Week 6 Reflection 5

I'l be the first to admit it, these group 4 tools threw me off a little bit. We go from a structured method of guided, scaffolded learning, experimenting with and analysing various tools them BAM!! straight into Connectivist learning to find our own way in the world.

So with so many options available this week I opted to try a mind map, bubbl.us to help collate my thoughts a bit. I've used this tool a couple of times this year already to plan out other assignments, usually to great effect. I find new things much easier to handle when I'm able to break them down and catagorise the components, funny trait for a science teacher to have I know. I mapped out the tools presented, wrote some notes on each one, then stepped back to have a look and decide where to start, as I have done several times before.



It really didn't help me much this time around though. I think I'm becoming a little too cynical of the tools we use. I started out all bright-eyed and bushy tailed, but now that the plethora of available options is known to me, I'm being a bit too picky.

Now I'm aware that I have a very text based approach to my work. Even in these blogs, my multimedia or fun visual aspects have been quite minimalist and that's something I need to work at if I hope to engage my students in the Curriculum properly. Thinking about this and things I'd actually enjoy while working through that Darfur game, it hit me that if I have any hope of engaging my students and showing how fun and exciting science and maths can be, I'd need games. But these are incredibly time consuming to create, and I don't know the first thing. Luckily there is an assortment of readily available interactive, learning games available online, on in particular that sucked me in for the last couple hours has been. PhET

Most of these are Java based, using a Java Network Launching Protocol with the .jnlp file type. Not a problem in itself, these can make your firewall have a mild heart attack if you try to access them. A couple however are available in HTML5 format, which can be used in browser.

These tools are simple, colourful, and like all web based games, inexplicably addictive.

I may have a problem

Never the less, once I get a grip on these interactive learning tools I dare say this is something I will have immense pleasure implementing into my teaching. It helps mitigate a major flaw in my personal pedagogies and I may have finally found a device I can confidently say reaches the Redefinition stage of the SAMR model. Obligatory PMI chart, I'm off to try figure out this Flash thing

INTERACTIVE LEARNING OBJECTS (GAMES)
PLUS	MINUS	INTERESTING
·        Fun and Interactive ·        Provides controllable visual stimuli for learning ·        students can practice procedural knowledge on their own	·        Limited collaborative involvement ·        students might get caught up in play and not learn the concepts ·        Incredibly difficult to design/create	·        Useable outside of School time ·        Can be reused again and again for different topics with a little tweeking.

REFERENCING:
moodle course notes for EDED20491 obtained 20/04/2015:
https://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/page/view.php?id=15524

https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/category/physics

http://fileinfo.com/extension/jnlp