Do we need to meet somewhere and sometime online tonight? Do anyone know? I have back to school night tonight. Thanks.
Tiffany

Hi everyone

I am Tiffany. I haven't use Google Doc before, I believe that is the first thing I need to learn today.

Wrap up on video game I played

Wrap up on video game I played
Not all of the video games are educational. I thought I can learn something from the Grand Slam Tennis, the video game I chose to play for class; however, I lost my interest to play it after a while, because it is not well designed video game. According to the research, a good video game should have a good rewarding system, but the Grand Slam Tennis game is very frustrating. I did not see any meaningful to play it. Therefore, it is very important to choose a right game: good rewarding system, well structure constructed, and fascinating. Later on, I changed to play Black Jack online. I bet with fake money and I lost all the money quickly. I changed my strategy, in spite that I still lost my money but I played more time on the same amount of money. I chose this game not because I like gambling, but I like to count. I thought I can learn to count quickly and I can find a pattern to beat the house. I never won the money; therefore I think the house of Black Jack is too stupid to encourage the player to bit on real money. I believe that I am not the video game person. The reasons why I don’t like to play video game: I am very busy to play a video game, I like to socialize with people not computer, I have no patience to take challenge from video game, and I don’t get excited from playing a video game.
Some video games do really teach you something, such as keyboard typing game and chess playing game. For teachers, if they want to apply video game in classroom, they need to do a lot of research to find out the right game for students to play. I guess I am not going to apply video games in my class before I am very confident about this video game, at least I need to play by myself for some time. Reference and research is very important too.

What I have Learned from MEDI 506: the Reflection of Blogger Experience too

What I Have Learned from MEDI 506: the Reflection of Blogger Experience
This is the first time I use Blogger. I have heard about this for years, but I never tried it. Just like a lot of other interesting software, I did not have time to learn them though I would like to. Because of the hybrid class MEDI 506, I got a chance to get to know them, such as Blogger, Second Life, Wiki, Youtube, Video Games, and Facebook. And furthermore, I learn how to use them, such as Blogger, Second Life, Wiki, and some video games. I was so excited to learn new stuff. At beginning, I was kind of afraid to use them. I was afraid that I would be way way behind of learning those new stuffs. Although I am a school librarian, and I have computer science background, I was thinking those are for young generation. However, after learning about them in the class and reading some articles recommended by Dr. Wilber, I realize those stuffs are excellent tools for educational purpose.

Blogger is a good method to communicate with people and a good place to convey users’ opinion and thought. Now I become more confident to use blogger and I believe after this class, I will still keep using Blogger for my personal purpose. I like its way to organize our writing too. At least, using Blogger lessen the gap between me and the younger.

My Thoughts about the Article "Post-media Aesthetics"

My Thoughts about the Article “Post-media Aesthetics”

Along with the advent of new technologies of computer, video, and television, all traditional fields including Aesthetics are affected. The article Post-media Aesthetics discusses the new technologies has been applied to Aesthetics field. Artists substitute different art materials by different new technologies. Therefore, there are some new art categories have arisen with the use of new medium, especially the mass medium such television and video. One good example is the interactive art category, which use internet facilitates the interactivities between the artists and the persons who appreciate aesthetics.

This article mentioned the net art is just a new category of art based on the technology of the net, but not all art which uses the net is net art. I think artists still keep their aesthetic concept while they apply new technology to either the traditional art or the new category of art. New technology gives new life to aesthetics. For example, among the new categories of art, visual art and commercial art already became a significant part in our modern life. Using technology is to improve, but not to abandon what we have in tradition. For teachers, this is true, for artists, it is also true.

No one can just ignore the prominence of new technologies.

List of Materials

Have great idea? Please let me know.

