Thoughts on Assignment 3

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Gapminder

Dr Hans Rosling demonstrates Gapminder World

I was looking forward to creating Unit 2 because I had already planned for it. The Backward Design model has been an refreshing way to re-think planning. I feel like I’m looking through the walls of a glass house to all the different rooms and spaces, rather than having to move through opaquely, not really understanding what is on the other side or whether or not the door will be locked. O.K. – I’ll stop with the metaphor, but leave it so say – Understanding by Design allows educators to see and plan for the big picture and the details at the same time. I outlined Unit 2 way back at the beginning of the course. Since it represents “getting into it” as far as the course content goes, I already had the roadmap and the motivation to design the details. Another motivating factor has been my intention to create a course that is ready to go in September. I feel like I’ve succeeded.

I know my patterns, and I fell into one of them right away: creating a mobile game and supporting video that is time-intensive. Our digital storytelling activity in class was serendipitous with the first two activities in my new unit, creating a mobile game based on a family geographic journey. ARIS is the game platform that I planned to use. I had a slew of new ideas that I wanted to try-out with it after the ARIS Summit in Madison in July and the Unit 2 game provided me that opportunity – or should I say, temptation. I have a history of going down the rabbit hole of concentration and focus at the expense of other commitments, and I did that again with this activity. Eventually, I knew that I had to carry-on with just an incomplete demo game and video that shows my intentions. I’ve just got to re-make the video with some more images and a voice-over so that it is operational. Continue reading →

Digital Storytelling with ARIS

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Your looking an my grandmother here (yep – she was a beauty!). This is the video overview of my digital story which I created on ARIS Games as an activity in my content unit for Assignment 3. I tend not to present things until they are complete and I feel good about them. This is definitely a beta concept video.

Stay-tuned for an update. I will be comparing this video and the game it is based on, with a new iteration. I will also document that process.

Updated Video

This is the second iteration and the one that will be the model on my Moodle site for Unit 2. This one is more of a trailer than a demo. It is designed to entice students in my Online Geography 12 course to investigate the game, the ARIS Games platform and the first stage of the geographic inquiry process – asking good geographic questions.

I’m going to write more, but this part of the project has taken me much longer than I budgeted. I’ll be back soon with a rationale and comments. Hope you enjoy it

It was an interesting exercise making a new orientation video for my game because in the process of creating it on iMovie and working on my Moodle content unit, I ended-up changing it for the better. Originally, the game was going to be a narrative that students would simply follow by touching ‘continue’. I realized that is wasn’t very ‘gamified’ for a game, and that the badges came across more as didactic reminders than as question prompts.

My new iteration – and the one reflected by this second ‘teaser’ video – requires players to key-in geographic question to keep the game moving. In other words: no question, no progress. I also created more mystery and incentive to finish by not disclosing who is speaking through the ring. In fact, I completely took by great-grandfather out of the game altogether, except for a picture. The way it operates now is that players are confronted with a pre-badge (my term). They get to collect the badge but it serves as a prompt to ask a question at that time. Their reward is the ability to continue.

As stand alone game with no context, people may ask why a player would choose to make the effort to construct geographic questions. I made it to function as the orientation stage in the Constructivist Instruction Model (CIM) by requiring them to script what they think is an appropriate question. The big deal here is the geographic inquiry all hinges on the creating of specifically geo-type questions. From there, the stages are: acquire information (data), explore, analyze and act. After playing the game, students author their own ARIS game based on their family migration story that asks improved questions. In between my game and their’s they have an online discussion and evaluate each other’s two best questions. The whole idea is that they get continual practice with the skill.

Last detail, there actually is a ring! My great-grandfather bought a ring at the end of the First World War with the money the City of Liverpool awarded him for being an officer in the home guard. The ring went from him, to my grandfather, and then to me. It was fun for me to create the game using my own family history.

