Student Motivation

I have found that most students are only extrinsically motivated these days. They do not seem to have a desire to learn just for the sake of learning. They want something in return for learning: grades, money, gifts, etc. I want to be able to give my students the desire to learn because they have an interest or feel challenged enough to tackle a problem just so they can solve it. Motivating students is a wonderful site that gives great ideas on motivating students and a lot of resources.
I am very excited about starting Globaloria in a week. I think it will be just the motivation some of my non-motivated students need.

Powerful Learning Experience

I received a Vitrual Interactive White Board (Numonics Board) two years ago in my classroom. I also received a mobile presenter (e-tablet) as well. My training on the board consisted of a 35 minute intro given to each team during our planning period. At first, I was overwhelmed with the new gadgets and unsure of what to do with them. I wanted to make sure I knew how to use them before I used them in front of my students. However, I learned very quickly, that my students were a huge asset. They were eager to try them out without any previous experience and this helped me dive right in and do the same. These tools soon became an extension of my daily teaching. I wouldn't want to teach without them now! Stay tuned for a video!

Day 2 of Globaloria Academy

Wow! What a day it was! We learned so much my head still hurts today!!! Making a game was very cool! My students are going to love this program. The video shows a preview of the game I made The Big Bad Bunny.

Game Reviews

We played to learn today!! In one of our sessions today, we played computer games. Consumer Consequences was a great game that I really enjoyed. It had you answer questions about the way that you live. Once these questions were answered, it told you how many earths it would take to accomodate all people on earth if they lived the way you did. It would be a great way to introduce resources in science class. There really wasn't anything that I didn't like about this game. I thought the game could be approached in different ways (with direction from teacher) that would make it interesting to students.
I also viewed a game called A-MAZE-ING MATH. It was an okay game for me. I liked the fact that a player would have to think before collecting numbers. The goal was to collect numbers that would add up to 100 exactly. If you went over 100m, you didn't win. I thought that the instructions to the game could have been a little more detailed. I also thought that a variation to the game would be interesting (higher levels of math). I think that adding integers (positive and negative numbers) to the numbers would be good. Players could add and subtract numbers if they had integers to collect.