A Long Overdue Pokemon Go Post... and the Impact of Games on Learning

Initially, the idea behind this post was to discuss the good, bad, and ugly of Pokemon Go, but as things do in the field of technology, everything began to change. Rapidly.

The headlines that made it into the media were robberies, bodies discovered, car accidents, people walking into restricted areas or traffic, and all around harumphing from the naysayers, but what was underneath it all from the start was people - all ages - getting outside and walking around and bonding over this game. This article over at Forbes can explain some of the game’s attraction.

And then it changed. Again and again and again. Some of the changes made sense, many didn’t. My street went from having people out and walking with their kids to a few lone stragglers. Even my neighbor deleted the app from his phone and gave up after the last update.

There are still those who play, and I’ve learned a lot from them. The fact that most of them are young enough to be my kids makes no difference to me. Who better to learn from than someone who figured it out and can translate that knowledge?  

My nephew is one of those kids who figures stuff out, and when he talks about a topic he likes, he lights up. I thought I knew what I needed to know about Pokemon Go, but as I talked with my nephew, I discovered there was so much I didn’t know. As we talked, we discovered some common ground, and knowledge began to flow back and forth between us. If nothing else, it was something to bond over.

And because I work in education, the wheels started turning….

Gamification has been a big deal in learning for a while now, and from my experience much of it has centered around in-classroom activities and some exploration into interactive video games on the civilian front. The military has been using video games to train troops for a while now, and we get to see the old stuff once they’ve upgraded. Then along comes Pokemon Go, and now we’ve got a game that lives in an augmented reality space, with one foot in the Pokeworld and one foot in the physical world.

The players figured out quickly how to work the game in their favor, and Niantic responded by making it harder to do so, complete with bans on players who faked their locations so they didn’t have to go anywhere to catch the Pokemon from other countries. The updates lost a lot of players, and that’s disappointing because there’s still so much potential there. Think about it: people who weren’t particularly tech-savvy were researching how to spoof their cellphone so it looks like it’s someplace else, and DOING it (yes, it’s shady, but it opened a door there to curiosity learning and showed they could do it if they put their mind to it, that’s HUGE).

Hopefully with the Gen 2 updates coming in Pokemon Go next year, we’ll get to see a revival of the game and what else it can do. From what I saw, in its current state, it did the following and I don’t think a lot of people realized it:

• Team building via choosing a team to belong to
• Collaborative learning that crossed a multitude of social backgrounds.
• It teaches the metric system - albeit in a somewhat sneaky way, as people tried to figure out what 2 and 3kms translated to in miles in order to hatch eggs and gain candy for their buddy Pokemon.
• It gets people out of the house, walking around, and socializing - kind of a big deal, right there.
• It provides a central point of reference for people to communicate around, much like sports teams or a good book do, except in the case of Pokemon Go all the players know the frustrations of losing a Snorlax while being surrounded by pidgeys and weedles, or the joys of hatching an Aerodactyl.
• It teaches math! The gyms are a great place to learn about basic statistics on an experiential level, believe it or not.
• It teaches history! Many of the Pokestops are located around historical markers in historic areas, with write-ups on the markers that give a brief overview of the place the markers are located why they are significant.

Regardless of how one feels about Pokemon Go as a game, it must be acknowledged that it has potential as a learning tool, and will hopefully be a door-opener to a wider array of augmented reality apps built for educational games.

References:

Elfwine, Alvin. "Pokemon GO Gen 2 Update: Everything We Know So Far". iTech Post. N.p., 2016. Web. 20 Oct. 2016.

DeMers, Jayson. "Forbes Welcome". Forbes.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 20 Oct. 2016.

Theriault, David. "14 Reasons Why Pokemon GO Is The Future Of Learning". ideaFM. N.p., 2016. Web. 20 Oct. 2016.

The Virtual World is the New Foreign Language Classroom

Over the past few months I've been noticing more and more students of foreign languages attending a Literary Night that I host in Second Life. The foreign language these students want to learn? English. 

