I would agree that self-determined learning pathways are key for those who are motivated and enthusiastic about improving/refining/creating their pedagogical outlooks. However, this balances with the fact that many faculty are more expert in different arenas that are not instruction or learning facilitation. Perhaps the long-term answer is more in how the university/learning institute is structured, how educators are hired, etc, but, as it stands, there are plenty of instructors who need more guided pathways because they wouldn't know where to start without them. A PLN could help mitigate this, but we start to run up against the bandwidth issue again. How do we simplify without dumbing it down or being overly prescriptive?

With the teacher as both a learning individual and part of the learning collective - everyone should be learning. I like how including the teacher in the equation makes it easier to envision just how personal learning is. We're all learning a bit differently, through different lenses, and on different paths. An excellent classroom brings our paths together for a time, giving us exposure to each other's journeys, including that of the teacher.

I agree with this - I think there's been a major push toward trying to provide more options, more quickly because more people need/want to advance their education and many of them have different requirements to make it happen. But it's also really hard to keep the student in mind when you're packaging content without the context of who your students are both collectively and as individuals. Creates an unfortunate tension for those who want to provide these educational options/opportunities, but who also want to remain student-focused.

Interesting - I had never thought of this before.

What are the strength s of discussing alongside the text.

Is a low-stakes environment essential for this or are there ways of constructing safe, higher-stakes environments?

This is something I'm struggling with defining - it is difficult to place parameters around "good discussion."

That makes sense - it's easier to identify connections within contexts that are familiar (I imagine people also feel more confident in these scenarios). I wonder if there would be value in encouraging that "next step" of application to less familiar habits.

Cool! ![] (https://goo.gl/images/e9iQpY)

My brother and I were just talking about this the other day. He's taking "high school" math in college and wishes he had already taken it, but I think it might be more useful to him now that he's on a career path. The applications will be less abstract and more clear.

https://youtu.be/5i_JXLfyiMA

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I heart #6 - Run Lola Run! You have excellent taste in movies

Ok, I'm going to try a few 1) I'm hoping that's from 5th Element - Bruce Willis shouldn't do his hair that way too often... 3) The Mummy 4) Clue I don't have guesses on the others!

Yay! I think it's such an interesting experience. Even if it isn't someone's "thing," it's a really great way of seeing the different ways a tool can be used.

I love this idea. I'm sure I can work it into something for the library...

I would be sad trying to learn all by myself on the internet! Our networks (and cohorts:-)) are important in helping us shape and test our learning and knowledge. We push each other to greater heights!

I was seeing lots of Tweets about this. Pokemon have really stood the test of time, haven't they? How many cartoons continue to get this kind of response this long after they first appeared?

I'm feeling like I need to check this out!

Do we need to tag these kids with "car alert" beepers? I'm going to be having nightmares about this aspect...

My shadowing reading along with me <script async="" src="//&lt;a href=" http:="" embedr.flickr.com="" assets="" client-code.js"="" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

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I wish I had been able to do this in my undergrad college days! All of the notes scribbled in margins that were so easily misplaced...

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A DS106-centric Daily Create!

Yes! And these end up being such complicated questions/answers since things like fair use are a moving target...

Bearded Sea Monkey...

Squirrels! Those crazy, food-stealing (from the library?), fluffy-tailed creatures.

And a second Daily Create for the week! Here's a little "Sandbox Zen Garden" for you...

Things that make me happy!!

As I mention in the video, I think a more prominent "here's the place to start" might be helpful. One person had started a "training" area, but it was a little out of date and not the easiest to navigate. I don't know how many times I visited it before I realized it had a feature I had been looking all over for (a beginner's glossary). But it was listed under Miscellaneous and you only really saw it was there if you scrolled through everything to that section. A great effort on that person's part, but it could be improved!

I doubt I would be back, unless someone contacted me with a really great explanation!

It seems that most people consider the training levels as beginner enough. However, I did also get the scoop that the free version I am using is one of the earlier game versions, so it may be that the training levels have improved with new updates.

I didn't really notice much additional info given for people, although, I'll be honest, I didn't really look that closely. When you asked about how many women are on the site, I realized that I had no clue! A few people that I interacted with had screen names and/or images that suggest they are more likely male. I don't remember encountering anyone in particular that I can easily infer as being female.

