My Ed Tech Dissertation Proposal in Prezi

This semester, I’m enrolled in a doctoral proposal course. The purpose of the course is to help students about to defend their dissertation proposal with a community of critical readers. It is a great idea, imho, to keep us on track during a time when many doctoral candidates begin to lose their way.
I recently had to present my dissertation argument to my fellow students. Few candidates are dissertation in my fields of interest: science education and educational technology, so I wanted to build my case very carefully for an audience outside of my area. Furthermore, most students are interested in quantitative research and while I’ve taken courses through advanced statistics, I’m far more interested in the types of questions qualitative research can answer, so I knew I’d have a lot of explaining to do.
Anyway, here is the ensuing Prezi. Some reflections on how the project was received after the jump.

Gaming across the curriculum: Finding and evaluating educational games.

This post shares resources from Trevor and my games workshop at ISTE 2010.

We kicked the workshop off with a brief talk. Here are the slides for that short presentation.

Integrating Games in Instruction

•    Remember there are a lot of ways to introduce games in your classroom, you can start by simply recommending them to families, media resource leaders, or special educators
•    Make sure learning objectives can be met within the amount of time you have dedicated in the classroom period
•    When evaluating a game, consider how the game helps you meet learning objectives more effectively (more engaging? Better visual explanation? More efficient?)
•    Have a student volunteer help you evaluate games you consider.
•    Make sure you know the source of the game. Games on dedicated educational website from a familiar place are less likely to have unwelcome pop-ups or comments.

Learning Games Directories

Playing History:      Open directory of history and civics games
Playing Science:     Open directory of science games
Games for Change:     Directory of social issue games
Super Smart Games Wide range of free and commercial
PBS Kids Games:     Great  set of early childhood k-6 games
**NOTE: Many of these directories link out to external sites. Over time links may break and we have no control over the content of external sites.

Game Recommendations

Marjee Recommends
Coaster Creator
Students learn about potential and kinetic energy in order to build a successful roller coaster that provides riders with lots of thrills, but brings them to the end platform safely!

Gravitee 2
A “casual game” meant for entertainment but is an “addictive” and fun way to examine satellite/ falling body behavior.

Trevor Recommends
Do I Have A Right
From Justice Sandra Day O’Conner’s iCivics project, Do I Have A Right, does a great job helping students explore and understand the Bill of Rights.

The Jamestown Online Adventure Game
In this alternative history game students chose different strategies for the Jamestown pioneers. The Jamestown Online Adventure Game does a nice job helping students develop a sense of both what happened and why it happened.