One man visiting our Literary Night came to listen to us read and to listen to us discussing the latest movies, TV shows, and general life happenings.  He stated that he was learning English and that he would be there to just listen for a few nights, if that was alright with us. By the third night, he had selected readings from his English class and asked us to critique him. By the fourth night, he had attempted to write a poem in English, and asked us our opinions. The fact that this man was learning English was not the extraordinary part. The six months it took him to become fluent in English using books, the internet, and Second Life was the impressive element. Six months to fluency!

His story was not dissimilar from other students from his group in Second Life. All of them used Google Translate or Babelfish to translate the written word to their native language, then visited areas in Second Life that spoke the language they were learning. Initially they would lurk and listen, reading the chat area and translating it via special attachments on their avatars. As their confidence grew, they began to ask the people who spoke fluently to critique their own speaking ability. 

I've used Second Life myself to brush up on French and Italian, both languages I learned in school, but no longer have the opportunity to speak with anyone in my immediate social circle. The students of English are very accommodating and will often 'trade' language skills in exchange for the language they are studying. A complete win-win for all involved, and without the embarrassment of one party knowing more than the other. Both of us are there to learn from one another, we are both teacher and student, we are equals. In some ways, it makes learning the other language that much easier because there is no pressure and no fear of judgement.

Equality and curiosity are languages we should all speak fluently.

Readable Writing and Comprehensive Reading - Two Growing Concerns

Talk to almost any teacher anywhere and unless they're teaching math, you will more than likely hear about the growing phenomenon of poor quality in student writing. There are always exceptions to the rule and there will be that one teacher who smiles knowingly and says that they have no problems with student writing. Those smiles are few and far between, however.

My personal belief is that students are not grasping the impact that good writing has on their future endeavors. As educators, WE know the importance because we use writing to communicate every day and we can see the direct impact of poor writing in the triple-spaced 15 point font five page research paper with a title page and no works cited page. It's more than just an information literacy issue - that topic will be covered in another blog post entirely - students seem to be missing the point of good writing. My fear is that they're also not reading their work before they submit it and are failing to comprehend what the requirements are to receive an A.

As educators, are we making full use of detailed rubrics to explain the expectations of a written project? By detailed, I mean more than just 'Correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling' as being worth ten points of the final paper. I mean the above point with more detail for the student who may not have learned about, didn't understand, or needs a refresher on the word 'punctuation.' Do we provide an example of what an A paper looks like? Do we explain why it's wrong to plagiarize and how not to do it? Do your students realize the internet is actually copyrighted material that cannot be used freely unless content is specifically labeled as free to the public?

It is my suspicion that at a certain point it is expected that students know all of the basics or should know how to refresh their memories to remember the basics of grammar, spelling, and citations. It is also my suspicion that we've got high hopes in some cases, especially where our students may not have gotten a particularly robust education in English composition, or who had no lessons in understanding what they were reading.

The fix to this may sound simplistic, but step out of the box with me for a moment. Creative writing.

When I was on the other side of the podium, I can honestly say I hated writing research papers. The mechanics of writing meant nothing to me because the topics of the research papers meant nothing to me. Had the reasoning behind the assignment been made more transparent, i.e. 'You will need this someday in the real world to effectively communicate with a future employer and for writing proposals' then I may have paid more attention. Instead I preferred to write stories with illustrations in a beat-up notebook. It wasn't until I took a creative writing class that all of the concepts of past English lessons finally clicked. That click led me to take a dramatic script writing course, and then to become a technical writer for a while. I used the lessons I learned in my creative writing classes when putting together my cover letter and even my resume. I used what I had learned about formatting in my dramatic script writing class to make sure the formatting was done consistently throughout my resume and to make sure it looked good from a distance, which would make it something people would want to read. I also made sure my cover letter hit the main requirements listed in the position description and highlighted my experience that catered to those requirements. I never sent the same resume or cover letter out twice. Each one was tailored and written specifically based on the research I had done on the company and the requirements of the job posting. In this day and age, that kind of writing skill and comprehension skill could mean the difference between successfully employed alumni who are happy because they picked the job they wanted, and an unemployed alumni struggling to figure out why his or her application never received a response.