Oooh, what science fiction are you into at the moment? I just finished watching The Expanse and am thinking I'll pick up MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood when I have some downtime (I love the other two books, but didn't really get into that one when I tried it previously). Ok, I'll stop geeking out off-topic now:-)

I never figured I'd appreciate the space more than the game. That was really a revelation to me.

To a certain extent, I'd say it doesn't if it's working. There is a reason why people stay in the space, and, I imagine, if power became over-played there would be a lot less going on here. However, as a concept, it starts to bring us back to some "big picture of humanity" concepts that revolve around power and control. It's difficult to not envision the utopian/dystopian visions that are currently popular in film and literature. And, you know, one person's Utopia is always someone else's Dystopia...

Which relates nicely back to the discussion of agency, ownership and vision in Tategate (aka, Annospate:)). What are your rights as "owner" of a space? Of content? What are the boundaries/are there boundaries (I think Gamergate shows us that there are)? What happens when visions collide and who must give way?

So true! It's hard to slip in and out of a room without anybody ever noticing. Not a big challenge online, most of the time.

I do sometimes find it surprising how differently people tend to behave if they think they won't be caught out...

This is a really good question! Since I have no explicit examples of what's "too much" on the site, it's really hard to judge how much is actually being controlled. I suspect they don't crack down on every little disagreement, but I don't really know for sure...

Thanks, Susan! I think it's good to push our personal boundaries (which you might also be able to relate to;-)). I'm glad to be working with a group of people that supports our forays, and, as Susannah suggests in her comments for Code Combat, it makes it much easier to explore when you know you've got a supportive space to head back to at the end of the day.

Interesting thought!

I didn't get anything that I would consider a negative response. A few people were more inclined toward pointing "in the right direction" rather than explicitly helping, which I think is fairly common in forums. I, personally, find this annoying at times when I've been fairly explicit about having searched those areas. And, for the most part, I was framing questions in terms of opinion ("do you have a favorite resource for..."), rather than asking for any sort of set answer. It's not horrible to redirect questions, but it's not always treating someone as an individual with whom you're engaging in conversation, either. I'd say those were the least engaging moments of interaction overall.

I didn't really think about them while I was posting. I imagine most people don't really think about it unless they run into trouble...

My thought here is that while there is a certain degree of conferred leadership (usually people who participate a lot or are known for having a particular expertise, perhaps a moderator), Squad members are employees and they have final control over how/what people are sharing within the Community. They are hired by a company (Squad), therefore, the company controls the appointed leadership of the space. Does that make more sense? Lisa suggests in her comment that she sees this as a different role (administrator rather than leader).

I wish that I had gotten a better picture of what would actually count as a flare-up since what is "moderated out" could span quite a range. I'm guessing that there's still room for discussion/disagreement, which wouldn't preclude contested or controversial discussion, as long as people were keeping a certain level of respect in their discourse. I'm guessing that some of those more technical conversations would be helpful in answering some of this point better as that's where "contested" information is more likely to show up. I wonder if searching the forums for "polite argument" would give me any results...

It doesn't appear to have one...CommonSenseMedia suggests 14+ and I see a few suggestions to parents around the web that say it would likely be an E-10+ because of the crashing and (un-depicted) death of crew (the Kerbals).

I think that's probably a good thought, although there's nothing that expressly states it anywhere. There is also the following guideline, which is interesting in relation to minors: "(4.4) Users under the age of 18 who reveal their age and/or face on official KSP community channels, may have their messages/photos removed for privacy purposes." Not sure if that is a common practice...

I come back to "individual and distributed knowledge" for this space. There are lots of examples of individualized experiences/knowledge sharing - that's probably particularly true here where people are more regularly needing feedback specific to their projects in order to move forward. However, from your tour of the space, it seems like there are also many places where distributed knowledge is important and useful because it allows people to get the less project-specific "stuff" out of the way without waiting for individualized answers.

It seems like you were somewhat inclined to bounce ideas/experiments off of your affinity space to see what would happen. I like this aspect of your presentation as it illustrates an awareness of, and a playfulness with, our somewhat constructed experiences in these various spaces we’ve chosen I think your approach highlights the usefulness of "trying it out" in settings other than just the classroom in order to better understand real life applications, limitations and practicalities.