List of Materials for Middle School Library
Online Catalog (link to other public library catalog)
Interactive Wall Maps: World Map and United States Map (link to map websites)
Globe
Reference Materials
General Reference Materials
Ready Reference Materials (Dictionaries and Encyclopedia): Dictionary link to onelook.com; encyclopedia link to
wikipedia.com
Electronic Reference Sources (online resources)
Reserved Materials for Class Use
Nonfiction Books
Biographies
Fiction Books
Newspapers
Magazines
Microfiches and Microfilms
AV Collection (DVDs, VHS, CD, Cassette, CD-ROM)
Foreign Language Collection
Program schedule

Grand Slam Tennis

Finally I Beat My Opponent by One Game
Finally last night I moved up one level, I beat my opponent by one game. The trick is I hit the ball while you are moving or just one second before you move. Right after I hit the ball, I have to choose the side to move and hit again. When I serve, I need to jump at the right time and stretch up and the same time I hit the ball, rather than stretch up and THEN hit the ball. However, it is not easy to catch the right timing. At least, I kind of figure out how to hit back my opponent’s ball and defeat him.

The reading on the week of March 14

Article review on “Violence exposure in real-life, video games, television, movies, and the internet: is there desensitization?”

This article is examining the relationship between the much of exposure to violence from electronic devices and the degree of desensitization to their real life value. In other words, today’s children expose too much violence from many sources such as video games, television, movies, and the internet.

The test sample for this research is composed of 150 students from elementary and day care centers, the author recognized the sample size may have been too small to detect a small effect though.

The excessive exposure could have been desensitizing them to the true consequences of violence and aggression. The goal of this study was to determine if there are relationships between real-life and media violence exposure. Some researcher believed that this kind of exposure will indeed desensitize the students toward violence in their real life.

Especially, the younger who are still developing their moral cognition expose too much in the media violence will desensitize their real life consequences of violence.

Thoughts about “An update on the effects of playing violent video games”

While examining the connection between the violent video games and the real life violence, the experimental studies reveal this linkage to be casual. Some studies show more recent violence criminals have been linked to violent video games such as two school shootings, five homicides, and beating deaths happened in our country. Even in other countries like German and Japan have some similar reports too.


Some Thoughts on “Linking obesity and activity level with children’s television and video game use

This is a very interesting article. It examines the relationship between the children’s weight and the time amount they spend in television and video game use. This article shows many researches have been done to find the linking between the children’s obesity and the time they sit in the front of TV and computers.

Because the more they spend in media, the less they spend in physical activities, as well as the children intend to eat fast food while they are watching TV or playing computer games. They intake more high caloric food than those children who spend less time in watching TV or playing video games because the food commercial in TV or computers emphasize on high calorie and high fat foods without nutritional concerns.

I think it is true for these hypotheses; after all, the children seem to have more overweight problems nowadays. Although the research is still weak to show the connection between the obesity and the TV watching and video game playing, we can’t still ignore the truth: New generation tends to be obesity while they are living in the new technology age.

My Grand Slam Tennis Computer Game

My Grand Slam Tennis Game

Yes, I improve a lot on playing my game. I think I learn from my failure. Since the computer always delay my request, I adjust my timing accordingly. Ha, I can more easily hit the ball right and almost beat my opponent. I won some game but still lost the set. My opponent is always too good. I am kind of tired of this tennis game. If I can choose something else to play, I will choose black jack. Can I? I liked to play black jack when I went to Las Vegas. I found one cool sites to play Black Jack online using fake money. I like to count too. 21 points is cool. I am really getting tired of my tennis game. It is not a good vedio game after all. It does not provide enough levels of game for different levels of players. Even the easiest one is not encouragable and not rewardable. The rewarding system is not set up fairly. My opponent seems unbeatable. It is unfair and it should provide more free space for beginner to play.
I think choosing the right video games for students to play is very important. Evaluating the video games before using it in the classroom is a essential practice. Choosing the video game like choosing the books for library collection. We need to read the reviews and do some research, as well as if we can gett some training would be better.

Some Thoughts after Reading the Two Articles: Changing the Game and Emerging Technologies

It is good idea to suggest my school to provide some new technology workshops as you said. My school did not provide the new technology workshops and I would always like to attend these workshops. I wish we would have more these kinds of information. Where can I get more information on this? My school is a small school and so we rely heavily on the workshops from outsides.
Regarding the articles we read for this week, it did open my eyes. The music teacher in my school allows students to use ipod to listen to any different kind of music. Students love it, however, some kind of contract need to be made to assure they are not using that improperly, such as using it in the class other than music class. Another problem is not every student in my district has ipod. My school is defined as an Abbott School District which means the schools within the poor community, therefore, ipod or MP3 is not commonly owned by students. Therefore, when we consider using the new technology into our curriculum, we need to take into this consideration. As a matter to fact, the students in my community tend to have lower motivation for learning, their learning space mostly in the classrooms, and hence they do have more need to be introduced to new technology since new technology brings them to new learning space which can enhance their learning motivation. Actually, their learning potentials are as great as the students from the wealthier community. Their performance would be as good as the students from other community if they have engaged into new technology more. Experiencing with different learning space provides them more learning opportunities.

