The first lesson where students were allowed to join the Numeracy world finished about an hour ago. I am still trying to wrap my head around exactly what happened during the lesson, the recording will help with this, but one thing I am definitely sure of is that students were engaged. There were some teething issues with the install, but they were quickly fixed. Then there were some naming issues, which caused some students to be unable to collect their pay until they logged in with their 'proper' name.
Shane and Matt were on Skype for the hour or so students had access to the world, and their feedback on what they heard has been fantastic. An interesting point here is that the students were amazed that these people wanted to hear what they were doing. They have both given me some of their thoughts on things to adjust before next time, or at least in the near future, that will make it easier to manage, and perhaps free me up in class too. One great idea that I will most likely be offering to students next week, is an extra payment for being a 'helper' that goes around the room helping other students if they get stuck.
One student, already, killed a spider, went to the not yet implemented sales floor and wanted to sell his piece of string to get some extra cash. Now that is an entrepreneur in the making right there. Many students did exactly what I was hoping they would do, once they ran out of cash, or things to do in the numeracy world, they wanted to log into the creative world to make their houses. So what I am thinking of doing is putting that creative world as a MystCraft dimension in the Numeracy world, so that they can stay in the same log in, and head over and keep building. This will also make it easier for me to copy/paste their houses over when it is time to do so.
Another interesting thing that happened was students were helping defend each other from the monsters at night, one even learnt from their first death, went and bought a sword and then went back out to help out even more.
The discussions with students were quite interesting, one student was trying to buy 64 raw fish, so I went over, asked her if she really wanted to buy 64 raw fish, she said no, I only want one. So we headed to the right floor and went to buy one. Then I went on and asked if she wanted to buy a cooked fish for 4 stone, or an uncooked fish for 2 stone. She said, "Will I need to cook it?" my response was yeah you probably should. She then needed to add it to her budget, when she worked out she just paid $20 for one raw fish she went "20 DOLLARS!!! WHAT!!!!" Hopefully students will learn the value of thinking about their spending as time in world progresses.
So where to from here? Next up is to demo to students how the traders work, and how the bank currency swap works. I am planning on using the first part of each lesson to teach students particular in-game skills that they will need. Also I will be beginning to offer worksheets on percentages ready for them to apply for their home loan in the coming weeks.
Thanks for reading, there will be another post later today after the transcription/translation lesson is run this afternoon.
mercredi 10 août 2016
Massive Day Part 2 Done!
Well the transcription/translation lesson has just finished. It ranged from a massive disappointment to a mediocre success. The principle is completely sound, and the machinery worked as it was supposed to. However there were a few issues getting in the way of it being the roaring success I was hoping for.
The top one being the lag, when on my computer, with one lot of machines running and only me on the server, I could place blocks quite fast, so the RNA sequence moved along at a decent pace and got to the ribosome relatively quickly. However having 10 of the machines running with 8 students at only 4 of them, the lag was atrocious. This is not client lag, this was server lag, and I think it was due to the number of computers on an infinite loop to do things. (I was warned to stay away from infinite loops, but I did not quite realise the impact they would have.)
As I stopped, or killed off, the unnecessary computers the lag got much better and the sequences started flowing a lot more smoothly. Hence the mediocre success. The other main issue was my sequence, and it is yet to be determined whether this will be a success or failure as a lesson in terms of looking at mutations and their impact. Tomorrow the students will come back in and complete the mutated sequences. Then we will be able to see whether it is a valuable lesson, or whether I need to do some tweaking before it becomes a lesson worth repeating. The sequence was a fair bit shorter than I expected it to be, which in itself, given the way today went, could possibly be a blessing.
The third issue was that a student managed to break the machinery, they were able to break one of the DNA bases, which I am unsure how to prevent at this stage. This caused the sequence to fall well out of sync and of course impacted severely on the sequence that was presented to the ribosome.
As I said, not a complete failure, but definitely a lot of room for improvement and a lot of investigating on improvements to be made. Thanks for reading, feel free to comment below.
The top one being the lag, when on my computer, with one lot of machines running and only me on the server, I could place blocks quite fast, so the RNA sequence moved along at a decent pace and got to the ribosome relatively quickly. However having 10 of the machines running with 8 students at only 4 of them, the lag was atrocious. This is not client lag, this was server lag, and I think it was due to the number of computers on an infinite loop to do things. (I was warned to stay away from infinite loops, but I did not quite realise the impact they would have.)