Narrative, Geography & Leinenkugal at GLS11

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Thursday at the Games+Learning+Society Conference was another packed day of speakers, the GLS Showcase and food. It kicked-off with keynote from Brenda Romero, the amazing Fulbright scholar, entrepreneur, artist, writer and games guru. She has been a pioneers in the gaming industry going back to 1981. Listing all of her accolades would take this entire post, but as someone listed in the top ten list of developers by Gamastura.com. He a high-energy, funny and entertaining speaker because that is the person she is – no slick delivery, just oozing enthusiasm (and F-bombs) with everything she says. Her topics was “Women in Gaming”, and as you may have surmised by my description of her, this is not the way she identifies herself, despite the fact that she keeps getting awards to this effect. She shot holes in the division the industry and media have drawn based on sex. If living those issues every day isn’t annoying enough, she is also married to gaming sensei John Romero of Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM, Quake fame, so she has to constantly deflect questions about him.

My first session of the morning was the presentation of three papers on the subject of narrative. I am particularly interested in this topic because this was the framework from which I authored my ARIS game, Dilemma 1944. Stephen Slota of the University of Connecticut discussed the role of narrative as a means to explore a game setting in his paper, Stories, Games & Learning Through Play: An Analysis of Narrative Affordances in Game-Based Instruction. He used Project Technologia to demonstrate collaborative storytelling emphasizing how users can experience context, chronology and content in a manner that is not dominated by achievement. Next, Sean Duncan of Indiana University presented “I Have To Tell You Something”: How Narrative and Pretend Play Intersect In Story Games. He discussed how board games like Fiasco allow players to embody different identities and the roles that come with them through imaginative play. Finally, James Cox presented a means to provide direction and options in games through narrative versus drop-down menus or information panels in Metafiction in Videogames. He described “the fourth wall” concept from Greek theatre, where a character steps away from the play and speaks directly to the audience. He identifies four levels of metafictions: emergent (fictions revealed to the players), immersive (fiction that brings the player into the narrative), internal (character-to-character), and external (designer-to-player). All of these papers were very thought provoking. I’m looking forward to reading through them.

Lunch time features another rant with Jim Gee who entertained us all with his predictably unpredictable zingers. He noodled through many topics all on the theme governmental and economic impact on education and the need for a societal shift in thinking to have any educational change work. He believes that Americans are living in a state that more closely resembles the 1890’s than the 1950’s. His best line of the day: “Liberals keep pitching softball to right wingers.”

My afternoon session focused on landscape and geography, which are topics near and dear to my heart. Landscape architect and professor Christopher Marlow from Ball University presented a fascinating session on how gaming is used by his students to learn important conceptual principles of designing inside and outside common spaces. Students were also given the opportunity to develop their own games for learning. He described his favourite, Sustainability which is based on Plants and Zombies where players have to decide where to place the best water drainage systems. Julie Oltman of Lehigh University demonstrated how ARIS could be used to augment a field trip for grade 3 students.

The last session of the day was my favourite: Collaborative Content Generation. Mark Chen of Pepperdine showed his research on Twine games with disadvantaged youth in Los Angeles. These games are low-tech, choose-yoiur-own-adventure digital narratives. His goal was to give a voice to the participants through play, where they collect written word, digital photos and hand-drawn pictures etc. Anthony Betrus, Nate Turcotte an Matt Leifeld demonstrated the simple card game, Teaching Bad Apples which they designed for Pre-Service teacher education. We all played in the session and had a blast. Players are given 2 cards with different response options that teachers may have in a given situation. Next  a situation card is drawn and players must apply their card. Of course the options are almost always humorous but act as a spring board for a deeper conversation of that scenario. David Ng of the Michael Smith Lab at UBC finished up with Phylo. This game leverages crowd sourcing to create trading cards games that foster learning in any domain. He uses biodiversity cards that were ultimately adopted and produced by the Beatty Biodiversity Museum at UBC. Check out his project at phylogame.org.

