I have always been kind of techy and try to incorporate things into my instruction that are "fun" for my students (hopefully) but I haven't really tried doing anything really big yet so I was excited to go to the MACUL conference on Friday.
I also had never been to Grand Rapids- It is a pretty cool place! :)
Moving on,
I went to a session on "Gamification" mostly because I like video games and the speaker, Liz Kolb, works at the UM School of Education. We had previously talked about making our classes like a game and I had come up with sort of the same thing she talked about. Using quests and such to maneuver students through content.
Liz talked about the resources she used to "gamify" her classroom and they look really interesting. I think from a World Language standpoint these "quests" would be great for assessing where students are in terms of culture, vocabulary, and grammar knowledge- depending on how you create them. I haven't had a chance to really dive into the 3dgamelab.com things to see. I like the idea of using badges to get students to new levels and not having to grade everything with paper. BUT what about those students who don't have internet? Liz gamified a university classroom where everyone has internet. I think that using this concept in a high school depends on the demographic and socio-economic status of your students. There are schools where not everyone has internet at home.
The only issue I have with all of this is that it costs money. If you want to use it for more than 75 students, you have to pay a monthly fee. I understand that these companies have to make money but it bothers me that all this super awesome stuff we learn and talk about costs money. Then I remind myself that I live in the US and get back to reality.
