i'm thankful for...other people to invent computer games

i wasn't sure if we were supposed to publish a post this week or not, but i figured i might as well.

on monday i completed my scratch game. can you believe it? it's done! and it's not too shabby, if i do say so myself. however, it's also pretty...what's the word...pretty low-key as far as intellectual, developmental learning goes. i think a kindergartener would think it was pretty simple. there is no way that any child could learn as much from playing this game as i have learned from designing it. it was hardcore!

i like scratch. it's pretty user-friendly once you get the hang of it. i felt like i was directing a movie; everything had to be in place and everyone had to be told what to do at exactly the right time to do it so that the other sprite would get their cue and do their job as well. it was intense, but i like it. it was a great learning opportunity for me, as far as problem solving and frustration control goes.

i do not think that i would ever use this technology tool in my classroom, though. i don't think it would be productive for me to invest my time in learning scratch, because that would take so much time and then i would never be able to utilize it effectively for my students' benefit. but it was still a fun project and i'm glad i finished strong.

scratch week

so this week has been all about games. computer games, that is. educational computer games. i always thought that was an oxymoronical statement, but my mind is being opened up a little bit.

on monday we discussed our experience with playing "voices of spoon river." i liked the game; i thought it was a little confusing and i didn't solve any issues. but it was enjoyable. then we discussed about scratch. we decided on the objectives as a class and got to work designing our games. it was intense. i was really confused and maybe even a little frustrated, but i got through

on tuesday i went to the computer lab and played around with the design and figured out how to make my little guy move around properly. it was quite productive.

wednesday was a good work day. i got a lot accomplished and i know what i'm doing now and it's actually quite enjoyable. i like scratch. i don't think i will ever have the time as a teacher to design a new game every time i want to teach a concept, but it's good for me to learn. i'm learning more than my students ever would by playing my little game that took a lot of effort to create.

This week has been more of the same routine as of late: work on assignment on monday, get introduced to new assignment on wednesday.

on monday we finalized our UEN websites. it was much easier than i thought it was. i think that UEN is a very user-friendly website service, and out of all of the things i've learned in this class, this is probably the only thing i'm going to use.

on wednesday we started talking about scratch and games and the use and usefulness of games in the classroom. i'm going to be honest and say i was a little overwhelmed. i have no idea how to use these programs and i am so not creative and crafty when it comes to creating a game for people to use and enjoy. but i'm remaining cautiously optimistic that i'll have a good time playing the game this weekend and getting my brain thinking about how to design my own.

flash and websites

so, on monday i finished up my sweet awesome flash video. it was pretty intense and i'm proud of myself for completing it. it was fun, flash reminds me of autoCAD. however, i do not think that flash is something that i will take the time to learn how to become proficient at. i think there are better ways to deliver content to students than a homemade video, and mine would be shoddy at best. there are so many resources out there; people have made hundreds of thousands of videos, why reinvent the wheel? it was a fun project, though.

on wednesday we started talking about UEN and class websites. it was interesting, especially because the night before, on tuesday, we had a club activity where we had a student teacher, question and answer, panel type thing, and the teachers there answered lots of our questions about student teaching and talked a lot about using the UEN website, and the list serve, etc, to help gather resources and build your own file of curriculum. i think UEN is great, i'm excited to be a teacher and have my own login and start gathering stuff. it's a little overwhelming right now, but it's never too early to start collecting lesson plan ideas, etc. to use in my own classroom someday.