It was a warm and beautiful night overlooking the Terrace at Memorial Union. Once again we were spoiled with delicious food an beer. I’m not sure how I’m going to source Leinenkugal Shady in Vancouver.

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GLS11: Day 2

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I am a conference newbie, so selecting sessions to attend is complicated by not fully understanding the different options. Keynotes and workshops – I get those, but fireside chat, paper and poster sessions? not so much. Before I go any further I’ve got to comment on the food provided at GLS11. It is not your average proD fare. In fact, I think the brats and pretzels of lunch one on Tuesday was just a teaser because meals just keep getting more and more varied and complex. Of course, it never runs out so can eat your fill.

The morning breakfast keynote featured Dr. Nichole Pinkard and her Chicago Learning Network. Her goal is to integrate the learning of digital literacies between school, home and the community throughout the city with a system of completion badges. Mentors are used as the “secret sauce” to help students transfer their understandings and skills between the different settings of their lives so to maximize employment and educational opportunities for them where that otherwise may not occur. It is powerful and important work. Have a look at digitalyouthnetwork.org.

My next session was a presentation with breakout sessions based on a new publication: Teacher Pioneers: Adventures with Media, Pedagogy and Play in K-16 Learning. This resource is just becoming available and features a cast of impressive educators who tell their stories about innovation and change using playful learning. Sean Dikkers was the draw for me. I’ve heard him speak a few times now and he always captures my attention and interest. He was a principal in norther Minnesota in a school with a 100% drop-out rate for special needs learners. He was given carte-blanche to make any changes he saw necessary, so he introduced pedagogy of fun, play and gaming into all courses in the school. In a few short years 70% of the special needs students were now graduating.

Next up – UBC’s own David Ng, a geneticist and science literary writer with the Michael Smith laboratories, who spoke about how he has integrated a card-based game with his students and the impact that bringing the notion of play continues to have on them. David is a very interesting guy. Among other things, his dad beat-up Bruce Lee, which grants him cross-generational cred. I’ll be checking-out his joint session on collaborative content generation this afternoon.

One of the concepts that came out of this session was new to me- the proD “hack-a-thon”. Here, staff are challenged to create a digital tool or game for learning in a tight time period – typically 3 hours. It is high energy and crazy-making, and inevitably groups fail at some level (or many). In the process, they get to reframe failure as iteration of design rather than dishonour.

The fireside chat features the iconic Jim Gee, author of the ground-breaking book in 2003, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Literacy and Learning. Jim sat in an armchair on the stage of the great hall in front of a 14-foot screen of a burning fire place (it was very funny), entertaining us all with his rant on assessment, appropriately called “Assessment and Stupidity.” I think the title speaks for itself. Jim was on fire (heh heh, sorry – could’t resist).

The afternoon was paper session time for me. This is where people are given 20 minutes to describe recent work that they have published. The theme of this sessions was reluctant learners. Betsy DiSalvo of the Georgia Tech presented her research on bad game design’s impact on the subject in Pink Boxes and Chocolate-Dipped Broccoli. It focused particularly on girls. Beth King of UW Whitewater presented a powerful paper on the challenges of African-American boys learning in gang-riddled South Chicago. This was particularly moving in light of the 54 people killed there this past weekend, including a 7-year-old boy in gang related violence. She used the Sims as a means for the boys to communicate what it is like to be “living in the Life.” It was eye-opening.

My favourite part of the day was the poster sessions in the Great Hall at dinner. Here, you have the opportunity to speak one-on-one with presenters who stand if front of high-production posters and share their work. The amount of work you can see while walking around with dinner in hand was amazing. Examples included: connecting students with autism with peers through games, how games support formative assessment, using games and simulations in climate change science education using games to teach global connectedness. One of my favourites was the work of Concordia’s Tom Fennewald, who has developed a card game called Troubled Lands. Here, players learn about the complex decision making of government about the environment by casting players as one of three characters who must compete and cooperate to manage the limited land they access to. Tom is going to share his resources with me so that I can play the game with my classes next year.

