Yep, today one of my colleagues came and told me that my class eat, think, sleep, breathe and live computer games.
Yep, so what? "It's evil!
We have do ban it!
We we must introduce a total ban of computer games in school!"
...because that is working today?
Or not?
I tried to explain how you can be a professional gamer and earn great money, but when I looked in my colleagues eyes I realized I had crossed some kind of a line there... "YOU CAN'T MAKE A LIVING AS A GAMER!!!" Sigh... Anyway.
I have a simpler solution:
Because you have already analyzed the situation so well, why don't you change your didactics? Instead of fight the computer gaming, why do not take advantage of their interest? As you already have figured out, they learn in a different way...
I got proof of that with a discussion yesterday with some students who believe the programming courses is way over their top. The only time when they actually did learn something was when I had them play MinecraftEDU using ComputerCraftEDU.
After one day they said they had finally learned and understand the WHILE loop.
And I got a proof yesterday they still remember the WHILE-loop because they told me their whole programming courses can be summarized as a WHILE-loop...
One colleague of mine also has this "PCs and Peripherals" course, he's actually the one who usually has them but this year both classes of IBT-students have the course at the same time and you can't clone him. Therefor I got the other one, the one he didn't want (another town), and the one he do teach is the class I'm the classteacher of.
Many of my colleagues tell me I'm doing wrong when I'm stick to my Masterplan so last Friday I started to doubt on myself: am I nuts or am I brilliant?
Anyhow, I also needed inspiration what to teach and besides, as a classteacher I also wanted to be sure my class was doing alright.
So I attended his class.
I sat there and enjoyed, listened and took notes.
Listened, questioned, took notes on and on.
Suddenly when I looked around me I realized I'm the only one taking notes and probably the only one listening (!). One student was sleeping at his desk and sleeping so hard you couldn't woke him up. The other ones were doing something else: Facebook, newspapers, comic sites and you name it.
This teacher has lots and lots of knowledge and experience but man, his lessons are boring. After 30 min I was very frustrated over the situation, students without interest and a teacher who continue without changing his didactics.
I had to wake them up!
I mean, really?
It was an EPIC FAIL!
So I asked my colleague if I could borrow like 10 min to give them a wake up call, and he gave me green light. I'm not an expert, not even a 'real' teacher, but at least my students stay awake...
And now dear readers, now we're coming to the part I don't know if I'd be proud of or if I'd feel ashamed of.
I f**king hijacked his course!
I took one of my Kahoot! quizzes and that's always an excellent option to trigger the learning process. And what an excellent tool Kahoot! really is! Man, you should have been there... All in a sudden they were
Learning
Discussion
Active
Problemsolving
The result was all beyond my expectations! In two (2) minutes the whole class attention was focused on me, I was in the spotlight and I had all chances in the world to bring out the message, the learning, the education.
Pwned!
One quiz of 22 questions became a second quiz with 20 questions. The class wanted more and more. They didn't want to have breaks, all they wanted was to play and learn more.
And now when I looked into my colleagues eyes, which was all black, I understood: I hijacked not even the lesson but the whole course. Man, he's pissed :P ...but I gave him something to think about, I sure did. I couldn't talk with him on Friday but today he came to me with two things:
He has started with some Kahoot! quizzes
I'm not allowed to attend his classes anymore...
My own course?
Well according to my Masterplan I'm doing great! Especially after I've attended my colleagues lessons... What my other colleagues think about the problem of gaming during class I don't have that problem.
No, they are allowed to play one game and do challenges inside that one only game. During my lessons there's something happens all the time, if we have nothing to do we just don't sit still and practice waiting, we have Minecraft.
This week in my course we've had lots of discussions, talked much about what skills they already have, what we should focus on. They had a mission to think about what a PC is and how it works, write it down on approx three A4 (with pictures and writing rules).
My theory lessons all starts with the quiz gaming plattform Kahoot! and usually ends in massive discussions and some googling to prove I'm wrong :D What came to Minecraft logic gates was easy peasy so I had to improvise a harder quest: make a digital clock with redstones!
