The year 2030 is not so far away that
we cannot foresee how classrooms might look at that time. Although I hope to be
long retired and still healthy by then, I know that it will be different
because history shows us how technology has altered the classroom environment. From
parchment and inkwells to word processors and the internet, technology changes
the face of education, and as educators learned to use those new tools to make
their lessons more relevant, so too will the teachers of tomorrow. By 2030, I see
students and teachers using their own portable device as their primary source
for information and interaction with fellow students and teachers. This is not
unlike how some students use their devices today, but I see a more comprehensive
role for the device, in whatever form imagined, as an integrated portal for
their educational experience and beyond.
The first thing I envision is how to
fund this technology. I imagine a new kind of commercialization for education.
Not any type we recognize today, but a unique way to use industry to demonstrate
to students through the device, the skills necessary to create, produce,
distribute, and market their products while keeping their product or company
name in the segment. If we could limit the blatant marketing as well as the
amount of screen time allowed on the device and insist on a focus of why the
student needs the skills learned to succeed, I believe industries would pay for
the access and it would give them the right to boast of their partnerships in
more typical media applications. A real partnership like this would open a myriad
of new ways for teachers to design relevant content. As noted in part ll of the
Gamified Classroom, (Proto/ADMIN, 2011) , “At its best,
technology can provide teachers with engrossing, educational content that is
appropriately differentiated for any level at which the students are currently
functioning–while still being incredibly easy to implement and manage.”
When students first enter the
classroom, which could be physically or virtually, the device they carry throughout
the day, once logged in, will be used for mundane tasks such as attendance and lunches,
which earn them low-level points. I like the idea of points or badges for doing
everyday things like brushing your teeth as suggested in the video with Jesse
Schell (Schell, 2010) , if students are
consuming or doing things that they would do or consume anyway, why not reward
them in ways that do not make them so mundane. Students would, using the
device, greet the teacher and check their personal account on a site similar to
Edmodo to get the day’s activities, check their progress on group, and project
assignments, with every action securing more points toward some goal or level
of achievement, and then move on to complete their days activities and
responsibilities . Some of these may be with students in another classroom or
another building anywhere in the world. I can see a classroom similar to that
viewed for week 3, Quest Atlantis (TLC, 2011) , where students
spend “monitored time in a 3D virtual world where children learn science and
math, reading and writing and students work together as a team, thinking through
complex 21st century problems but they're also having fun playing an online
game.” As the interview with Dr. James Gee states in the PBS video (PBS, 2011) , “A game is just a
set of problems, it could be anything.”
We should collaborate with those
that have problems to solve (industries and government). Let them tell us what
skills they are using to solve their problems, and introduce students to those real
world problems and teach them, with the use of games and simulations, problem
solving skills that are relevant to their world now (2030) and in their future.
As noted in “What about Games Makes Them Good for Learning?”, (Miller,
Klimas, & Mehall) , the authors remind us that “Connecting
learning to experience increases players' investment in learning, even while
they may not even realize that they are learning.” If “Reality is Broken” as
McGonigal suggests (McGonigal, 2011) , and games can “change
the world,” Then I say, “Let the Games Begin.”
McGonigal, J. (2011). Reality is Broken-Why games
Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. Penguin Books Ltd.
Miller, T., Klimas, A., & Mehall, A.
(n.d.). Lure of the Labrynth. Retrieved April 18, 2014, from Labrynth.
thinkingport.org: http://labyrinth.thinkport.org/www/library/learning.php
PBS. (2011, February 13). DIGITAL MEDIA
- NEW LEARNERS OF THE 21ST CENTURY. Retrieved April 18, 2014, from pbs.org:
http://video.pbs.org/video/1767377460/
Proto/ADMIN, A. R. (2011, 11 9). The
Gamified Classroom. Retrieved 4 17, 2014, from Gamification:
http://www.gamification.co/2011/11/09/the-gamified-classroom-2/
Schell, J. (2010, February 10). Dice
2010: "Design Outside the Box" Presentation. Retrieved 4 16,
2014, from g4tv.com:
http://www.g4tv.com/videos/44277/dice-2010-design-outside-the-box-presentation/
TLC. (2011, November 4). YouTube.
Retrieved April 17, 2014, from Quest Atlantis/The learning Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q2sRp5YM8Y#t=47
