The Honorable Sandra Day O'Connor's...Video Game?

More and more, educators and game designers are seeing the benefits of using the games middle schoolers love as teaching tools. Students have fun and can mix different skills and subjects in a way that feels more true to life and sometimes masks the immense amount of learning and work going on. Claudia Parsons reports for Reuters at MSNBC.com on the involvement of former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor with a project that will soon release free online games for middle schoolers.

Surprised? Probably as surprised as O'Connor to find herself addressing a digital gaming conference, Games For Change. But her involvement in the Our Courts project stemmed from her concern over public views of and growing hostility toward the judiciary system. From "vitriolic attacks by some members of Congress, some members of state legislatures and various private interest groups," to Senators vetting Supreme Court nominees on their possible decisions in court cases, to special interest involvement in state judicial elections, O'Connor has seen a deteriorating atmosphere for "fair and impartial judgments from the judges who are serving." The only way to preserve an independent judiciary and blunt the growing hostility is to better educate the public about all three branches of government, their roles and relationships to each other.

The first part of the Our Courts project will be an interactive online civics program for grades 7-9. It's meant to stand alone or be part of a curriculum or unit of study. The game will feature scenarios that reflect real-life legal issues and encourage students to debate and come to a decision on matters like First Amendment rights or freedom of the press. Some initial materials will be available in September at OurCourts.org. The second part of the project will be a game that engages students in their spare time and aims to "get them thinking about government and civic engagement rather than playing shoot-'em-up video games." Both components should be fully operational by September 2009. And free.

O'Connor saw the educational potential of technology while watching her grandchildren engage with it. But, she said, "I don't play videogames. Sorry."

SOURCE: "Retired justice O'Connor unveils video game" 06/04/08
photo courtesy of dipfan, used under this Creative Commons license

Using VoiceThreads with Bill Ferriter

Laila Weir writes in Edutopia on sixth-grade language arts and social studies teacher Bill Ferriter and his use of VoiceThreads with his students at Salem Middle School in North Carolina. Ferriter had a hunch it would work since his students already spent time online outside the classroom. With VoiceThreads, he has been able to extend learning and interaction beyond the classroom walls and regular school hours.

VoiceThreads are "interactive media albums" that contain images, documents or videos that viewers can comment on in one of three ways: by typing a comment, recording an audio or video response, or drawing directly on the image, document or video. VoiceThread is easy to learn and use, a boon for teachers new to Web 2.0 tools and for students who may have varying levels of experience with technology. (A secure site for teachers and students, Ed.VoiceThread, has a fee-based service but one that "should pass even stringent school Web filters.")

Ferriter started small, posting VoiceThreads on a number of topics connected to classroom work and letting students respond voluntarily. He got so many responses, he knew he was onto something. Students are more likely to participate in a digital discussion where shyness and fears of embarrassment, very strong in middle school, are eliminated by nature. Students can also think ahead of time about their responses, something that isn't usually possible in an in-class discussion.

Students can participate in multiple conversations, eliminating another in-class discussion problem according to Ferriter: "In a classroom conversation, there's generally one strand of conversation going at any one time, and if you're bored by that particular strand, you're completely disengaged." One VoiceThread on Darfur elicited thoughtful responses and a lot of participation--Ferriter got over 60 comments from 36 of his 53 students.

The VoiceThread site has great tutorials to get you and students started. VoiceThreads can be private or published and can be embedded in a class or teacher website. Because you can use a telephone to leave an audio response, the need for microphones or webcams are eliminated for students or schools that don't have them. And this also makes the discussion accessible to students of varying levels of ability and technological experience. Ferriter has a wiki that has examples of VoiceThreads and lots of great tips for getting started.

SOURCE: "VoiceThreads: Extending the Classroom with Interactive Multimedia Albums" 04/16/08
photo: screencapture of a VoiceThread tutorial

Maile Peachey: The Boalsburg Grant Project

In another great Education World profile, Cara Bafile introduces us to Maile Peachey and Corl Street Elementary School's Boalsburg Grant Project. The fifth grade students study history in a way that belies the usual "nothing exciting every happens where I live" mantra you can often hear from middle schoolers. Though the project has not been updated in a few years, it is still a great model for similar projects and the webpages produced are still available on the Web.

decided to center their project around As Peachey and fellow teacher Loretta Jeffreys (now retired) talked about creating a project, they knew they wanted to avoid just looking at Penn State and State College, Pennsylvania, as a college town. With lots of historical sites all around the State College area, Peachey and JeffreysBoalsburg, PA, the birthplace of Memorial Day.

A Pennsylvania Digital Grassroots grant supplied the computers and digital video cameras needed and the project was off and running. To get students involved in "documenting the past, present, and future of historic Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, on the Internet," Peachey explained, they had to learn "such skills in technology as designing Web pages, creating and editing movies using digital cameras and iMovie software on Mac computers, using scanners, exporting photos in jpeg format to the Internet, and linking other related Web sites."

The fifth graders at Corl Street have no American History or language arts textbooks. Articles, simulations, discussions, videos, guest speakers, and projects are used instead. Students also visit local historical sites. Two fifth grade classes discuss the project as a whole then break into smaller groups to work on specific topics and projects as part of the overall Boalsburg Grant Project. Multiple web pages were produced each year. Those pages and updates are available at this website.

Peachey told Bafile that she especially liked that the bulk of the work on over 100 webpages was done by the fifth graders themselves: "They took ownership of the project and felt great pride about what they accomplished. Each student came away feeling that important people and events really are located near them, not just in places typically discussed in history textbooks." Her advice to other teachers is to not shy away from a big idea or big project. Projects like the Boalsburg Grant Project excite all students regardless of learning style or even ability level. Plus, "it creates fun, happy memories and learning that lasts!" This project is a great model for integrating middle school social studies, local history, language arts, and many Web 2.0 tools.

SOURCE: "Teacher Feature Starring: Maile Peachey" 5/16/05
photo courtesy of Jeff Kubina, used under this Creative Commons license