The guys in my course didn't want to leave class because they was sooo close to a breakthrou with the redstones. They've realized two important things
Learning is fun.
Learning is multiplayer.
...and you have no time (or need) to sleep on my lessons...
Okay, so today I started my course about "PCs and Peripherals" and the class has seven adolescents around 15-17 years old and one adult at 30. During the introduction I asked how many play computer games, raise your hands!
None.
From this year we should be a so called 1:1 school and use the SAMR model. This class got their tools (ASUS T100T) last Friday and next question: How many of you have not installed a game on the unit? Raise your hands!
None.
Okay, so no matter what I have a class of gamers and I truly believe youth of today learn in a different way from what I've been learning. Or how you teach teachers to educate. Or never the less, what their parents believe. When I continued with my master plan, the advanced redstone computer in Minecraft they did "high five!" ...and the old guy, the World of Warcraft gamer, thought it would be interesting...
But first, as I read in Eduelfies blog some weeks ago (comments, replies and feedback) one good startpoint would be to do the The Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology quiz. By doing that, just for fun, except the fact I won them to my side they have a lots of learning going on already!
But here's the thing.
According to my colleagues this ain't going to work.
One of my fellow teachers had a long explanation about what the old guy has done before and therefor, of course, won't be able to achive any knowledge.
Why?
He's too old...
And I thought, dear God...
Honestly.
Do not shoot me down right away.
And let my try do it my way, because I feel I have them all interested.
A working mate convinced me to see this TEDx clip on YouTube with 13yo Logan Lapante and hackschooling.
Hackschooling
He isn't talking about geeky nerds sitting in their parents basement, creating and spreading data viruses. Not at all. Among other things he explain the hackschooling mindset with this picture.
Back to Logan LaPlante and he explains. Hackers are innovators, hackers are people who challenges and changes the systems to make them more differently, to make them better, it's how they see it. It's a mindset. And according to Lapante, Everything could, and should, be hacked: skiing, education...
You could take shortcuts or hacks to get a better, and faster, result. Flexible, opportunist, and never loose the sight of healthy, happy and creativity the 8 TLC (look at the video!). But, here's the thing, doing this usually freaks people out.Especially teachers...
But hey!?
Where have I heard that before?
And where have I seen results as that?
Well, after listen to Lapante I realized:
I've hacked the math!
With Minecraft and Gamification (yep, again: Nobel price, here I am).
As most teachers who uses Minecraft we see increasing math skills. But it doesn't stop there, we also have the interesting point: What unintentional learning occurred?
The 'hard data' and my evaluation
My school wanted the "hard data" to be shown. Because whatever results I gain, they need figures, something "on paper" to see it actually worked. So I had to come up with some sort of evaluation, and thanks to master Stephen Elford I got some ideas what questions to ask.
This is definitely not any science, six students had the chance to use Minecraft as an option with geometry, three of them have answered my evaluation. At least one of them has dyscalculia. My scale is 1-6, where 1 is nothing and 6 very much, and there's no middle - either they are a bit weaker (3) or a bit better (4), I force them to think.
Knowledge before the Minecraft experience?
How fun I believe Math is?
Motivation during our classes and by the way, I got the same result when use Minecraft to learn math...
Your activity during class?
The activity was a fun thing. All of my participants are students that usually stays focus for 15 minutes. Now they where all sitting, without a break, for two hours. The only time they used their smartphone was when they needed the calculator. One of my students also participated in class when he was home and sick.
I have them to choose the best and worse lesson and put on a scale how fun it was, how much help they got from that class. They had to give an answer to the worst one but as you can see, it's still a very good lesson. They can't explain why, they had to pick one.
Best lesson on a scale
Worst lesson on a scale
Knowledge afterwards
And I believe this is an important one and please compare it to the first graph. Do you experience you have better knowledge about math and geometry now?
How much have you enjoyed using Minecraft during this math experience?
What have you learned (including the unintentional learning)?
Scale, geometry, to be creative, solve problems, convert 2D to 3D, technical drawings, planning and foresight.
And of course: They couldn't believe math could be funny!