I enjoyed your analysis of different types of contributions versus the various types of responses you received. If I understand correctly, more interest and response seem to be generated when you posted things that were geared toward catching the eye of the more active members. You also mention that short responses to discussion threads seemed to get more likes and that you could get a higher Retweet count when you included key terms to get the bots to take over pushing your Tweets.

I like this setup for adding responses via hypothes.is! Posting in segments is a bit easier on the brain, I think.

From your descriptions, it sounds like the vast majority of the time people are providing feedback, which can include constructive criticism, brainstorming and polite support, with the general push toward encouraging people to continue forward with their ideas, although that encouragement might also come with some practical “heads up” about the realities of what they’re trying to accomplish (I’m thinking of the responses to “BingoBob” that certainly included ideas for moving forward, but also added a bit of a reality check to the situation). Did you see any areas where people got testy or defensive? What happened if the conversation started going downhill?

And yet I think it's also important to understand that while digital natives (aka, the children being taught now) may understand how to use a device and access a wealth of information, they will still need help learning the underpinnings and contexts in which technology fits into our lives and societies (and also ways in which it might not). Being a good digital citizen and having an understanding of what technology affords you as an individual/us as a society has a great deal of value.

Harry Potter!! Who went to a very low tech school, from what I could tell...

Love this quote! I think this perspective helps get rid of some of the stereotyping people are prone to when it comes to the digital divide among professionals.

Ha! The people who think that haven't met many teens:)

Also, does the highlighting on this annotation match up for readers? It doesn't look right on my screen...

It would be interesting to see if/how this experience impacted the student over time. Did the interest in the local community and local issues "stick"?

Adding back in the personal/human element after the more removed/distancing research. I like the structure of this.

Yay! I'm glad this was part of the conversation.

I wonder if they had a back-up strategy for if this had been inverted...

Not the first place that we've discussed "constraints" in this course, but I like this perspective from a design standpoint. Adding constraints thoughtfully and with purpose in order to give shape to the vision. Which we see in all games that have rules (and that we sometimes adjust to better fit our own visions:)).

The anthropologist in me particularly appreciates this statement! Interpretation and perspective is key to understanding culture (including gaming and learning culture:)) and acknowledging that there can be legitimate differences in interpretation is important.

This is a rough one - different visions can really make or break a budding program or initiative.

The cross-discipline approach is a pretty straightforward way of allowing people to customize their learning within the structure of the institution!

Interesting

Yes! The short game helps with the long game.

This is a nice statement about what the author sees as meaningful. I also find myself in agreement as both an instructor and a learner - it's pretty exciting to get to the point where the learning connections start to branch out from the main core of the class in constructive ways. It also takes a confident instructor/mentor to feel comfortable with this!

I was happy to see a clause that they can go back to making their claims if they gather appropriate evidence - it makes the precedent much clearer if people are referring back to this case that with proper evidence, you would be welcome to market your game/brain product/whatever as a tool. I think that's important when we're talking about what games might actually do for people.

And isn't that part of why people end up feeling territorial over it? Because it's common and "naturalized" and people don't want to feel bad about themselves and their lifestyles? If only self-reflection didn't make people feel all insecure! It's a highly underrated skill...

This reminds me of a Language and Gender class I took in 2004; people in general were very uncomfortable discussing rape in broader contexts (aka, outside of violent attacks). We also discussed sexual harassment and abuse within online gaming communities. Gaming communities weren't as popular at that time, and many classmates felt like something happening "virtually" didn't count - almost to the point where people didn't understand why we were even discussing the topic. It would be interesting to know what a class of undergrads would have to say today; I wonder if the perspective has changed much (from some of our current reading, I would guess that it hasn't!).

It's difficult to organize the digital annotations well enough for them to be easily referenced later. I can find some things through the tags, some through ctrl f, and some by revisiting the text, but it's more challenging than I would have thought. Makes me miss my tabbed notebooks...

In anthropology, part of the writing style I learned was to, basically, always qualify one's conclusions since one is never the definitive interpreter of cultures, behaviors, etc. However, the application of qualifiers to nouns is oddly different and can be quite subversive. Which, I think, is part of the point here!

We probably all have examples of these skills and competencies that we have had to acquire along the way. I like to contemplate in what ways this has always been true for humans (think about your range of relatives and what feels different versus natural for each) and in what ways this time period is unique for these changes.