Of course, the beer continued to flow, and following a performance by Deidra Kiai called Cofee- A Misunderstanding people, attendees played games in the arcade area until midnight. I had to turn-in early. I was exhausted.

Today at the ARIS Summit, UW Madison

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I had an amazing day at the ARIS Summit at the University of Wisconsin, Madison today. First of all, if every have a reason to make a trip here, take it. Make excuses if you have to. It is a beautiful setting on the isthmus between Lake Mendota and Lake Menona. It has a number of “halls” (buidlings) dating back to the pre-Civil War days, a student’s union to beat all others, and loyalty to the Badger brand in the logo, crest and apparel of everyone walking around that is remarkable.ARIS2

The summit is a part of the national Games+Learning+Society Conference hosted annually in Madison. If you are interested in the effects of play on learning, and gaming in all forms from cards, boards and mobile media -this is where you want to be every July.

ARIS stands for “augmented reality for interactive storytelling.” It was developed at UW, Madison and an extended group of committed colleagues at other institutions across the U.S. as an open-sourced platform for creating mobile games, tours and interactive stories. Every year, host David Gagnon of the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery (WID: a community that studies information at the intersection of research, education and business ) and his team host a summit to bring together folks world-wide who use ARIS in some context of learning.

Today was informational, transformative and inspiring. It started with an update from the developers outlining the new implementation of the game editor and the inclusion of ARIS into into the Field Day Lab, WID’s interdisciplinary team of educators, researchers, software engineers, artists and story tellers.

This was followed by a live Skype broadcast session with research fellows, Eleni Kolovou and Maria Saridaki from Greece who outlined the INVOLVEN program, a European Lifelong Living Program (LLP) spanning 5 nations that focuses on intergenerational storytelling through classroom-, location- and web-based experiences focusing on conservation efforts. Next, RIT’s Owen Gotltleib outlined Jewish Time Jump, a focusing on the enduring historical themes played through the narrative of a time traveling reported investigating about unrest among factory workers in early 20th century.

Harvard’s Amy Kamarainen and Shari Metcalfe demonstrated the potential of integrating virutal ecosystem game EcoMuve with augmenting a real field trip using EcoMobile, where Elementary students were able to learn about pond ecology before visiting a real swamp to perform specimen analysis, all done though ARIS. Before lunch,  Nicolaas VanMeerten of the University of Minnesota showed how user analytics could be used to inform design decisions (just like in the NHL!)

In the afternoon session, Dana Atwood-Blaine of the University of Northern Iowa outlined her research investigating mastery learning using mobile learning and comparing the performance of boys and girls on STEM outcomes using ARIS at the hands-on science centre in Kansas City. Then it was my turn. I presented Dilemma 1944, my Second World War decision for enlistment game based on a narrative of Kitsilano students from the era. It was a bit un-nerving speaking in front of this crowd, but it went very well.

Phil Dougherty, Tim Lindstrom and Eric Church, all of UW outlined the complicated iterative process in creating a game on a grant budget in “Sustainable U.” The game can be played any time by students on campus to remind them of how to make good decisions about recycling and conserving energy. With their budget, they were able to hire graphic designers and animators to enhance the visual impact of their game while promoting mindful environmental practices among the student body.

In the final sessions, Denise Bressler of the Stevens Institute of Technology, Julie Oltman of Lehigh University demonstrated how iPads loaded with ARIS could enrich a grade 3 field trip to a farm; Charles Leffingwell showed how a similar system could be used in medical and nursing training; Tim Lindstorm outlined SIFTER, a geo-locative extension for ARIS that allows users to document and share images collect in field studies. Finally, Guatamala’s Elias Tzoc, a web developer for the Center of Digital Studies at Miami University in Ohio presented how ARIS was used to transfer a field activity into an augmented humanities-based game on Freedom Summer.