As I stopped, or killed off, the unnecessary computers the lag got much better and the sequences started flowing a lot more smoothly. Hence the mediocre success. The other main issue was my sequence, and it is yet to be determined whether this will be a success or failure as a lesson in terms of looking at mutations and their impact. Tomorrow the students will come back in and complete the mutated sequences. Then we will be able to see whether it is a valuable lesson, or whether I need to do some tweaking before it becomes a lesson worth repeating. The sequence was a fair bit shorter than I expected it to be, which in itself, given the way today went, could possibly be a blessing.
The third issue was that a student managed to break the machinery, they were able to break one of the DNA bases, which I am unsure how to prevent at this stage. This caused the sequence to fall well out of sync and of course impacted severely on the sequence that was presented to the ribosome.
As I said, not a complete failure, but definitely a lot of room for improvement and a lot of investigating on improvements to be made. Thanks for reading, feel free to comment below.
Mayhem.
Well after being away for the last half of last week on a school camp. Which I found out that I needed to go on Tuesday, as the staff member who was going got sick, and we left on Wednesday, I returned to school this morning to a 90 minute session with my Pre-CAL class. It was mayhem, students are still having trouble remembering passwords. They have not filled in their budget enough for that to be a fluent thing, so instead of spending 10 or so minutes on their budgets, for some it took nearly an hour.
That being said once the budget was out of the way, the students were back into the Numeracy world collecting their pay, and then spending it. More importantly they were putting purchase details into their budget for the week. Some students spent the lesson fishing, one student managed to score himself 18 fish, so now I really need to spend the time getting the sales floor sorted and ready to go.
Other students continued working on their houses, with a deadline for costing being the end of this week, then next week loan applications. All in all, for being a young project, still with teething issues, I think it is going well, and I think my learning outcomes will be met. I even have one student who has already begun her letter of application for a loan, she has costed her house, has chosen to build it herself, and is now in the process of collating the costs for tools, land and materials ready to put into her application.
I also have given one student the job of being a 'helper' and offered other members of the class the same opportunity, however they need to write a job application. The first student does not, as he has shown time and again that he is able to help. One students first response when I asked her why she wanted the job was "I need the cash." This gave me the perfect opportunity to bring back a comment that a guest speaker made only last week to this group of students, that if you ever apply for a job, never say that you want it for the money.
Also since I have been away, I have decided not to spend more time on the Transcription/Translation lesson with my senior Biology students, but I may give my Year 11's a go later in the year when we are preparing for their senior year.
That is a quick update, thanks for reading, feel free to leave a comment below.
That being said once the budget was out of the way, the students were back into the Numeracy world collecting their pay, and then spending it. More importantly they were putting purchase details into their budget for the week. Some students spent the lesson fishing, one student managed to score himself 18 fish, so now I really need to spend the time getting the sales floor sorted and ready to go.
Other students continued working on their houses, with a deadline for costing being the end of this week, then next week loan applications. All in all, for being a young project, still with teething issues, I think it is going well, and I think my learning outcomes will be met. I even have one student who has already begun her letter of application for a loan, she has costed her house, has chosen to build it herself, and is now in the process of collating the costs for tools, land and materials ready to put into her application.
I also have given one student the job of being a 'helper' and offered other members of the class the same opportunity, however they need to write a job application. The first student does not, as he has shown time and again that he is able to help. One students first response when I asked her why she wanted the job was "I need the cash." This gave me the perfect opportunity to bring back a comment that a guest speaker made only last week to this group of students, that if you ever apply for a job, never say that you want it for the money.
Also since I have been away, I have decided not to spend more time on the Transcription/Translation lesson with my senior Biology students, but I may give my Year 11's a go later in the year when we are preparing for their senior year.
That is a quick update, thanks for reading, feel free to leave a comment below.
Wins So Far.
As I regularly do with any new project, or MinecraftEdu world, I have been reflecting on what has been accomplished in the time I have had with my Pre-CAL Numeracy class, and the 180 minutes that the students have had access to the MinecraftEdu world that I have created. The more I think about what has happened over the last few weeks, and chat to the EduCrew folk about what they heard during their Skype the happier I get.
