"Museum Escape" using in Teaching

                        "Museum Escape" using in Teaching

Gamification typically involves applying game design thinking to non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging. Gamification has been called one of the most important trends in technology by several industry experts. Gamification can potentially be applied to any industry and almost anything to create fun and engaging experiences, converting users into players.

Nowadays, In the class of language learning, the time of the class is getting longer, and the content of the class is getting more than before, some of the class is getting boring during the traditional teaching methods. While the technology is developing in our daily life, I recommend teachers to use games in the class, it can not only attract the attention of the students, but also can let the students learn the new language while playing the game.

Today, I choose the game of Museum Escape, Which is a interesting game that a fourteen year boy enters into a historical museum to collect information. In the enthusiasm; he forgot the closing time and keeps on showing interest in historical thins. The securities did not notice the boy and close the museum. And the boy needs to find the way and use the skills to escape from the museum.

I played this game for about two hours, and finally I find the way to escape, it is a long time, if I will use this game in my future class, I will devide it into several parts to use it to introduce the history of the museum, each of the status and or the weapon or the dinosaur will come from a story. While the step to get out of the museum one by one. The learning of the knowledge by the students is more and more, students can not only learn the history of the museum, but also can learn a lot of new words from the story. I think in this way, students could remember the words and the history more steady. Because it includes voices and images that can enhance the impression of the words and history to the mind of the students. Especially while they playing the game, we all know that the nature of the children is playing. Because this game is not easy, especially for the young kids. So I will give them some hints from the walkthrough while they are playing the game. But I am not giving them the walkthrough before the game. Because it may reduce the positivity of the students. If they did not know what it is about the game, They are eager for getting the ways to find the solution of the game. So the impression of the word and history will be more steady in their brain.

Teaching methods on microblog

Twitter is a great website that we could share information on it. Especially for us teachers, there are 6 best twitter tips every teacher should know about , here is the image of the 6 tips:

 

Besides, there are a lot of new technologies used in our daily life, such as mobile, I-pad, nookbook and so on. From the Great free text messaging tools to use with your students , we know that mobile devices are ubiquitous among students. The majority of them use a cell phone of some sort to be a smart phone or just a plain one. While solid scientific research on the potential use of these tools in education is still lacking. On this article, there are some ways of mobile using in classroom the article propose us to use. One of them is Remind 101, it is a safe way for teachers to text message students and stay in touch with parents. And there also have CELLY, this is a private communication network that works with any mobile phone or device, members can join instantly with one text and exchange group message, polls, reminders,and web alerts. I think I could use these technologies in my future teaching.

Classroom 2.0.

                                       Classroom 2.0

Classroom 2.0 is a social network for the people who are interested in Web 2.0, Social Media, and Participative Technologies in the classroom. It encourage people to participate in the discussions there, to receive event notifications, and to find and connect with colleagues and students. It is a free, community-supported network. It is a great place to have a conversation on the internet.

A learner is like a moneybox

                               A learner is like a moneybox

 

A learner is like a moneybox, when the moneybox comes to your home, it’s empty. Just like a learner whose brain is empty before he or she starts to learn. As you put the money into the moneybox, the money is becoming more and more, just like the learner is learning, with the knowledge gaining day by day, the brain is adding more and more resources. If you want to use the money, you can just take it from the moneybox, just like if you want to use the knowledge, for example, you are teaching your child how to spell “apple”, it is from your basic memorize in your childhood. Or if you want to use a lot of money, you can just take it from the money box. Just like if someday you becoming a teacher, you will use your full knowledge to teach your student, no matter what the knowledge it is.

According to the A learning theory from the digital age ,  It says that Learning is a continual process, lasting for a lifetime. Learning and work related activities are no longer separate. In many situations, they are the same. Just like the moneybox, in your lifetime, you need to use the money, so that you need to refill your moneybox for a lifetime, it is a continual process.