It was a full of information. We finished-up with a beer garden on the Tripp Deck of Memorial Union overlooking Lake Mendota. ARIS1My head was buzzing with questions as I exchanged thoughts and ideas with this exception group of people. Special shout-outs to David Gagnon, Chris Holden, Tim Lindstorm and Jim Matthews for their insights and comments. Special shout-out to Hallah Ghanem for putting it all together. I’ve still got 3 more days of the Games+Learning+Society Conference. It’s a bit overwhelming.

Interested in game-based and mobile-media learning? This is ground zero.

Fussy Kitty: The Working Process with Moodle

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It was interesting watching my introductory unit come into clearer and clearer focus as the weekend approached – sort of like one of those first person perspectives in movies when a character awakens to a group of onlookers. All of the notes and information spread across thin TextEdit windows which I use in my workflow to keyboard and view an open page clutter the bottom of the screen while the open tabs from above get narrower as I continue to open more. What I am trying to say is that a lot of parts had to be collected in the whole of the final product. The ride was intense.

One of the difficulties that I experienced was the difference between the edit screen, the logged-out screen and the screen from the perspective of a guest login. It became obvious to me from the outset that working from the authoring side of Moodle was not always a straight-forward process. The unit headings of my schedule page looked fine with my login, but on the guest login they were crushed into the right column. Lots of times, adding tools was counter-intuitive, and involved checking YouTube for complex work-around to seemingly simple processes. For example, I was surprised to learn that there was no simple way to link different elements within the course. The solution finally worked for me was to copy-paste the URL of the page as I would for an external site (super clunky).

The opposite was also true: what I expected to be complicated turned out to be simple. The large navigational gear buttons that I have at the top of the first section were accomplished very quicky by linking the graphics placed in a table. Unfortunately I was unable to hide the original feature icons without also disabling the link.

The documentation stage a big part of the clarifying process for me. Articulating a rationale for the online delivery of the course, describing decisions on the site’s visual design and explaining how my choice of tools connect to the unit objectives forced me to re-think my reasoning. In some cases I felt confident and justified in my design decisions, and in others I had go back into the site and tweak details. One of my last edits was to change the wording on my objectives. This is the iterative process. Documenting decisions was a good way to activate that process .

No Bad Turns

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It is interesting how creating a unit on Moodle begins slowly, then seems to gain its own momentum. The work flow is no longer linear, where I consult my design, determine the best tools to meet my objectives, learn how to use them, then create an overview, resource or activity. Now I am doing all of those things at the same time – in full throttle.

Activities 2 and 3 in the “Collaborating in Groups” section took a little more time than I had budgeted, but it was fun to explore the creation and editing process in Moodle. I also gained awareness of the difficulties of getting the desired formatting in the visual editor when cut and pasting content into topics, pages and fora. For example, there are numerous places where I can’t add a space or control the text that I highlight for headings. My colleague at work warned me that Moodle can get pretty clogged-up with necessary code imported from other applications. He showed me the icon for removing the code. I’ve switched to writing all my text in simple text mode.

It was also enjoyable creating the case studies of the sorts of characters that many teenagers encounter in group work throughout their school careers. I used the cases in the Oakley et al., (2004) paper and the Song et al., (2007) study for the free-loader and the sucker, then tweaked it to represent a profile that I know many students in my school would recognize. The other two cases were my own creation. My hunch is that most students will identify with these personalities; however I’m a little worried that some will have an aversion response that interferes with the activity. I’ll have to find that out for real in September.

Creating the activities for students to practice geographic inquiry by collaborating on a GIS map did not go as planned. I have to give a nod to ESRI here for emphasizing that introducing too much too soon with ArcGIS will have a negative impact on almost all students, and that a gradual scaffolding process over time works best. I was disappointed because I really want to introduce the inquiry process by providing them with the opportunity for success with the technology in the introductory unit.

