Games, gaming, gamification.....not quite the same

This topic was a difficult one for me this week and I am not sure that I have a complete understanding of the difference between games, gaming and gamification! I guess I never really knew that there was such a difference and I'm not so sure I get it yet.  Of course in kindergarten games are a means of learning......the kids play learning games using manipulatives, pictures, magnetic letters and so on.  Anytime we can use the word "game" with an activity for the children to complete, we do because they are excited about it and become engaged with the activity.  We use apps on the tablets for a reinforcement olearning.  I think I would consider that a game.  We use Study Dog and ABC Mouse and I don't know whether to consider these a form of "gaming" or not.  Study Dog is a web-delivered reading program and progresses at a child's rate because it adapts to how they learn. It is rigorous but the kids consider it a game and challenging because they want to move on to the next level.  Study Dog shows the children's progress by moving them to the next activity (lesson) and rewards them with "coins" and after completing a lesson (getting all the coins) they move on to the next lesson.  ABC Mouse moves the children along on their learning path and they get tickets as rewards to buy things.  Would these be considered gamification? Sort of lost with the gamification part of it......on a blog that I read, Class Dojo was considered gamification.  I have used class dojo in the past as a behavior managment tool.  ABCya.com is a website that provides free educational games for grades K-5.  I have used this website before but it does not track the students learning or progress in the free version.  I would think that it does if you pay the $39.99/month subscription fee.
My blog is part of my google account with my district and the Technology Specialist at school reached out to me to offer some help with understanding gamification and how it can be used in kindergarten.  More to come on that!!

After reading more, watching videos and talking to other teachers, I feel I have a bit of a better understanding of gamification. It seems it's more like a behavior type of system but using points (or whatever teacher decides on) for students to earn that leads to an award of some sort. At least that is one way I see gamification being used. I have used something similar in my room.....marbles!  If the class is in task, I scoop a hand full of marbles to fill up and jar and on the jar there are levels to reach in order to earn something. Not technology related but sort of, I think like gamification. 

Flipping Kindergarten??

Flipped classrooms are a hot topic. I discovered that a flipped classroom involves a learner-centered approach.  It reverses, or flips, traditional teaching methods which is mostly the teacher talking about a topic at school and assigns homework that reinforces that day’s material.  In a flipped classroom, the instruction is delivered online and outside of the classroom walls. In essence, a flipped classroom is one where students learn at home by watching a video or lecture and practice the skills taught at school. As I read more and more about flipping a classroom, I kept thinking about how this would work in kindergarten.  I figured that I better search for some answers so I googled flipping a kindergarten classroom.  I found a kindergarten teacher who flipped her classroom a few years ago. She spent the entire summer before school to research, plan and prepare for flipping her classroom.  Wow! That sounded like a lot of work! I still couldn’t wrap my head around how this would work in my classroom.

I found some helpful links on Twitter #flipclass that I shared on Pinterest.  I am glad I found this one because I wasn’t sure how to go about making a video and the important things I should focus on in a video.  This is the link: http://flippedlearning.org/syndicated/how-to-make-great-videos-for-your-class-an-infographic/

This link http://flippedlearning.org/how_to/12-ways-create-flipped-blended-learning-content-no-9-lmscms/ was useful because it provided tools to use to make a video easily.  

At the heart of the flipped classroom model is the desire to have classrooms be more active and engaging and to give teachers more time to interact directly with students in small group or individual settings.  To me, kindergarten is already active and engaging and interacting with small groups of students or individual students. I also felt that teaching a new skill or topic in kindergarten should be with the teacher in school.  I could be wrong and I am not dead set against it so I watched a few lessons by kindergarten teachers, (which there aren't many out there!), and I tried one of my own.

Here is my stab at a lesson for kindergarten students in a flipped classroom:

I am sure if I did this more often, I would get better at it.  When I think about this lesson, I feel like I would use it more as a review and to assign the homework of the Beginning Sounds Folder, not necessarily to introduce the topic.

So, flipping in kindergarten? I would definitely want to look into it more with other teachers who have done it and hopefully find more kindergarten teachers who have tried it out.  What do you think? Is flipping the classroom  beneficial to kindergarten students?

