Millions of children from around the world will be exposed to the music and history of the Beatles through Rock Band, an interactive musical video game. I say, the world is a better place for it! As one who caught the tail end of the British Invasion that culminated with one of the greatest musical collaborations in rock and roll history, I discovered the Beatles in High School and preferred them to the 80's synthesizer bands of the day. Although this may be viewed through a lens of pop culture zaniness,, I think there is a powerful lesson for adults and educators to learn with the help of the Fab Four. Specifically,.... gaming, MMPORG, MUVE(s) etc. if harnessed well, can be used for powerful learning, by meeting children at the waters edge of their interest - with our curriculum, so they can thrive in the world of 21st Century Learning Skills.
However, let me back up a bit. I have been promoting the virtual world, Second Life, as a fantastic educational tool for adults, and have run into a wide range of reactions from skepticism to fear, to well, just plain... "are you kidding me?" As a former skeptic myself, I thought if I could just show people what Second Life is and its potential, they would see and follow. Yet, many of our workshops still leave people wondering if this technology is worth pursuing. So let me try to establish a more solid foundation to begin with, so we can build a better understanding of the goals of this project and convince educators of its validity. ** So the goal of this presentation is to provide you with the key elements of professional development and social studies learning. Then demonstrate how MUVE’s can be used for powerful learning experiences for students and teachers.
Here is one definition of quality professional development from Pexotto and Palmer. I have highlighted several key words for emphasis. I think most teachers should be able to relate to the concepts of time, and direct application to the classroom
Key bullet points to note from this… 1-4, 7,8,9,10. So, let's begin with professional development. Professional development (PD) can come in a variety of forms and descriptions. In general, good professional development embodies the following elements: Qualified and experienced speakers, flexible time/ variety of modalities, and it must be relevant to individual classroom/ curriculum.
Now let us turn our focus to quality social studies learning. How do we generate interest, inspire, and pull ourselves and our students into the world of history and culture? Well, we can look at this definition by the NCSS Task force. While this is talking about the elementary learner, surely we can see the correlation between older learners. So lets break these elements down.
What are ways that we as adults learn about social studies content? I would venture to guess that most of us as adult learners are getting our social studies information through Historical fiction/ non fiction. Internet is also giving us an avenue to learn. Can we think back to when we were children to find clues to our social studies learning? What was the primary hook? The narrative… the ability to see a historical figure through someone else's eyes…. What about movies? Didn’t we latch on to history through Like you were there! Right… The minds eye view of history. Is that so different from today’s learner?
So lets talk about today’s student. If we can say that they are similar to us in viewing history and culture through the minds eye what gives them this view? Certainly historical fiction and non fiction is our ultimate goal. But let’s be realistic. Many of our students are latching on to history through computer games, the internet, and movies.