If I reflect on the process of learning, using something called the e5 instructional model, which for those not in the same educational system as me is "a reference point for school leaders and teachers to develop a deeper understanding of what constitutes high quality teacher practice in the classroom."(follow the link to see the model). The first step is to engage, only once students are engaged can quality learning happen.
A primary focus of the project was to engage students in a different kind of learning. The level of interest and engagement seen during my classes is higher than anything I have seen at this level of schooling, keep in mind that I am not a teacher of the 'cool' subjects that the majority of students enjoy, like Physical Education, or Wood Work, but Science and Maths. So when I say that the students are involved in a Maths project, and wanting to be there, that is a huge win.
Students are reflecting on what they want or need to be more successful in the project. There are students, who have never done homework before, doing homework to gain extra cash to buy more items in the game. They are focusing on tasks for 90 minutes, normally these students would not be able to focus more than 5-10 minutes in a standard classroom. Not only are the students more conscious of their own behaviour, they have put forth requests for me to add additional fines and rewards to balance out the system. In essence they are showing investment into the project.
So the students are engaged, the next step on the e5 is to explore. Now this is natively in Minecraft, but students are already exploring the worlds market. They are beginning to explore ideas about what business they would like to run in the world, that will get them more money. They are exploring how to cost jobs, how to convert a 2d floor plan into a 3 dimensional building. Students are also exploring some of the tools available to them to manage finances, like Google Spreadsheet.
What about explain? Well students are working towards explaining their house costing, justifying their loan application. Just through managing their budget they could explain what some of the key terms mean; income, expenses, fines, balance, budget, unit cost. As we move further along with the project what students will have explored, and be able to explain, should grow much larger.
How are students going to elaborate as they move through the project? When students are writing their loan application, or business application, they are going to have to not only explain their budget, but elaborate on how that budget shows that they can afford the loan they are applying for, or how they business is going to be profitable.
The final part of the e5 talks about evaluating. Students will be evaluating their budgets weekly, reflecting on their purchases, were they the right purchase to make, or should they have done something different. They will be evaluating their business for viability, and hopefully if they decide that it is going down the gurgler, so to speak, they will jump ship, or begin another business to help prop themselves up a bit longer.
So if I were to write a list of what I have seen the students accomplish over the last 3 weeks it would look like the following.
Creating a safe learning environment:
No swearing
No bullying
Don't deliberately break things
Don't hit others
Support others
Life skills:
Bring all required equipment
Be on time
Be respectful to all
The value of money (even virtual)
The value of work
Managing accounts and passwords
Budgeting:
Income
Expenses
Unit Cost
Bulk Cost
Bulk Discount
Think about purchases
Costing a job
Where to from here?? Well I want to see this list grow. Hopefully by the end of the project this list will take up a lot more space and there will be some serious Maths learning in there. The next topic, now that the basics are set up, and most of the teething issues are out of the way, is percentages. This will be incorporated into the students loan applications. Following that, plans, isometric and 3D drawings. Inadvertently along the way students have picked up, or will pick up, the applications of area and perimeter to buildings and costings.
Another activity I will be getting the students to do is to work out what the bulk purchase discount is in my store, as a percentage. How much more authentic can a task get without paying with real money? If a student undercuts my prices later on, students will be asked to work out how much money they can save by purchasing from the student rather than me for different amounts.
Thanks for reading, I will try to reflect more often on the learning happening within this project and share the additions to the above list. As always feel free to leave a comment below.
Visualising Thinking.
The next topic for the year 8 maths class is 'relational thinking'. For those of you not maths trained, the idea behind this kind of learning area is to get the students making connections and looking at the relationships between sums on either side of an =
An example question is 24+14=?+16
The idea being that you are not supposed to work out what 24+14 is on the path towards working out what number the ? represents but instead look at the overall relationship between the two different sums. One way of looking at it is that if you add 2 to the 14 to get 16, you must take 2 off the 24 to get the ?
Now relational thinking, in terms of what I need to teach the students, applies not only to addition but to all four basic operations.
So I have a couple of students, very bright students, who have completed the work for the current topic, so I took them aside today, gave them some of these types of questions and requested that they work together, next to me, so that I could listen to their discussion as they tried to complete these questions. There were 4 sheets, each one with a different basic operation on it. I suggested that they begin with the addition sheet, and let them attempt the first few before giving them a friendly nudge to look at the relationship between the 2 sides rather than calculating the answer, as it would be easier for them.
