Some Final Thoughts...

As this busy semester comes to a close, I decided to do a "brain dump" of everything I've been reflecting on lately.  Okay, here goes!

• My students (the boys in particular) are currently OBSESSED with Minecraft...which I've never played before.  The YouTube video below helped give me some context for this sandbox game.

• My girls, on the other hand, can't get enough of the movie Frozen!  Apparently, they play "frozen" at recess, which leaves me wondering how many have actually experienced snow and cold weather...  

• I've seen movies on two consecutive weekends- first, Divergent and recently Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  While I enjoyed both, I think I'm in the mood for something less violent- romantic comedy, anyone?

• My Jane McGonigal reading has been abandoned for another book, which has nothing to do with this class.  If you enjoy memoirs, check out A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table.  The author owns a wood-fire pizza restaurant in Seattle called Delancey and writes a blog called Orangette.  I'm loving it so far!

• I've recently decided that I need to learn how to code.  It would make website work SO much easier!  I'm looking at Codecademy as an option.  Any other ideas?

• This has been a fabulous class!  I've enjoyed getting to know all of you and look forward to hearing about your final design projects.  

Classcraft for Classroom Gamification

As a technology resource teacher, I receive daily e-mails that promote new products, programs, and systems for educational technology.  Since I hate clutter in my e-mail inbox, I usually quickly skim and delete what I don't foresee using.  I tend to keep most e-mails from Tech & Learning, which come daily.  Because of our recent unit on gamification in the classroom, this article about Classcraft caught my attention.

After briefly reading the article and browsing the website, I learned that "Classcraft is a free online educational role-playing game that teachers and students play together in the classroom." This section of the website explains more about the game and how to play it.  From my understanding, this seems loosely based on the ever-popular World of Warcraft.

While this is probably too advanced for me to use with my elementary students, I immediately thought of Charles Souza's Knowledge Quest game for middle schoolers.  I'd be interested to hear the opinions of any middle or high-school teachers- would your students be motivated by Classcraft?  Why, or why not?