1:1....Even in K!

Blog 1
A blog that I read was posted by Kristin McGinnis.  Her blog is Hip Hip Hooray in K!  She had a guest post on Education to the Core-Making Technology Meaningful in Primary.  McGinnis posts about how she uses her devices, which are iPads, in her classroom and how her students start out with the basics of how to use the iPad and build upon that as the year gets rolling.  There must be a great deal of step by step instruction on how to use the devices, as some may never have used an iPad, how to use the apps on the device and how to troubleshoot if problems arise for children to become so independent while using the devices.  I am always interested in how teachers manage that with little ones and always looking for new tricks and tips.  Do teachers have other adults in their room to help them? Is it mostly taught in small groups and if so what are the other children doing? So I went to McGinnis's blog to ask her.  I will update my blog with any responses.

Hi Kristin,
I really liked reading about the app you use with your kindergarten students. I often have my students record their reading using a voice recorder but video recording is such a great idea and then uploading it to Showbie!  I will have to check out that app!  I always like to see how other kindergarten teachers use devices in their classroom. It must take a great deal of front work to get them to independently use their devices.  Do you use small group instruction when teaching the children a new app?  Do you have help in your room when you use technology for projects?  Thank you for any tips! 

You can find the guest blog post at:
Making Technology Meaningful in Primary

You can fine Kristin McGinnis's blog at:
Hip Hip Hooray in K!


Blog 2
Another blog that I read was Mrs. Davison's Kindergarten and she posted "What We are Doing with iPads!" She provides a wealth of information and ideas of how she and her students use 1:1 technology in her classroom.  She provides videos of students telling whay they like using iPads and how to get started using them.  This blog is full of pictures, ideas, projects and links to many apps that she uses in her own classroom.  The apps and projects are for all subject areas which I find is going to be helpful to me to learn new ways to use the tablets with my kindergartners. One of the things that I am always trying to improve upon when using devices is how to manage them with a classroom full of 20 five-year olds and what are so meaningful apps to use.  Some that I have searched and liked are usually a paid app.  I wonder how many districts have a budget for apps to purchase.  I asked Mrs. Davison about apps that she uses and if they are paid apps or free.

Mrs. Davison's blog:
Mrs. Davison's Kindergarten

.

Mrs. Davison,

I was looking at your blog and the page about "What We are Doing with iPads! It was interesting to read about and see all of the pictures of the children using different apps and creating different projects using technology! At my school we have to submit a form for paid apps and a set of apps are already pushed to our tablets based on what my team of K teachers wanted. I was wondering how you choose apps and if you are able to purchase any for your iPads?
Thanks for any tips!
Sue

Blog 3

I also looked at a blog, "Back to School with iPads: 5 Steps for the First 5 Days," which was written by Beth Holland. She gave some good tips about how to get going on the right foot with devices starting with the first five days of school  She talked about teachers should set clear expectations for all students and shared another teacher's blog providing elementary students with a representation of what responsibility should look like. She also posted about staying organized and using meaningful activities.  I think this is something that I consistently think about when implementing technology.....is the activity meaningful?  There are many times that I read a blog and think to myself, how do these teachers make it seem so easy, so I reached out to ask more about implementing the first 5 days in kindergarten.

This is the link to Beth Holland's post:
Back to School with iPads

Hi Beth,
I really liked the tips you posted about on your page for the beginning of the school year in a 1:1 classroom. Do you have any more specific tips for a kindergarten classroom that would work well to start off the school year?
Thanks for any input!
Sue

I will update my blog with any tips that I get from those I reached out to.

I received a reply from Beth Holland.

Hi Susan.

Thank you for the comment and the question.

I think that the most important thing is to start with building a class community and culture that supports using technology for learning. In kindergarten, it is so important for the students to understand that iPads are there to support their learning and to help them make connections to their classmates as well as the rest of the community. If anything, I would start by just using the camera and teaching them how to document their learning.

I would also take a less-is-more approach. Too often, I find iPads loaded with apps and games. If I was teaching kindergarten again, I think I would use only SeeSaw and Book Creator for most of the year. They allow students to capture the physical with the digital, archive their learning, communicate through whichever medium best supports them, and learn to share in positive and productive ways.

