Picasso Head Blog

I think learning styles do exist but they are not being represented properly. The idea of matching style with content makes the most sense to me. "Instead, teachers should worry about matching their instruction to the content they are teaching. Some concepts are best taught through hands-on work, some are best taught through lectures, and some are best taught through group discussions (Glenn, 2009)." I would take the idea's Pashler presented and use learning styles appropriately to convey different styles of information.




The second article offered a more simple way to describe learning styles and how they are used. I used to believe in the concept of learning styles but I think there is a more effective approach to help a classroom discover their full potential and what kind of learner he or she is. "learning styles are not really concerned with what learners learn, but rather how they prefer to learn (Clark, 2000)."





My MI came back to say "Naturalist." I found a geocaching activity that directly relates to Social Studies. Geocaching is a sort of treasure that happens all over the world. You get GPS coordinates to locate a box, which can be very small or very large. Inside the boxes people can put anything they want in them, in reason. For this specific geocache, students will answer questions about Constitution Day. Six caches represent six different facts about the Constitution and the people involved. This activity is not designed to be a test, its just to see what students do know about the Constitution. Click here to get connected to this activity.









References:







Clark, D. (2000, May 9). Big dog and little dog. Retrieved from http://nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/styles.html



Glenn, D. (2009, December 15). Chronicle of higher eduacation. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/Matching-Teaching-Style-to-/49497/



Sotherden, J., & Meredith, S. (n.d.). Constitution day geocaching . Retrieved from http://geocache.itrtblog.com/2010/09/constitution-day-geocaching/

Video Games #2

The videos helped me to discover that video games shouldnt be challenged with our children, they should be embraced. Im not anti video games because I used a lot of educational games growing up that helped me think better, type faster and keep up with the growing technology. As Im writing this blog, my boyfriend is playing Call of Duty while making a lasagna. Talk about multi tasking! :o) I enjoyed the different points of view but I especially liked the male speaker. He talks about gamification in places we would never expect, for example in smart cars when you have a pet plant that grows when you drive more eco friendly and dies when you dont. It just proves that technology is not going anywhere and adults need to learn how to embrace the changes and embrace the learning the 21st century kids enjoy and thrive on. In the first video the woman presents the statistics on the cube test as being improved on still after 5 months of the initial pre test and ten hour game play. This is remarkable to me because it proves that people are learning how to multi task better through these gaming sessions. I also liked her anology of chocolate and broccoli. It tied her entire point together that we need to find a way to challenge our children but let them play too. Katie Salen had some great points and ideas regarding gaming but I liked that she doesnt support a full time gamer status but recognizes the importance in these games and how they can really help enhance students' way of learning.


Artificial Wisdom claims to give educators and parents ratings on different video games to help identify the most beneficial to the students and child in regards to the educational aspects and the skills it teaches. They use a scale called GRADE which will give teachers and parents an idea of how the game specifically targets a certain educational area within the game.

Picasso/Video Games

The Naturalist Named Madison by Anonymous: Picassohead




In the video, Your Brain of Video Games the major arguement presented by the speaker was that action video games can prove to be helpful to the brain and multi media tasking.
1. Myth: Screen time makes vision worse.
    Fact: Action gamers have better vision than those who don't play the games. This can be helpful when reading small texts like pill bottle subscriptions. An action gamers vision could prove helpful to them when driving in bad weather conditions.
2. Myth: Games lead to attention problems and greater distractability.
    Fact: In the lab, the woman speaker describes a test where she will present a word and its colored font. People were tested and asked to perform this particular duty. Gamers did a better job identifying the words. The other test was the multiple object tracking. Gamers can track 6-7 objects at one time while a non gamer can track 3 or 4.
3. The lab test with the block cubes was an important test because it helped brain scientists know that after 5 months the gamer had still improved their skills from the pre test.

In the video, Are video games making your kids smarter?, The major idea was gamification and who really needs games help.
1.) The speaker mentioned World or Warcraft (WoW) and how it can help with multitasking. A few examples are chatvoice, chattext, operate character, manage interrupts and manage long term objectives as well as short term objectives.
2.) Green matter increases in the brain when it is learning, Andrea Kuszewski presented 5 themes that can help improve learning and the brain. 1.) Seek Novelty 2.) Challenge yourelf  3.) Think Creatively 4.) Do things the hard way 5.) Network....this resembles the very idea of video games which has been proven to increase green matter in the brain. Video games offers continuous learning.
3.) Ananth Pai was a third grade teacher who brought gamification into his classroom. The students reading and language levels increased dramatically after 18 weeks.


In the video Big Thinkers: katie Salen on Learning with Games, she conveyed the message that a game can activate something within a child that enhances their skills. She thought the most important part of designing and playing games was that the kids have to ask themselves the question, "Who is on the other end of me creating this?" Games are designed for the success of the player and that will offer a child a sense of empowerment that they succeed in the game.

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