Once upon a time…

…there was an Educational Developer. Although teaching was her thing, it was sometimes hard to find a fit. Notes? Plans? Will they help? How about trying without, she thought with a gulp. She ventured wholeheartedly into endeavours, but sometimes they would reveal, dragons, monsters and ghouls galore. Technology her shield, content ready to wield to…

Working towards a Learning Design

To create a learning design for staff is one of my key objectives, to do so I want to understand different elements so that we are in a position to make informed choices about best options for us. A learning design describes the educational process, not just the courseware but the whole teaching and learning…

What is ethnography?

A mixture of a way of doing research and of writing about it. It is both a method and a way of conveying your findings. Ethnography has 2 routes – anthropology and sociology. Criticism – It is just storytelling? Is it unobjective? Is this also a positive? Stories capture who we are as people. Participant…

IDGBL Week 11 – Motivation and Emotion Notes

What has my IDGBL story been? How has engagement with the course led to a shift in your thinking? Frustration and resilience – WoW being kicked from the dungeon Intrinsic motivation – comes from engagement with a task Extrinsic motivation – comes from the application of an external reward for successful completion Cognition and affect. How we…

IDGBL Week 11 – Tutorial – Charlie and Paul Notes

Put people into groups to work together to create a game and gain literacies Quizzed on how elements of Gee’s principles/ motivation is impacted by games Google forms are great for collecting data Interested to see how Gee’s principles relate to work of class craft Narrative/ storytelling in games – beginning, middle, end Something to…

Sandboxes, creativity and survival – weeks 4-5

To position this post I have included previous Minecraft blogs that I completed as part of IDEL. I felt like this was a good thing to do to remind myself of where I was at when I encountered Minecraft for the first time. Sandbox games free the player from traditional video game structures and direction…

W,S,A,D,E,Scroll,Space,Shift – Weeks 4-5

This blog post has been taken from my IDEL blog and was posted on 16th October 2016. Since my W,S,A,D post I have, as I said I would been using Minecraft. I have been using it to experiment with building structures and to learn about what Minecraft actually is. I still can’t really answer that question,…

IDGBL – Weeks 9-10 Mobile Games

I wanted to take some opportunity to jot down my thoughts on mobile games before I get stuck in so here goes. I have had iPhone’s for as long as I can remember so most games I play/ have played are on IOS. I tend to not really use Android devices and plus, they usually…

SOCRM Week 5 – Notes on Dealing with data

The course has now shifted away from ‘generating’ data towards ‘dealing with’ data. Hardy and Bryman (2004) describe this as a process of “telling a story” in that analysis consists of practical, conceptual and ethical activities that take research data, and use them to generate findings. This story is about the data and how they…

Preparing for data analysis and SPSS

It is intended that this post will serve as a reminder of things I need to remember and consider on my journey of research and data analysis. This will form the start of my crafting, my recipe so to speak. It is important to be aware that the way in which statistical data is presented…

It’s ok to not be ok

Suits (2005) reflects that people choose to play games as a “voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles”. Over the past weeks of exploring games, game-based learning and those things associated I have explored emotion in a multitude of ways. Emotion within games Emotion whilst playing games A storyline that includes emotion Emotion and a form…

Being open to games and play

I have always considered myself to be open-minded and accepting. However, learning on IDGBL has shown me that perhaps I wasn’t as open-minded and accepting as I first thought. It’s a funny thing, opening yourself up to experiencing something new. It is both exhilarating an terrifying. Positively Present identify 7 benefits of being open-minded: Letting go of control Experiencing changes Making yourself vulnerable…