Finally, 1st grade teacher Meghan Zigmond wrote a wonderful back-to-school post that has some great ideas: http://www.zigzagstech.com/2015/08/starting-out-with-ipads-the-first-wee...

I hope this helps.
Beth

Here is the link to her comment!

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/back-to-school-ipads-5-steps-beth-holland?utm_campaign=new_comment_alert&utm_source=edutopia&utm_medium=email#comment-273096

I really liked the tip she gave me about less-is-more because our tablets in kindergarten can get easily filled up with apps that we don't necessarily use.

Ebooks and the Emergent Reader

After exploring several options, I decided to use Pinterest as my curation tool for my final project which will entail researching using ebooks with emergent readers.  I really enjoy exploring new tools and I would love to have more time to check them out because many of them look like they are fun to use.  I looked at Flipboard first because I heard about this tool but never tried it.  It seemed fairly easy to use and I set up a practice magazine to see if I liked it.  I also looked at Storify, Thinglink and Scoop.it and the three of those tools seemed to be similar.  I then decided to use Pinterest for several reasons. 

1. I am already registered with Pinterest and use it several times a week to look for supporting activities for my classroom, so I am familiar navigating on Pinterest and it is a tool that I know I will continue to use.
2. I can share my information easily with colleagues.
3. I like how Pinterest personalizes my searches and updates me with similar “pins.”

Since I teach children in kindergarten, the majority of my students are emergent readers and since we are a 1:1 school, ebooks are a highly used tool.  My plan is to research the effects of electronic books on the emergent literacy skills of young students.  I typically use scholarly articles, educational/teacher blogs, and educational magazines and texts for my resources

Many educators use Pinterest and when searching for an educational topic there are so many resources available to choose from.  I like to pin relevant resources that look like they are credible and will be of value me and the topic I am researching.  I can keep all of the pins together on a private board and read them after gathering all of them.  I want to find resources that will teach me something new about how ebooks are used with emergent readers and whether or not they help improve student’s literacy skills so that I can use the ebooks as a meaningful and valuable tool. 

Here is a link to my Pinterest board about ebooks:

https://www.pinterest.com/susanschiavo/ebooks-in-education/

Unit 2: Civil Discourse

When it comes to opinions, beliefs and ideas, we all have them and different views and ideas about topics can lead to controversy.  We have instant access at our fingertips to information, research and news reports. 

An article that I read in The Washington Post had the headline, “Researchers:  Using an iPad or smartphone can harm a toddler’s learning and social skills.”  Of course, the title of this article caught my interest because I have a toddler and I wanted to make sure that her using a tablet or my phone is not going to hurt her development.  As I read on, I realized that my toddler was not in great danger.  I discovered that the article, by Terrence McCoy, summarized some research that was done about young children using mobile devices and the potential downsides, such as using iPads was detrimental to the social-emotional development of the child. The article stated this technology could “interfere” with a child’s growing sense of empath or problem-solving skills.”  The article also briefly mentioned the educational benefits for iPad use for toddlers such as language acquisition and reading ebooks. 

A conclusion that I drew about this article was that I should not expect my child (or other children) to develop strong social and empathic skills if they are given a mobile device to use for an excessive amount of time and on mindless activities with no person-to-person interaction.  This really was not something new to me.

A second article that I read, by Pete Etchells in The Guardian, “No, research does not say that iPads and smartphones may damage toddlers’ brains” criticized the above-mentioned article by first pointing out that the headline did not match up to the article’s content and then went on to say that the information provided in the article was not research but in fact it was guidelines that were published previously based on research.  Etchells elaborated more on the topic and pointed out conflicting results on the studies of the topic. 

The two articles appeared to be contradictory opinions because of their headlines but actually both articles provide information from “research” that in inconclusive which leaves both conclusions to coexist.  Neither article provided sufficient enough evidence to persuade a reader to decide who was correct about the topic.

Paul Etchells. No, research does not say that iPads and smartphones may damage toddler’ brains. The Guardian Feb 2015.

Terrence McCoy. Researchers: Using an iPad or smartphone can harm a toddle's learning and social skills. Washington Post  Feb 2015.