Video games allow students to have more learning space besides the traditional classrooms. Students will learn better problem solving skills from playing video games. They need to develop their own strategy when they encounter new challenges; they need to manage their own frustration while they are advancing the problem solving skills. Yes, they learn from their failures just like we do in our real life.

If only the administration can read those articles and support new technology to be used in curriculum. Teachers need to be trained, especially the old fashion teachers and administration. Not only does the community need to support the school to incorporated new technology into school curriculum, also the administration need to attend new workshops and obtain new knowledge about new technology. My school blocks all suspicious websites including youtube on teacher’s computer. We can’t do better without administration’s acknowledged and support. After all, we are afraid to face contradict criticism from supervisors.
There is one thing we can be sure: years later, when we become the administration, we will easily cross over the obstacle and the new generation will have more learning space for their education.

My Grand Slam Tennis Computer Game

My Grand Slam Tennis is not a good video game. According to James Paul Gee, a good video game won’t disappoint the players. It rewards the player and offers the player the feeling of achievement. However, so far I did not have any sense of accomplishment by playing my tennis.

Identity Play

My real life identity is a female school librarian, a mother of two daughters, a Chinese immigrant, a not-tall-enough middle-age female, a frugal wife, a swimming lover, and very dedicated house-keeper. Yinyin Yen is the character I created in second life. The virtual identity I created is tall, outgoing, nice outfit, capable to fly and travel. Comparing to my real life, my second life avatar has more freedom and less stress. Playing this virtual life allows me think new thoughts about my life, and what I valued and experience what I can’t do in my real life. We can refer this to a learning theory why we play video game: good video games reflect good principles of learning.

For identity play, students need to be fully engaged themselves in the classroom to have best learning. In literature class, when students are required to have presentations after they finish biographies reading, they need to involve themselves fully in this identity play to get better performance. In Science class, students need to relate themselves as a scientist, no matter which scientists or how much they want to be scientists, they need to completely identify and define their own roles in the class. Teachers play a role to help students to build up the bridge between student’s real identity and virtual identity.
Good video games are designed for different levels of play, offer players the feeling of achievement, reward all players if they continuously play a good game, and furthermore, provide opportunity to competence. Good video games are carrying out these learning principles which benefit learners beyond video game playing.

Should Parents Be on Facebook?

Should Parents Be on Facebook?
I agree that parents can create their own Facebook account to be friend with their children and their children’s friends. However, I am afraid to use Facebook because the controversial issue with privacy. My older daughter just deleted her Facebook, and my younger one who is 13 years old just created her own facebook. Everyone who is 13 and order can create a facebook account. I reminded/warned them about the privacy problem although Facebook is a good social networking place. My older daughter thinks she has already completely erased her information from Facebook. I hope she did get away from Facebook completely.

New Literacies

New Literacies
New literacy refers to the new approaches to literacy, for example, the computer literacy, comparing to traditional definition of literacy. Because of the advent of new technology, the definition of literacy is changed from printed text to hyper text and from paper to digital format. It includes knowledge acquired from all different sources, printed or electronic.
Therefore, the school media centers need to introduce all different formats of literacy to students, classrooms too. Students not only need to learn how to locate information from books, they also need to learn the skills to search information electronically. The capability to retrieve digital information is the new literacy and is the significant factor to acquire new and broad knowledge. Traditional materials are not longer enough to satisfy our need for new information. The information and news are changed too fast for printed materials to be updated.
Since the nature of reading changes today, information retrieving skills need to be enhanced, the learning strategy needs to be altered, and classroom instructions need to be adapted accordingly to new generation of technology. Librarians and teachers should spend more time in such training workshops. There should be more workshops to be held to satisfy this demand.
New literacy and the traditional literacy are supplemental to each other. It may be better to define new literacy comprises the traditional literacy and computer literacy. To be literate, we can’t ignore the importance of either one.

