged me to question others. I now see how this first hand advice from experienced educators can be so beneficial for new teachers because as they are receiving and exchanging knowledge with teachers who have more experience can help create some reassurance.
After learning so much about using Twitter as an effective resource for teachers, I can say that I would definitely try to use Twitter in my future classroom. Kids are interested in social media and using Twitter would definitely keep them engaged and excited to participate in class. Despite the possibility of distraction, Twitter seems to provide various new ways kids can learn. According to Teach Hub, students can benefit from using Twitter in class through learning how to share, communicate with others, use proper manners online, and be a part of a community. Learn more about how students can benefit in the article here.
WANT TO ENAGE IN A TWITTER CHAT OF YOUR OWN?
For some examples of professional development websites and PLN networks for teachers click here! This website provides a neat list with the purpose of each website. Using this resource is a great start for getting involved in a PLN!
The examples of transmedia that we were shown in class
Although these games were your standard kid games, each one brought more tot he table than just entertainment. Instead of just playing these games like I originally thought, we speculated how each could be used in a classroom setting. For example, the first game I played with my group was Disneyland Kinect (Shown on the right).
What is a PLN?
