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.