Once they had the relationship down, we sat at my computer, in a Minecraft world and discussed a way of visualising that relationship with blocks. Once we had agreed on a way that it would work, they continued onto the subtraction questions while I recorded a quick video, while it was still fresh in my mind, detailing the way of visualising that relationship. Rinse and repeat for all four operations and I now have a student approved, teacher certified way of visualising the relational thinking processes in Minecraft. The next step is to work out a classroom implementation of it, in a fun and engaging way.
I am also running this by the Numeracy guru at my school to see if she agrees that the visualisation is correct, and also to ask for her input into any other ways of visualising the relationships.
As always, thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment below. I will be publishing the video to youtube shortly, so if you are interested please keep an eye on my youtube channel.
An example question is 24+14=?+16
The idea being that you are not supposed to work out what 24+14 is on the path towards working out what number the ? represents but instead look at the overall relationship between the two different sums. One way of looking at it is that if you add 2 to the 14 to get 16, you must take 2 off the 24 to get the ?
Now relational thinking, in terms of what I need to teach the students, applies not only to addition but to all four basic operations.
So I have a couple of students, very bright students, who have completed the work for the current topic, so I took them aside today, gave them some of these types of questions and requested that they work together, next to me, so that I could listen to their discussion as they tried to complete these questions. There were 4 sheets, each one with a different basic operation on it. I suggested that they begin with the addition sheet, and let them attempt the first few before giving them a friendly nudge to look at the relationship between the 2 sides rather than calculating the answer, as it would be easier for them.
Once they had the relationship down, we sat at my computer, in a Minecraft world and discussed a way of visualising that relationship with blocks. Once we had agreed on a way that it would work, they continued onto the subtraction questions while I recorded a quick video, while it was still fresh in my mind, detailing the way of visualising that relationship. Rinse and repeat for all four operations and I now have a student approved, teacher certified way of visualising the relational thinking processes in Minecraft. The next step is to work out a classroom implementation of it, in a fun and engaging way.
I am also running this by the Numeracy guru at my school to see if she agrees that the visualisation is correct, and also to ask for her input into any other ways of visualising the relationships.
As always, thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment below. I will be publishing the video to youtube shortly, so if you are interested please keep an eye on my youtube channel.
What Just Happened????
I am not entirely sure what happened this afternoon in the Pre-CAL Numeracy class. Last class on a Friday, I made a couple of worksheets that students were to complete using information in the Numeracy world. I made it a competition, and maybe I talked it up a bit too much. The activity, a 5 minute challenge, worth a $100 bonus in game. I waited until they were all on Edmodo on their laptops, so they could easily find link to submit their answer. I made them all wait on the desktop and not get into MinecraftEdu on the school computers.
Some students were having computer troubles so I explained the task verbally, gave the students the sheets upside down and stressed that they were not to turn them over until I said so. I thought the sheet was pretty easy to follow, I had planned it out, set it out exactly the way I wanted them to 'think' about the problem and thought it was an easy task and sheet to complete, hence the 5 minute time limit on the challenge.
So I hit the post button on Edmodo, shouted "go" to the students and insanity ensued. But it was not a normal Friday afternoon, students unfocussed, off task and bored insanity. It was a learning insanity, completely unexpected animation and engagement on a Friday afternoon. Students were running around the room, yelling for help, trying to find out the answer, all to get the bonus for being the first to submit the correct response. The 5 minute challenge was not as 'easy' as I hoped for the students. I had another maths teacher in the room, so after a while I asked her what the issue with my instructions and worksheet was. Her response, "They are just too excited to actually read it."
Now that was unexpected, as was the level of excitement over what I thought was a measly $100 in-game cash. I had no idea of the 'power' (I cannot think of a better word to describe it right now) that the in-game currency would have. It has changed poor behaviour, encouraged students to become better organised and even prompted students that have never considered doing school work at home to do some.
I had two activities organised for the lesson, but the 5 minute challenge took up pretty much the entire 45 minute lesson. So now I have a new plan, consolidate the learning from today on Monday by doing another question with the students, only explaining why we do each step. Then requesting that they do a couple of similar questions on their own after that. Then we will move onto task 2, where the students will, again after an example we do together, be asked to work out what the sale price of an item will be if it is to be 18% lower than the purchase price on floor one.
