On Monday the class was fortunate to have another guest speaker in Tina O’Keefe. She introduced the concept of gamification. To start Tina showed us her Google Classroom. It is very organized and it is broken down into about 30 different classes that students can go through and choose what they want to learn about (such as robotics, gamification, etc). Next, she introduced the term of gamification, which in short is adding game type elements to create different forms of learning. Since younger students have now grown up in a world where technology is very prominent, introducing gamification is a great way to keep students engaged in learning. Tina introduced different forms of gamification that she uses in her classroom and that could act as great resources in the future. These include Kodable, Nitro Type and Hour of Code.
After Tina’s presentation Joanna allowed us to try out Hour of Code. Since I am not very good with technology, figuring out the application took me a little longer than it probably should have, but once I figured it out it was pretty cool. The game I chose was space invaders. This game is for students in grade 2 or higher. Space invaders is a very interesting game that shows the different steps of moving the spaceship to collect coins and firing at opposing spaceships. I’m not sure I would use this specific game in my classroom since you fire at other ships, but there are many other games that I would probably use.Â
Lastly, an article that we read outside of class time introduced the topic of the 5 R’s, which are respect, relevance, reciprocity, responsibility and relationships. The goal of the 5 R’s is to incorporate Indigenous knowledge into the learning environment. The article discusses the First Nations Schools’ Principals Course (FNSPC). Different researchers were looking at ways to “provide new e-learning opportunities to invite all learners to engage with Indigenous knowledge, worldviews, and pedagogies in culturally appropriate, respectful, and meaningful ways” (p.6).
Screen shot taken from https://code.hatchxr.com/space-invader?utm_source=code.org&utm_medium=HoC2022&utm_campaign=new_activities “Hour of Code: Anybody Can Learn.” Code.org, https://hourofcode.com/ca/learn.