Ignite Talk Blog Post

Notes for Slides: 1-Introduce myself 2-less is equal to more 3-Every Child needs a champion 4-Txting is evolving our language 5-Pursue your passion no matter what 6-Online life is a tattoo 7-How to build an excellent TED talk 8-The Sun is good for your heart 9-Eating insects is good for your health 10-Building a school in the cloud could lead to children in poverty stricken areas with education and teachers 11-Art can change the perception of the world 12-Math Magic- anything is possible with a little bit of magic 13-People are not gonna act the way you think they will 14-Wii Remote hacks 15-Futureless economies on average save a higher percentage of their GDP

Final Blog Post

For my final revision I decided to overlay previous found poems onto the prezi. Really this final project is a gathering of projects from this semester merged into one project. It takes the ideas of juxtaposing images of video games with images that represent Gee's ideas together, but now with words that Gee has said relating to video games and learning. Gee seems to be the main source and academic mind behind video games and learning, but Marc Prensky also has works out on the web. Just google video games and learning. The search result will give you Gees papers and a couple links to Prenskys books. For my prezi I now realize that I should have taken pictures of the game of my own gameplay, but at this point I cannot because my games are at home. I believe that when crafting the final prezi I really listened to what others were doing with their project, and tried to think of ways I could incorporate their ideas into my project. I am sure that there is more I could have incorporated without it becoming too crowded. I think that it is important to look into video games and how some of the principle concepts of them applied to that of learning. The reason that I find this so interesting is because I have always had some interest in video games, and if we could replicate that same idea with learning it could make us that much better as people. Here is my MLA citation for all of the sources from this project.

Mini Project 3

For this mini project I am going to do a screencast of making a found poem. I am sorry there is no sound, but I do not want my annoying roommate to interrupt this important project. In this video I will go through and highlight the different parts where I pulled the words that went into the found poem. I think the key to creating a good found poem is to not read the article. I know that this sounds counterintuitive, but I think that in order to make a poem with words that pop you need to only notice the words that pop out at you. Here is the video .

Found Poem #2 

First Video Game
Problem Solving
Hard, Long, and Complex
Theoretical Linguistics
Good Learning Principles
Set of Facts
New Domain
Context of an interactive
Consequences of Failure
Playing Styles
Hands On
Virtually Routinized
Taken-for-Granted
Cycle of Expertise
Just In Time
Regime of Competence
Smart Tools
Use Games in School

This project relates an educational article to key words that relate to video games and learning. Really the words that are chosen in this poem are words that just stuck out to me. I would have elaborated more during the video, but I did not want any background noise of my roommate to interfere with the video.

Mini Project 2: Found Poem

Found Poem

Good Games
Initial game levels
Complex problems
Hidden Tutorials
Cognitive Science
Good generalization
Confronted too early
Creative solutions
Cycle of expertise
Repeatedly confronts
Taken-for-granted
Motivation
Action at a Distance
Playing a character
Value like scientist
Just in time
Be producers
Lowest common denominator
Too often in schools

Here is the link to the article where I pulled all of these wonderful words from article.

I decided to do a found poem for this weeks mini project, because I like the idea of randomly taking words and just making a somewhat nonsense poem. I think one of the reasons I enjoyed doing this mini project is because I like to see what words I key on or what words pop out to me, or even phrases. Lacy did bring up a very interesting idea that I would be interested in doing later on(just not tonight). She had an idea about showing a video that goes through and highlights the words that were choose for the found poem. What do you think about this idea?

Revised Mini Project 1

Here is my revised Prezi. It is very similar to the one last week, but I did add a few pictures to the overall presentation. The reason I did this is because I realized that the pictures did not readily explain the significance between video games and learning. After doing some research when I got home, I stumbled upon a Gee article that defines many different ideas that relate learning and video games. I wrote down notes in a google doc, because I did not have my daybook handy at the time, I then went on to find pictures that represented the main ideas. Some of the pictures I choose to relate to the main ideas are a little bit abstract, and might only make sense in my head. If you see something and are wondering which of Gee's ideas it relates to please let me know in a comment. Here is the google doc with the project reflections that also has the notes as a link in the last paragraph. Project Reflections.