The reason I designed these tasks was to get students working on percentages, as they are soon to be applying for their loan and will need to calculate interest cost and weekly payments for their application. I think that sums up what happened in the lesson, so feel free to leave a comment below, and thanks for taking the time to read.
Some students were having computer troubles so I explained the task verbally, gave the students the sheets upside down and stressed that they were not to turn them over until I said so. I thought the sheet was pretty easy to follow, I had planned it out, set it out exactly the way I wanted them to 'think' about the problem and thought it was an easy task and sheet to complete, hence the 5 minute time limit on the challenge.
So I hit the post button on Edmodo, shouted "go" to the students and insanity ensued. But it was not a normal Friday afternoon, students unfocussed, off task and bored insanity. It was a learning insanity, completely unexpected animation and engagement on a Friday afternoon. Students were running around the room, yelling for help, trying to find out the answer, all to get the bonus for being the first to submit the correct response. The 5 minute challenge was not as 'easy' as I hoped for the students. I had another maths teacher in the room, so after a while I asked her what the issue with my instructions and worksheet was. Her response, "They are just too excited to actually read it."
Now that was unexpected, as was the level of excitement over what I thought was a measly $100 in-game cash. I had no idea of the 'power' (I cannot think of a better word to describe it right now) that the in-game currency would have. It has changed poor behaviour, encouraged students to become better organised and even prompted students that have never considered doing school work at home to do some.
I had two activities organised for the lesson, but the 5 minute challenge took up pretty much the entire 45 minute lesson. So now I have a new plan, consolidate the learning from today on Monday by doing another question with the students, only explaining why we do each step. Then requesting that they do a couple of similar questions on their own after that. Then we will move onto task 2, where the students will, again after an example we do together, be asked to work out what the sale price of an item will be if it is to be 18% lower than the purchase price on floor one.
The reason I designed these tasks was to get students working on percentages, as they are soon to be applying for their loan and will need to calculate interest cost and weekly payments for their application. I think that sums up what happened in the lesson, so feel free to leave a comment below, and thanks for taking the time to read.
Braille Periodic Table Complete.
Over the weekend I finally managed to finish printing the Braille Periodic Table. It is more awesome than I ever imagined when it is together. I had only printed trial parts and had not even come close to seeing the whole thing, or even imagining what it would look like when it was put together. The 7 parts all fit together perfectly and I glued the pieces together into the 2 halves to make for easier transport. It is around 45cm long, 15cm wide and 2cm high.
There are some changes I would make if I were to print it again, one, that I would run past the student before hand would be to decrease the height of the Braille to 0.5mm instead of 1mm, as that should still be easily readable, but also less likely to break. The second was suggested by the integration aide, at the moment the 2 halves slot together, but do not clip, she suggested a clipping mechanism (which I could quite easily add) to help hold the table together when in use.
Here are some pictures of the completed print.
The whole table together.
It splits into 2 halves for a more friendly transport shape.
The height mapping of the different groups of the periodic table, to help the teacher teach the Chemistry behind the groups.
A close up of the Braille.
On the MinecraftEdu front, tonight I am hoping to design the relational thinking activity for my year 8s ready to implement and trial in my class tomorrow. The year 10 Pre-CAL Numeracy project is steaming along, I have some ideas on redesigning the 3 market floors to make it a better visual. I am waiting until the students have done the calculations for the sales floor before I implement that. As always thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment below.
There are some changes I would make if I were to print it again, one, that I would run past the student before hand would be to decrease the height of the Braille to 0.5mm instead of 1mm, as that should still be easily readable, but also less likely to break. The second was suggested by the integration aide, at the moment the 2 halves slot together, but do not clip, she suggested a clipping mechanism (which I could quite easily add) to help hold the table together when in use.
Here are some pictures of the completed print.
On the MinecraftEdu front, tonight I am hoping to design the relational thinking activity for my year 8s ready to implement and trial in my class tomorrow. The year 10 Pre-CAL Numeracy project is steaming along, I have some ideas on redesigning the 3 market floors to make it a better visual. I am waiting until the students have done the calculations for the sales floor before I implement that. As always thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment below.
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