Using Video Games as Bait to Hoot Readers

Using Video Games as Bait to Hoot Readers
It is still little research showing whether students can absorb information more effective by playing video games than reading traditional books. Therefore, we can teach students the skills to access digital information and the variety of the technology, but digital information still doesn’t replace printed resource. You can enjoy the fun paying video game based on a book, but you will be more enjoyable in reading that book, like reading the book Brisingr. Same thing is applied to movie too; it is more fun to read Harry Potter than to watch its movie. Reading books allows the reader to have more power to imagine the plots. Thinking can go the way beyond the limit which seeing usually has.

However, the idea to trigger students’ interest to read by playing video game based on a hard copy of book is great, especially for those kids who don’t even tough the real books at all.

My video game
I am getting better and better in playing my Grand Slam Tennis Game. I can hit back the ball, and get ready earlier for the coming ball. It is still not easy to catch the ball. I need to move my player quickly enough to hit back. I am not always a loser now; in spite I have won one game yet. I play this game when I have spare time at night. My daughters see I am kind of crazy about video game. My fingers can control the arrow keys better than the beginning. It is fun.

My Grand Slam Tennis Computer Game

My tennis grand slam game is easy to play but not easy to win. It is very difficult to hit the ball on the right position. You need to move left right up or down key at the same time you need to hit x to hit the ball and those will decide you hit the ball right. In real life, I played tennis many years ago. My knees were hurt every time after I played tennis, and that is why I don’t play now. (I still swim everyday) I miss playing tennis. My husband and my daughters are still playing. Now I play tennis in computer. However, it is not as easy as real tennis, because it is a challenge to move around my player. I did not win a game at all. I need to practice a lot to get used it.
My computer is also very slow.

Video Game

I was not a video game player before, because I used to think it wastes my time. I am a mother of two daughters with a full time job. My two daughters are not obsessed to video game while some of my friends complain their sons are playing computer games too much. Actually, I don’t consider it is bad to play video game. It is just some type of learning anyway. I know a lot of smart kids are obsessed to computer game and they also have very good school grades. Some computer games are educational; they motivate the learning interests. For example, one of my friend’s son play black jack in computer; he develops a good skill in mental counting. Some car games will need intense observation to be a good player. My tennis grand slam needs a good coordination between two hands and eyes. At some point of view, this is some kind of learning beyond the knowledge.
However, whether I should apply video games into my teaching curriculum is still controversal.

The Way I Learn

The Way I Learn
The way I learnt used to be very traditional. I learnt stuff from teachers, parents, books, and TV. At my younger age, I don’t have a computer. I studies class notes and books after school. I read newspapers and magazines for knowledge. The materials I used are all printed sources. I learnt what I saw, what I heard, what I listened, and especially what I did. For example, I used to love the science lab than the science class, because I could learn more when I did than when I listen.

Now it is new technology era, the way we learn has tremendously changed. Besides the printed materials, we have electronic materials, digital materials, virtual images…etc. Now I learn most of the new stuff via Internet. I rely on Internet a lot, searching news, information, instructions, and road maps. I am taking course online. I am browsing library collection online.

To have knowledge and use of multimedia will help or motivate us to learn. Years ago, I bought a video game CD-ROM for my daughter to train her keyboard typing skill. That motivated her in learning the proper way of typing. Now she has very good and correct typing skill. I remember that I also bought CD-ROM for math game, language learning game, and so on. Therefore, for kids, learning could be fun if you use the right media to help them. For me too; I love to learn new stuff. I am happy to register medi 506 and get to know new media for using in education. As a teacher, I recognize the way children learn in these days is absolutely different from the way we learn. Applying new multimedia into curriculum is essential to education our new generation, because they tend to do everything for fun.

I try to open the website for How children learn, but "File Not Found" message shows the content we request is unable to be found. Does anyone have same problem?

MEDI506 First Class

Hi,
This is Tiffany. I am in the class of MEDI 506 which seems a very interesting class. I am taking this class for my standard school librarian certificate. I hope after this class I will be done because as a mother of two daughters and a full time school librarian, it is not easy to get to the campus. I am so glad this is a hybrid class and I believe I can learn something new in this class.