Inquiry Image Gallery

This week's blog is going to be nice and sweet. For my inquiry project I'm diving deeper into learning and video games, and last week during the workshop that we had in class on monday I worked on an image gallery similar to the one at the beginning of class. I decided to add a little twist to mine. The main idea I wanted to give through the gallery was just an understanding of which each of the games are about, just with images.Image Gallery.

Inquiry into Learning

For our project on inquiry I want to dive deeper into learning and video games. I want to do this because earlier in my development I use to play a good bit of video games, and most people including my parents thought that they were worthless and just took all my time away. Hearing that video games can be constructive and actually help individuals learn is very encouraging to me, and I have played some a little bit more now. I want to investigate what certain video games are teaching people about learning. I am probably going to investigate a variety of games and their impact on learning. The variety that I will look at are NBA 2k13, Call of Duty Modern Warfare Three, and Assassins Creed 3. Each of these games are different in their play style and also how I play each one. For 2k13 I usually just play my player, which is where you create a player however you want and then you go through the draft process and summer league and then hopefully you make an NBA team. The catch to this game is that in the beginning you are terrible you can't dribble or shoot or anything, so it is hard to find your niche in the game. When I play CoD I usually just play online, and everyone is pretty much on a level field. I think it is more engaging to play than my player because it is competitive, and your not trying to outsmart a computer that has a detailed program but instead you're trying to outsmart ten other people. I can go on about how you play and everything, but that would get boring. For Assassins Creed I just play the story mode. In story mode they guide you along and give you different objectives that you must complete in order to progress through the story. Sometimes though you have to try a particular objective several times just to get past it. I think that this part relates heavily to what we have learned in class, because sometimes you have to look at a problem in different ways in order to figure out how to solve it. These are the games that I am hoping to dive deeper into. Do you have any suggestions of any types of games that I could use?

What is a sellout?

As I was reading an article on one of the websites that I frequently visit a thought passed through my head. Why do people call artists or famous people sellouts? After this question popped up in my head I read some articles on the biggest sellouts ever. Almost every single place that I went to that was about sellouts was very bitter. Is the term sellout a bitter word? I would say it is, all that it is a person changing what they do. People interpret this change as a betrayal to their idea of what that individual was. That is my idea of why people use the word. The article I read was a little different they got the artist to comment on why he did what he did, and why he is not a sellout. Here is the article Sellout? The artists is Macklemore and a lot of his songs are unique and have some meaning behind them. Here is the full song that they were referring to in the article Wings. In his response to people calling him critics there was something that just struck me as our English class. What do you think it is that made me think this?

Myrtle Beach Half Marathon

 This past weekend I did another race, but unlike the previous weekend I did not have to eat twelve donuts and run right after, but there was an elephant at the start just sitting on the median of the road.Instead I had to run 13.1 miles. I know this sounds like a lot, but in reality it is not all that bad. Considering the fact that a full marathon is twice that much, and there are races that are 100 milers. I was pleasantly surprised with how well I ended up in doing. I think that when you are actually competing in a race with thousands of people surrounding you it puts you into a whole new mind set. Who knows maybe my body is pumping hormones or something differently than just a normal old practice run. Is it the fact that I don't want to get passed by some old fart or by the guy in jesus sandals or is there something more to it. Normally when I run I just run on the greenway by myself, so all that I have pushing me is myself. I normally end up in walking quiet a bit more than I do in a race. These past two races I have not walked during the whole race portion or if I could not help it. I honestly wonder what all goes into me and others into not walking. I believe for myself that it is a combination of I don't want to be shamed, I've worked too hard for this, and there's only one part I can walk and that is after the finish line. As you get closer to the finish line there are more and more people that are yelling and screaming and shaking there cowbells for the runners. If you walk this portion you will get heckled until you ran through that finish line. I wonder if this is similar to the way our english class is we cheer each other on right when we are close to the finish and the start, but we as individuals have to push ourselves for the middle section.

Here are my individual splits for each mile(there was two emergency bathroom pit stops see if you can figure out which miles those were on)

Here is a nice little map showing the route we ran and a nice graphic at the bottom

Here are the official results by gun time, I beat the guy ahead of me according to chip time.

