Thursday, December 1, I had the honor of being invited to present at one of our state’s Senate Early Learning & K-12 Education Committee meetings! Thanks to my WEA workshop partner, Tammie Schrader, who introduced me to the Senate Committee chair, Senator Lisa Wellman, and recommended me to speak and share I got to speak about gamification and game-based learning (GBL) in my classroom. I had the pleasure of speaking after the one and only Dr. James Paul Gee and before the one and only Tammie Schrader!
I have a copy of the recorded session below or you can see it in its entirety on TVW.
Dr. James Paul Gee is on from 3:58 to 30:35.
I’m on after Dr. Gee from 31:10 to 1:03:03.
And Tammie is on from 1:03:05 to 1:45:30.
12-01-22SenateCommitteeGamification.mp4
null
Here are the slides I used:
A couple of closing thoughts:
First, the topic of screen time came up because parents and teachers are concerned about our children being on their screens too much. I mentioned that we need to help our kids find balance, just as we need to do for ourselves, but am I also reminded of one of my takeaways from this year’s ISTE conference that the real issue isn’t so much screen time but rather what are our kids, or we, doing with our screen time? Not all screen time is equal! When my daughter first starting using our home computer and first got her phone I felt more at ease if she was creating and learning something or even connecting with her friends rather just binge watching silly videos.
And second, in my class I see what Tammie closed with at around 1:43 – when kids are playing games they are connecting but also collaborating and thinking critically and making decisions based on instant feedback. These are 21st century skills that we are tasked with addressing in schools to prepare our kids for the world we live in! And in this world adults are learning and working with technology. Just like Tammie said, we learn and work with our laptops and phones at least!