The solution came as I noodle around ESRI’s ArcOnline site and discovered the story map Apps with numerous examples of the various tools for presenting GIS maps with images and media. I realized that the 5 steps of geographic inquiry could be applied easily in this format by linking photographs to map locations and creating a narrative. It is one of those serendipidous moments where a road block in the planning necessitates a change that improves the original design.

All of the main elements are now in place for my online introductory unit. I’m off the radar now for 2 days to celebrate my 25th anniversary. When I return on Thursday, it will be polish and documentation time.

Oakley, B., Felder, R. M., Brent, R., & Elhajj, I. (2004). Turning student groups into effective teams. Journal of student centered learning, 2(1), 9-34.

Song, L., Hannafin, M. J., & Hill, J. R. (2007). Reconciling beliefs and practices in teaching and learning. Educational Technology Research and Development, 55(1), 27-50. doi:10.1007/s11423-006-9013-6 .

Designing Activities for Moodle

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It has been a busy week of completing marks, boxing up my classroom in preparation for the move to the new wing of Kits next September, and beginning to build my Moodle from my UbD goals. There is a clarity and relief with surveying available activity with a clear sense of what understandings and performances that I am intending my students to achieve, and how that will be assessed. It’s like shopping for real estate with full pockets and a precise sense of what you are looking for. It continues to make the process of developing specific activities for this introductory unit quite enjoyable.

I am dealing with my second and third goals this week: gaining an awareness of different approaches to knowledge and learning, and developing 21st Century workplace team-based skills. I familiarized myself with the Constructivist sequencing frameworks that I learned in ETEC 530 last term and decided on the Driver and Oldham model (1986) and elements of the Predict-Observe-Explain model (White & Gunstone, 1992).

My second goal is concerned with students gaining an awareness of their own  epistemology and that expectation that it is most likely different from mine and other class members. Likewise, they need to determine the instructional strategies that have worked best for them in the past while considering new ones, like Constructivism.  I have decided on using the internal questionnaire tool in Moodle as a pre-assessment orientation opener.

There are two questionnaires. In the first, I have modified the language and edited Nott and Wellington’s (1993) epistemological survey and added some of my own questions based on Song, Hannifin and Hill’s (2006) “Reconciling Beliefs and Practices in Teaching and Learning” paper. In the second questionnaire, students focuses on personal learning preferences and what they expect of teachers. The final piece of the orientation is a TEDx Talk on Youtube: The Power of Belief – Mindset and Success. This is an excellent video where Eduardo Briceno differentiates between a fixed and growth mindset.

Students have their first opportunity to share their ideas in the forum: “The Nature of Knowledge and Learning.” Here they can clarify the concepts presented, discuss their own beliefs and learning preferences and challenge those of others. In the process, I am hoping that they will gain some awareness and sensitivity to the variety of ways that their classmates and teachers understand why we “do what we do” in school.

It is Friday, and I am about to begin work on the third goal concerning future workplace skills. I have come across some great resources on Edutopia that use the College Preparatory School in Oakland, California. My plan is to use it as a case-based example of collaborative learning. I will use a survey prediction as an orientation exercise where students rank what they think are the most desired workplace skills as determined by a national survey in the United States. I’ve also got an effective article by Oakley et al. (2003) that outlines group roles like hitchhiker and couch potato that I plan to work into the case study activity.

Next week is first goal: demonstrating how geographic thinking empowers people using ArcGIS Online. It’s going to be a busy weekend.

Nott, M. & Wellington, J. (1993). Your nature of science profile: An activity for science teachers. School Science Review. (75)270:109 – 112.

Oakley, B., Felder, R. M., Brent, R., & Elhajj, I. (2004). Turning student groups into effective teams. Journal of student centered learning, 2(1), 9-34.

Posner, G. J., Strike, K. A., Hewson, P. W., & Gertzog, W. A. (1982). Accommodation of a scientific conception: Toward a theory of conceptual change. Science education, 66(2), 211-227.

