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August 2013
“What can you say in six seconds?”Imagine if you had a message that everyone needed to hear, but you only had six second to say it. How would you get it across? How would your communication skills be tested? How would your creativity be stretched? How would you engage and inform?
Vine, a new app from the makers of Twitter, forces users to answer these questions. Vine is a micro-video application. Vine allows the creation and sharing of any six-second video users can think of. While this paradigm lends itself to a variety of comedic stunts, it holds huge potential in the realm of education.
Throughout our schooling, we’re taught the value of concision. To impress, say more with less. Services like Vine and Twitter put this principle to the test. What valuable information could students and educators possibly say in six seconds or less?
- For English and writing contexts, flash fiction will always challenge students to convey potentially deep and complex narratives in as few words as possible. Translated into Vine video, these stories gain the human element that often only comes with live readings.
- Vine can be used to demonstrate any procedure that doesn’t require a lot of extra explanation. The virtue of video is that visuals can convey a lot more than written step-by-step directions. This can make explaining cumbersome procedures tidy and quick.
- A large number of science teachers and parents already share fun and exciting experiments on Vine to demonstrate basic scientific principles. These sorts of experiments tend to be easily duplicated and expanded into a larger lesson.
- Vine can also be used to provide clever and entertaining refreshers on commonly-used equations and formulas. Vine videos are great for simple math problems, grammar rules, or any rules of thumb that you want to engrain in your students.
- For any short message (due dates, schedule changes, reminders) you want to blast out to parents and students over social media, Vine is a great tool.
If you’re looking for more great tips on how to use mobile technology to engage your students, have a look at our very own signature course, Technology Driven Classrooms (TDC). TDC is bursting with unique ideas and strategies that will keep your students looking forward to learning.
“Students want to be able to study anytime, anywhere.”The tablet and smartphone revolution is here to stay. Mobile technology provides an excellent opportunity for teachers to invigorate their curricula by adjusting to the learning styles of today’s students. Students want to be able to study anytime, anywhere, and at their own pace. Integrating mobile technology with education gives students the media-rich and on-demand learning experiences they crave.
By enabling students to take control of the pace and location of their learning, mobile technology gives them free reign to learn in their preferred style. Whether that means switching between numerous browser tabs (learning materials, entertainment, and social networking), or focusing on a single learning activity, students are empowered to learn in a manner most effective to them. This freedom falls in line with the relatively new trend of student-centered learning, which gives students increased independence and responsibility—qualities they will need for the real world.
Students’ immersion in mobile technology means that they are “always on.” Rather than seeing this as a detriment, you can use it to your advantage. Reach students on their preferred medium. Just as entertainment and media companies can constantly push content to students’ mobile devices, so can you! Blasting out learning materials or lessons through social media outlets is a surefire way to engage students who are already on their mobile devices. Taking the learning to the students rather the students to the learning is the new paradigm presented by mobile learning.
Use social networks to blast out lessons!In addition to engaging students through social media, you can also use a multitude of polling or quizzing apps to receive instant feedback and assessment from students. One such app is Socrative, which enables teachers to swiftly quiz, poll, or assess students. This heightens the potential for gamifying your students’ learning and staying constantly connected.
There are plenty of professional development courses that are tailored to showing teachers how to enthrall learners through the use of mobile technology. Have a look at our very own signature course, Technology Driven Classrooms (TDC). TDC is overflowing with innovative strategies and techniques specifically designed to enthrall learners through the use of mobile technology.
Also, make sure to keep coming back to this blog as we continue our weekly posting series on engaging digital natives!
“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players”How do you play the game of life? You may say, “Life is not a game,” and many may agree with you, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be examined as if it were. At least that’s what game theorists have been doing since the first half the 20th century. Game theory has examined social interactions from the standpoint of decision-making: how will agents make decisions in given situations according to potential costs, benefits, and available knowledge. Consider the following examples:
- Economies can be examined as massive games involving huge numbers of players, all competing or cooperating for wealth.
- The perks, benefits, and titles that employers confer are akin to reward systems that exist across a wide range of games.
- The modern grading system establishes a hierarchy that students may climb for the sake of pride, self-improvement, and competition. This could be viewed as a preliminary game that introduces young players to social, economic, and bureaucratic position.
- The social norms presented by courtship rituals are often viewed as game rules that participants must satisfy in order to achieve success (partnership).
Economies are the largest games there are. Even if you don’t look at life as a series of games, that doesn’t mean you can’t apply the model of gaming in a constructive fashion. In the context of education, what if a teacher’s lessons could engage students as much as any video game? With gamification, they can. Gamification is a newly recognized trend in education that harnesses the motivational features of games in the service of productive activities. In the case of education, gamification takes advantage of people’s competitive, self-expressive, and altruistic drives by using them as motivation for learning.
By turning your lessons into games, you keep your students engaged. While this may not seem new, gamification is beginning to formalize the tactics and strategies of gaming that educators have been creatively applying in their lessons for years. There are scores of articles written about how to turn some of your lessons into games. However, they all seem to share some common attributes:
- Determine the overall learning outcomes for the game
- Formulate an overarching theme or idea to drive the game
- Sketch out the phases of the game
- Focus on gameplay (It needs to be fun)
- Generate specific learning activities that will support the learning outcomes
- Assign teams if applicable
Though these are great guidelines for producing your own games, you may wish to purchase one of the widely-available apps that are specifically designed to help gamify your lessons.
Gamification is on the verge of becoming a massive trend as educators continue to look for innovative ways to enthrall their students. This is likely just the beginning, so the sooner you get started, the better!
If you’re looking for more ideas on how to engage your digital native students, check out our signature course: Technology Driven Classrooms (TDC). TDC is an eight-week long professional development course that provides educators with essential teaching techniques, ideas, and suggestions for educating and inspiring today’s students.
Also, be sure to check back next week for another post on engaging digital natives!