According to the video of  The conflict of the learning theories with the human nature, it

says that we have since earliest recording history, had the desire to externalize our thoughts. Yes, in the earliest history, people do use a tool to exchange food and clothes. Nowadays, people find a convenient tool to exchange the stuff that people need. Just like we externalize our thoughts  into knowledge, as a learner should have.

"Critical Thinking" improved through "playing games"

The name of the post which I commented on is “Ten ipad apps to enhance critical thinking teachers should not miss” On the blog named “Educational Technology and Mobile learning”. The part of the post which really attracted me is that the Critical thinking, Critical thinking is an important skill in the 21st century learning. Education's overall goal is to produce students that will be able to think critically and not just take in things like a parrot.

In that post, the author provide us ten useful tools on ipad apps to enhance critical thinking for students, here I would like two introduce  two of them which are very interesting and useful:

 The first one is Math-lands:

 

Math Lands was designed by game lovers and teachers to remedy this problem. In this interactive app, kids will be asked to exercise logical and critical thinking but in the context of game play and puzzle-solving. The concept is called "learning through play" and it will change children's attitudes towards math.



 The second one is Simple physics :

 

Simple Physics lets you design complex structures for everything from tree houses to ferris wheels and then simulates your design with a sophisticated physics engine.

The third one is Ibrain food:

IBrain-Food Gives our mind a work out on our devious collection of puzzles. There are various puzzles, ranging from word games to logic problems to Crossword. Some are tricky. Some require innovation. All require thinking power.
These apps above are really useful to improve the Critical thinking among students, Nowadays most of the students are interested in the games on ipad apps, while through these games, they can improve their critical thinking through playing games without any pressure from homework.

Reactions for the videos

The first video I watched was Educational Change Challenge

Education is changing in nowadays. Moving from a one room school house to one world school house is our reality.Teachers need to exist in the space that student exist, understand their culture, because the generational of the students know a lot of new knowledges from the website, newspapers and so on. If we put a Doctor of a hundred year ago in today's operating room, The Doctor may be lost, if a teacher of a hundread year's ago of today's classromm, The teacher may not be successful.
So teachers must be well knowledged to keep the students interest and to inspire them to and creative curiosity in nowaways.


The Second video I watched was Social Media Revolution

Nowadays, Internet take a large number of time in our daily life, at first, some senteces I saw was very funny, such as:"1 in 5 couples meet online","3 in 5 gay couples meet online". But it certified that internet do changed our life. We obtainted a lot of information from the internet, even though a lot of study materials the teachers suggested we read are also from the internet. I think in the future, the internet and the technology will affect us more in the world. No matter in Entertainment, Education or Bussiness.

Language teaching with Technology

                                               Language teaching with technology

 

 

As the development of modern society, technology has been widely used in our daily life. For instance, the transportation can shorten the distance from people to people, at ancient times, if people want to go to America from China, The only transportation that people can use is the ship, and it will spent several month for people to get to their destination. But now, with the developing of airplane, it only cost several hours for people to go to a country from a long distance.

 As for teaching, we also have many technologies nowadays, such as Power point, Overhead projector, Slide projector to improve the efficiency for teaching in the classroom. Today, I want talk about the weblogs that teacher can use in their teaching, I used to teach Chinese to speakers of other language, the discussion method I used was just on class discussion, if students have questions, they methods they can use are just call me or e-mail me. But if we use weblogs in the class, students can ask their questions whenever they have troubles. they do not need to worry about the time of whether they may disturb the teacher on the phone. And sometimes, through weblogs communication, students may also find the solution to help the others. Sometimes the ideas they provide are better than teachers. as we all know, teachers are also learning on their life no matter from what kind of people in their life. And also, they can express their emotions and share some resources that can help students learn more about what they studied.

 Another way to better use blog in language teaching is to absorb many different teaching resources from different blogs. For example, some blogs of Education may have the ideas for language games or language activities we can use in our class room, as a future teacher of teaching English to speaker of other language, we can also find useful resources on International Society for Technology in Education and American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language. This information is helpful for us to acquire certifications in the field of English teaching.

Weblogs is really a good way for us to learning, sharing and get a new level in our field!