The Krispy Kreme Challenge

I remember hearing from Lacy this week that she was encouraging us to share out of class experiences on our blog, so here I go. This past weekend at North Carolina State University there was the Krispy Kreme Challenge. The idea is that you run from the bell tower on campus to the krispy kreme store 2.5 miles away, eat twelve donuts and then run back to the tower. There were right around eight thousand people that participated in the ninth annual challenge. I do run regularly, but I have never tried to eat twelve donuts at one sitting the most I have ever eaten was six at one time. I did not know how to eat them besides just dip them in water to get the glaze off. While I was waiting at the start line people are talking about different stuff, and I end up in talking to a group of guys about random things. Finally we came upon the subject of how to eat them and the veteran said you have to eat them four at a time or there is no way that you will be able to put down that many donuts in one sitting. Once I flew through the first 2.5 miles and got to eat the donuts. I actually found the veteran and observed how he was eating them and I tried emulating him. Once I hit eight I was not feeling too well I was feeling nauseous  to put it simply. I was eating half of my last eight when I urgently needed to use this restroom, so I used this opportunity to dispose of my last part of donuts. I started running back and the first mile was not too bad but the second one I started to feel pretty bad, luckily I ended up in running with some guy similar in age. We helped to push each other to the very end and this really helped me to not stop and also pushed me to be better than I could be by myself. Once I crossed the finish line it was a huge relief and apparently everyone else thought so too. People were hurrying to bushes if they could make it while some were just puking up the donuts in the middle of the street. I assure you that I did not come to this point, but I was flirting with it. I believe that this can be related back to what we have been talking about english and learning. I think this is so because I was able to hear and observe what others were doing when they were eating the donuts and figure out which way would work for me the best. Next year I'm sure that I will do it in a completely different manner than I did this time. I should probably practice eating that many donuts before next time.

Genres of Participation

As I was looking back through my day book to see what I should blog about I found a piece that interested me. A couple weeks ago we were told to go pick a section of a much larger piece by Gee, I choose Genres of Participation because it had an intriguing title. He classified participation into different categories the two main ones were friendship-driven and interest driven. Interest driven helps to describe group's like the geeks, musicians, and the jocks. While friendship driven is more what youth do with their friends. Which one do think is more prevalent in today's youth? If you guessed friendship driven then you were right because a lot of the activities that youth do are with each other and because of each other. Would you want to go to some party without your friends? Wouldn't you be more likely to try something with a friend? I wonder as we as youth transition into a more independent lifestyle and professional do we become more interest driven or friendship driven. I argue that for the career oriented person it is defiantly more interest driven, as you start to join clubs with the same interest and making connections within that given interest. I am not saying that friendship driven is still not heavily prevalent , but that it is more balanced out by interest driven than before in one's youth.

Music and Effect on My Mood

So the other day in english for writing into the day I wrote about music, and the kind of effect it has on my mood and what it does to me. I started going off on how it is like a daybook and it brings back old memories. For instance if I hear a certain song I remember a number of events that are related to that particular song. First Song when you listen to this song what memories come back, did it trigger any at all? For this next one it is a little bit of a throwback, but lets see if it helps bring back any memories second song. I think that music can have a profound impact on how we feel or even what we are thinking about. If we listen to sad depressing music you are not very likely to be in the best mood ever, but on the other hand if you listen to upbeat music it is very hard to stay sad or angry for long. What impact do you think music has on you?

String Games

First class of this semester and we start out by playing with string. Seems to have no relevance to English right? Wrong! It has everything to do with English and how we learn as students. At first you struggle to even know what to do with the string, just like the first week of classes. Once you learn or taught what to do with the string you begin to play around with it and create different things with the string that look really cool. This is when you are figuring out how to learn for a particular class and you experiment with different things to find what is most useful for the particular subject. The final step is figuring out how to do a really cool figure and being able to repeat it over and over again. Which is similar to when you find out to be successful in class and can do it over and over again for classes. Another thing that the string games is challenge you to think in different ways and also try new things with no consequence. This is what I got out of the string game what do you think it's purpose was?