So why not incorporate creative writing papers that require research on the topic? The student gets to pick the details of the story and write an outline for approval, he or she has fun with subject-verb agreement, grammar, and spelling instead of dreading it all, and afterward, the class can write constructive critiques of each story (so you KNOW your student will be reading his or her work before handing it in and having friends read it to make sure it sounds alright). It would be important to explain to students the purpose of each phase as well. They're adult learners who need to be able to see where the lessons apply to their everyday life and above all how it will help them achieve their goals and keep them engaged with the lesson.

Part 2 of the issue is reading comprehension. By writing a review of the stories submitted, the student would need to summarize what he or she feels was the main point of the story as well as construct a paragraph or two explaining why the story did or did not 'work'. This would be an excellent time to evaluate how many students are truly comprehending what they're reading.

How many of us are guilty of reading an email but not really READING the email? Try it out: send an email with a subject line that is totally different than the message, make the message three paragraphs long with each paragraph asking about three different things, and see how many recipients write back a response that addresses the email in its entirety and how many respond to just the subject or just the subject and the first sentence of the first paragraph.

In gradeschool, I clearly remember an exercise in reading comprehension. A sheet of paper was handed out, and on the paper was a set of 20 instructions. The first instruction was to read all the instructions, the second was to write your name on the top of the sheet. #20's instruction said 'Ignore all instructions above.'

While it may seem slightly basic, creative writing and a set of instructions that ultimately lead to handing in a blank sheet of paper may just be the jumpstart our adult students need to get back on track if they are struggling with writing and reading comprehension.

Analyzing Data... An Adventure in Statistics

Surveys, content statistics, user activity (both time spent and actual interactions within an online or hybrid course), evidence of student engagement with web-based course materials, and faculty engagement with both the course and with the students all combine to paint interesting pictures of both online and hybrid style courses. If you have access to this type of data you should use it and use it often. All of the data in the world is useless if no one analyzes it. One caveat: take all of that statistical data with a grain of salt. Question the numbers and talk to the faculty about the class if you are an administrator. It is possible the faculty member could be using tools outside of that particular course structure or Learning Management System.

If you are a faculty member with access to student surveys, exam statistics, and user activity data, do you review the information periodically to ensure your exams are valid measurements of student learning and that your students are spending the expected amount of time reviewing course content? Do you check in with your students in what I like to refer to as a 'pulse check' to make sure the class is still actively engaged with the content? Is there someone at your campus that you can go to with questions about student surveys or course statistical information?

If the user activity data shows a student spending a much larger amount of time on a particular content item than the rest of the class has spent, it could be an opportunity to reach out to that student either via email or a phone call and see if the student has questions about the content. It is also a great opportunity to start a discussion with the class about the concepts presented and have the class summarize the ideas presented in their own words. This reinforces the learning of the students who have grasped the concepts of the material while allowing them to put the information into a potentially more digestible form for classmates who may be struggling with the lesson. This is also a learning moment for us as faculty. By listening to the students' rendition of the same materials, we can then re-evaluate our content to see where it can be revised or expanded upon to clarify key concepts.


On the other side of the coin, if you are a student, do you provide constructive feedback on surveys or directly communicate with the faculty member (as an example: was there something in the course that was not clear that may have been clarified, and did you contact the faculty member to ask questions)?

Introductory Post

Some research.

Hello, and welcome to Retro-fitting the Future. 

While generally I would love to talk about myself, in this instance I prefer to talk about education and the purpose of this blog. Having worked in the education industry for both fun and non-profit over the last ten years, I can honestly say that it is a rewarding experience. I belong to various groups and organizations that specialize in education and training. I also  do my own research into new tools for both face-to-face courses and online courses. 

This blog is dedicated to adult education and the future of adult education, specifically the use of online learning tools to create learning environments.

It is my hope that others will join in to create a community of educators and learners on this blog. Yes, I am including learners here as well (we are all constant learners, remember). 

With the tools that are currently available, emerging, and yet-to-be created, all signs point to a collaborative effort between faculty and students in which the learner expands upon his or her knowledge and presents it to both class members and professor, thus increasing the learning within the class exponentially. It is my hope we can create just such an environment here as well.