Chris Ryan's Blog

After watching Jane McGonigal's TED talk, I have come to the decision that a game that I like to play, and that I think will benefit my students is Minecraft. Minecraft is sadly not an open source game, but there is a game called Minetest which is pretty much the same exact game as Minecraft except that it is open source. The article that I provide for this blog talks about the ways Minecraft can be used in the classroom. But, since Minetest is very similar to Minecraft, I believe that the article still applies. Minetest, just like minecraft, is considered a “sandbox game” where gamers can obtain their own objects and create whatever they want with them. A lot of gamers will just create their own town or city.   As previously stated, while I was watching Jane McGonigal’s TED talk, all I could think about was Minecraft. I was especially thinking this when Jane was talking about the four characteristics that make gamers Super Empowered Hopeful Individuals. The first characterist...

Murray, J. (n.d.). How to assess digital literacy for students (and educators!). NEA. https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/how-assess-digital-literacy-students-and-educators Northstar Digital Literacy.  (n.d.). https://www.digitalliteracyassessment.org/   This article gives us some insight of what assessments can be used to assess students' technology and digital literacy skills. One of the many assessments from Northstar produces many different types of assessments. One of the assessments was information literacy, where they would give students scenarios that they can either read or listen to. The student that is taking the assessment would solve the issue using the internet. There are also assessments in microsoft products that assesses and teaches students how to use different microsoft products as well. This will benefit students for the future because a lot of companies use Microsoft products.   University of San Diego - Professional ...

After reading both chapters one and two of A New Literacies Reader edited by Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel, I found chapter one, that discussed the concept of multimodal play to be what intrigued me the most. The concept of using multiple modes (print, visual, and sound) for students to learn and show their work is fascinating to me, especially when technology is involved. In this chapter, Lankshear and Knobel give examples of teachers that use digital multimodal learning to get their students eager to learn and display their knowledge through different modes. One example of multimodal learning being put into use was from Mr. Cardenas Journalism classroom, in East Side Middle School. Mr. Cardenas class was not a normal classroom. His classroom was filled with thirty-five eMac computers that the students can use during the class (Lankshear et al., 2013, p. 26). The class is an elective at the school and Mr. Cardenas doesn't really teach much and mostly facilitates the class. H...

“The distinctive contribution of the approach to literacy as a social practice lies in the ways in which it involves careful and sensitive attention to what people do with texts, how they make sense of them and use them to further their own purposes in their own learning lives.” (Gillen and Barton, 2010, p. 9)  After reading the material that was given, I agree with the quote that literacy is a social practice, and I believe that the quote is even more apparent when it comes to new literacy. For example, Gillen and Barton discuss how new literacies benefit students when they work in a small group. One tool that was talked about was created by the Synergynet Project Team, who created a multi-touch table that is made for a classroom and allows up to four or five students to touch the board at the same time (2010, p.13-14). This tool is perfect for students to collaborate on small group projects. Gilen and Barton touched on how students can create their own piece of work on the table ...