The UbD Process

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I have just completed going through Jay McTighe’s (2004) Understanding by Design Professional Development Workbook to develop my online introductory module for Assignment 2. I took my time investigating and considering each one of the steps, even though he advises against approaching the model prescriptively. I figured that for the first time around I would benefit from a direct application of his methods.

The process really forced me to consider whether or not I could connect each stage to my original goals. UbD tightens-up the design of a course or module and forces you to focus on harmonizing understandings and performance with a learning plan. My intention is to use this introduction in my Geography 12 course in September, so I wanted to be sure to include certain goals resulting from my previous attempts at a blended model. At the same time I want to have students experience success with geographic tools in a collaborative exercise as early as possible in the course. The introduction seems like the most logical and practical place to do so. I had to be careful not to let my desire to include GIS pre-empt design-based decision. I was glad to discover that it was a good fit.

In the past two experimental units with blended Geography 12, students biggest issues revolved around their resistance to new technology, working in teams, and the ill-structured and student-centered nature of Problem-Based Learning. In previous MET courses, I have written papers on technology acceptance and student resistance to Constructivist approaches to learning. The literature emphasized being proactive and addressing the issues at the beginning of an online course. At the same time, I know that the introduction of the course is a critical time to present geographical thinking and how it differs from other types of inquiry.

After a longer period that I can really afford in terms of my time, I have determined the three goals of my introductory unit, complete with understanding, essential questions, assessment evidence and learning plans:

1: Demonstrate how geographic thinking empowers people to address local, regional and global challenges concerning Earth’s natural environments and its diverse cultures.

2: Participate and consider different modes of learning

3: Develop 21st Century Workplace team-based skills

It took a considerable amount of time for me to familiarize myself with the components of geographic thinking. It’s been a year since I taught Geography 12 and I am long overdue to re-invest myself in the big-picture purposes that characterizes the discipline. It’s so easy to get lost in the content, particularly the old and tired geomorphology of the BC curriculum. Many thanks to the Canadian Geographic Society, the National Geographic Society and ESRI for their excellent online documentation and plethora of engaging media and tools.

Pre-planning for the Online Introductory Module

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June 16:

For the past few days I have been thinking an planning through the introductory module of the of my online Geography 12 course for next September. It will be useful to create it for a fully online course so that I gain that experience, and so that I can see how it can be adapted to a blended format. I’ve spent some time researching more about backward design by reading by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, and watching some of their excellent videos on Youtube (see below). It has been really helpful to hear them explain the design model and field questions from others.

My approach is going to be go back through my notes and reflections of my last attempts at teaching Geography 12 using what I thought at the time was a blended model (pre-MET days) and compare this information with papers I have written in 511, 500 and 512 where I focus on best practices for online PBL.

The introduction will focus on thinking geographically and using the tools of geography. Our school has a subscription to ArcOnline from ESRI Geographic Information Systems. My intention is to have students work collaboratively on project to create an interactive map and learn the functionalities of the tool in the process. The idea is to expose students to industry standard software as a way to situate them into the role of geographers, start to use the language of geography, differentiate between geographic thinking and other forms of investigation (possibly contrasting this with historical thinking), and starting to learn how to be effective team learners.

My timing goal is to have these early pre-planning stages worked out by the beginning of next week (starting June 22), have the rough draft reading for uploading to Moodle by the following weekend, then have the remainder of the week to revise and trouble-shoot. This hopefully factors -in my tendency for under-estimating the time I really need to complete assignments.

Ideally I would like to have been in a group for assignments 2 and 3 but I know that collaboration would be difficult with other commitments that have between now and July 5. I’m writing a proposal for the BC Social Studies PSA in October due on July 1st, which is also my 25th anniversary, and I’ve got to prepare a presentation for the ARIS Summit at the University of Wisconsin on July. Busy times.