Digital Directions - Winter 2013 - (Page 17)
“It’s the reality that technology is here. It’s a
part of our lives every day, and it’s not something
to be ignored,” Hoge says. “The individualization,
the personalization—that’s the power of
technology in an online learning environment.”
Experiment, Fail, Learn
Integrating games into online curricula also
provides students a safe place to experiment
and to fail, says Abha DasGupta, the senior
director of product solutions and innovation
for K12 Inc., the Herndon, Va.-based online
school operator and online course provider.
“There’s not as much pressure on a
student” not to make mistakes, she says.
“It gives them an opportunity to fail within
a game scenario and not feel as though it’s
a failure, because it’s a game.”
In the past two years, K12 has created 15
game-infused applications to reinforce what
students are learning in their online courses,
including apps that time how long it takes for
students to read a certain passage, apps that
teach students how to count, an interactive
periodic table of the elements, as well as an
Algebra 1 review and study app.
“We’ve really focused a lot on science and
math because those are the areas where
students are struggling,” DasGupta says.
Games are also integrated into K12’s online
courses, she says.
“There are a lot of tools and game-like
pieces built into the [remedial] courses
because when a child is already struggling,
Guardians
Of Grammar
GOAL
To teach students about
verbs, participles, and
proper nouns
GAME DESCRIPTION
Using superhero avatars,
students create sentences,
analyze grammatical
parts of sentences, and
build sentences from
a word bank
COURSES
Language Arts 6-8
PLATFORM
Desktop
you’ve got to make sure that they’re
engaged, and they’re learning at a pace that
they’re comfortable with,” she says. “If you
don’t have those multimedia pieces—video or
interactives—you lose the students.”
But creators of online content have to be
careful about what games to develop and how
to incorporate them into the curriculum, says
Jill Dickinson, the director of curriculum for the
Florida Virtual School, the country’s largest
state-sponsored online school, which served
259,928 half-credit enrollments in the 2010-11
school year.
Games can be costly and time-intensive to
build, she says, so choosing the right kind
of game for the right kind of learning
objective is critical.
“You don’t want kids focusing their game
play on a standard that is a low complexity
standard and could easily be taught with a
few definitions and a drag-and-drop,” she
says. “That’s not a good use of technology.”
In addition, the amount of game play should
be commensurate with the amount of time
that would normally be spent on a concept,
says Dickinson.
“If you’re not careful, you can get a little out
of balance,” she says. “Some of the ways to
address those concerns are to spend some
deliberate time in your storyboarding and
planning to determine the places where
concepts can be best taught through gaming.”
After the game is developed, lots of user
testing is also required to ensure that the
game is teaching what it’s intended to teach,
and that students are motivated to play it.
In 2009, the Florida Virtual School
developed an entire game-based course
called Conspiracy Code that taught students
reading concepts or American history. But
the course has since been shelved because
Winter 2013_ DigitalDirections >>
17
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Digital Directions - Winter 2013
Digital Directions - Winter 2013
Contents
Editor’s Note
DD Site Visit
Bits & Bytes
Digital Storytelling
Online Courses Turn on Gaming
Reading in the Age of Digital Devices
Movers & Shakers
State, Federal Leadership Seen as Key to Innovation
Open-Source Opportunities
BYOD Boundaries
E-Cloud Forecast
Digital Shift
Security
Digital Directions - Winter 2013
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