This is such an important skill - I would love to see more, also, about teaching to create and critique one's own work (along the lines of "with great power comes great responsibility")

I would like to change this to say, "every person" rather than "every child" - I think it's important to regard all ages as benefiting from artistic expression, and I would suggest that it's fairly common for people to trivialize non-professional creativity in adults.

A bit of an ear worm here...

I would have been interested in knowing more about the individual responses of these youth in relation to the game design experience. I would also be interested in knowing how much of the "inspired by" designs adjusted cultural aesthetics to match the youth-designer's vision and how much they tended to try and repeat what their exposure to the original games taught them about game aesthetics.

This makes me consider the concept of human communication in an even broader sense! Probably everyone on the planet could work on this one..

If you were working with this group of youth, how would you help them relate their game design experiences back to technology design in general? Do you think it's necessary to be explicit about the relations in order to make them meaningful to the learner?

For additional reading, if you're interested: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/6482/being-fluent-with-information-technology

What evidence best supports this argument? Anywhere that the argument falls short?

This makes sense as they indicated that gaming fluency includes technical implementation as well as creative production in their earlier definition.

Does this definition/terminology affect your view of the topic? Why is it important to include?

As you read through the case studies, what stands out to you? What are your initial thoughts in relation to these stories?

Consider Salen's Litmus Test stages...

What do you think about this statement? Do you have an opinion about "arbitrary" versus "not arbitrary" in this instance?

Or, perhaps, even scholarly inquiry and reflection? Time to write some blog posts, everyone!

How cool is that?!

War Games

I assume that "who" is sort of built in, but do you see a place for "where" and "when" here as well?

It might also be interesting to consider if a strategy could be too broad. Is a activity intended to spark motivation in most/all individuals likely to succeed? Is it possible to make an activity flexible enough that the appeal can easily be shifted depending on the audience? As an instructor/designer, what kind of resources would be needed for such an endeavor?

I think I could pretty much highlight this whole passage, but I will resist. Again, any real life examples out there?

Before the author offers ideas, do you have any to share?

@midnight? Sorry...had to.

Anyone have either a positive or negative experience with gamification they'd like to share?

http://centurydiamonds.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/r/o/round_solitaire_diamond_engagement_ring_3.jpg

While the Bogost specifies that he and McGonigal are not opposites, this is an interesting "versus" comparison considering that Bogost said several times that he is not as optimistic as McGonigal. Yet, McGonigal wrote a book about reality being broken, where Bogost says, essentially, that reality is what it is. Which is more optimistic in your view? Where do values come into play? How do your own values affect your view of the topic?

In what ways would you agree and/or disagree with this statement about games that "engage problems?"

Since we aren't reading the book itself, this might be a bit off-topic, but do you have any initial responses to these ideas from Reality is Broken that Bogost highlights?

This is an interesting statement because I would argue that gateways are often necessary components to moving into different realms of interest. They suggest to me a place to start - a foundation. Where does foundational knowledge come from if some of these concepts are not explored independent of a driving passion? How does one discover a passion if one is only participating in that for which one has a passion? How do we connect our passions back to broader concepts if we do not have the foundational knowledge to communicate with language/understanding that is shared by a wider audience? I feel like there is something missing...or maybe I'm just missing something!

Do we know if any of this research has been done in the meantime? **Note to self to look into it!

But that visitor is not necessarily afforded any rights within the group that runs the newsroom. There are still a lot of social structures that have to be dealt with and complexities of interaction. Does the visitor feel to be a part of the affinity space if the news reporters and editors aren't interested in interacting? Depends on a variety of factors. Might belonging then be more dependent upon the perspective of the visitor (which is likely related to what they came to accomplish)?

So the affinity space is the general population (you belong because "you are"/you were interested enough to show up), and these groups then be the niche spaces that may have their own rules (and might be less open). This will be interesting as part of our exploration of affinity spaces to discover if the sub-groups have a lot of impact on the experience. I imagine it really depends on the original space and what it provides to users. Makes me start contemplating "ownership" of spaces and groups.

This point is intriguing to me as it suggests a marker for when a game might need to be abandoned or revisited as a learning tool (if the learners don't understand the play structure). But I think this is often also a transformative point - how often do players then just make their own rules and forge ahead? This reminds me of Susannah's comment in the Games, gods and grades article; transformative points may be useful in that they can allow the learner/players to be more in charge of the game/problem. However, there is a lot to consider in how/why/when this may or may not work!