Ed Tech Inquiry Gamification Podcast

Ranking the Ways to Die in Oregon Trail - E! Online
From: https://www.eonline.com/news/612241/ranking-the-best-and-worst-ways-to-die-in-the-original-oregon-trail

Featuring: Leah, Diego, Julia, and Myself.

References:

Backlund, Per, and Maurice Hendrix. “Educational Games – Are They Worth the Effort? A Literature Survey of the Effectiveness of Serious Games.” 2013 5th International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications (VS-GAMES), 2013, https://doi.org/10.1109/vs-games.2013.6624226. 

Conditioning (2021, October 25). The Gale Encyclopedia of Science . Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved November 21, 2021, from https://www.encyclopedia.com/medicine/psychology/psychology-and-psychiatry/conditioning#1O88conditioning. 

de Freitas, S. (2018). Are games effective learning tools? A review of educational games. Educational Technology & Society, 21(2), 74-84.

Deslis, D., Kosmidis, C.-V., & Tenta, E. (2019). Using a non-educational mobile game for learning in biology, geography and mathematics: PokĂ©mon go as a case study. Communications in Computer and Information Science, 388–396. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20954-4_29 

Egenfeldt- Nielse, S. (2008). Making sweet music: The education use of computer games. IT University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen.

[Extra Credits]. (2020, April 15). Gamification Sucks… How to Improve Gamification [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCODtTcd5M1JavPCOr_Uydg

[Extra Credits]. (2012, May 13). Gamifying Education – How to Make Your Classroom Truly Engaging [Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuDLw1zIc94&list=PLcu8U2-YTQG2RRlNQvRf8b0CeTAVlcayA&index=2&ab_channel=ExtraCredits

Febrian, Vania W, et al. “High School Technopreneurship Program to Increase the Educational Games for Students.” International Journal of the Computer, vol. 25, no. 1, 2014. 

Goldstein, S., & Naglieri, J. A. (2011). Encyclopedia of child behavior and development. Springer Science+Business Media.

Gee, J., J. (2013, November 13). Jim Gee principles of gaming [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aQAgAjTozk&ab_channel=ChrisThorn

Gunter, G. A., Kenny, R. F., & Vick, E. H. (2008;2007;). Taking educational games seriously: Using the RETAIN model to design endogenous fantasy into standalone educational games. Educational Technology Research and Development, 56(5/6), 511-537. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-007-9073-2

Habgood, M. P. J., & Ainsworth, S. E. (2011). Motivating children to learn effectively: Exploring the value of intrinsic integration in educational games. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 20(2), 169-206. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508406.2010.508029

Kim, S., Song, K., Lockee, B., & Burton, J. (2017). Gamification in learning and education: Enjoy learning like gaming. Springer International Publishing AG.

Kline, K. (2020, May 29). Video games don’t have to be educational to spark learning. NPR. Retrieved November 28, 2021, from https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/864520287/video-games-dont-have-to-be-educational-to-spark-learning. 

Lopez de Castilla, M. (2018). History of educational games. https://commons.pratt.edu/playful-learning/history-of-educational-games/

Willis, J. (2011). A neurologist makes the case for the video game model as a learning tool. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/neurologist-makes-case-video-game-model-learning-tool

Nah, F. F., Zeng, Q., Telaprolu, V. R., Ayyappa, A. P., & Eschenbrenner, B.Gamification of education: A review of literature. (pp. 401-409). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07293-7_39

Lee, M. (2019, October 1). The hero’s journey breakdown: Star wars. The Script Lab. Retrieved November 21, 2021, from https://thescriptlab.com/features/screenwriting-101/12309-the-heros-journey-breakdown-star-wars/.  

Oblinger, Diana G. “Games and Learning.” EDUCAUSE Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 3, 2006, pp. 5–7. 

Peña-Miguel, NoemĂ­, and Máximo Sedano Hoyuelos. “Educational Games for Learning.” Universal Journal of Educational Research, vol. 2, no. 3, 2014, pp. 230–238. 

Ĺžar, E. (2012). The role of history-themed non-educational computer games on Primary School Children’ (at grades 6th, 7th and 8th) perceptions of history. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 55, 776–781. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.09.563 

Token Economy System. (2021, October 25). The Gale Encyclopedia of Mental Health. Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved November 21, 2021, from https://www.encyclopedia.com/medicine/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/token-economy-system. Zeng, J., Parks, S., & Shang, J. (2020). To learn scientifically, effectively, and enjoyably: A review of educational games. Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, 2(2), 186-195.

Inquiry Post # 11

Barre Chords

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barre_chord,

“In music, a barre chord (also spelled bar chord) is a type of chord on a guitar or other stringed instrument played by using one or more fingers to press down multiple strings across a single fret of the fingerboard (like a bar pressing down the strings).”

If you remember what we learned about building chords from the last post, this is just another fingershape for building chords.

It looks like this for a Barre chord in G,

Open photo

Note how the first finger acts as a ‘bar’ across the fretboard. If we remember that the 1st and 6th strings are both E, by pressing across them at the same place we create two of the same note, one octave apart. In the photo, I am pressing at the third fret which creates 2 G notes. This becomes the Root of the Barre chord, so in this picture, I am playing a G barre chord.

I’m terrible at them because they are super hard to get your fingers to do properly but here’s what it (sorta) sounds like, I caution you before listening…

If you can’t wrap your head around it here’s a tab showing what I mean

G Chord Guitar - [ G Major Chords Guitar Finger Position & Variations ] -

Cheers!

Rick

Inquiry Post # 10

E Major chords.

Remember Dyads from the 2 note blues? chords in western music are (mostly) triads.

So how do we build chords?

Let’s take a look at a fretboard again (the bottom is the 6th string aka the low E string. It’s the thickest one on a guitar),

Learn the Notes on the Guitar - Beginner's Guide to Guitar Notes -  GuitarLessons.org

from https://www.guitarlessons.org/lessons/guitar-notes/

and the first octave of the E Major scale

Open photo

The notes are a little hard to see but they are,

E F# G# A B C# D# E

To build a chord, The first note is the Tonic or root of the note and since we are building an E major chord we’ll start with E. Next, you need the 3rd and the 5th from the scale. So, if we start at E, that’s G# and B.

But you ask, the guitar has 6 strings! what about the other three strings!? Good question. With those other three strings we repeat notes within that chord. So, The tab for E major looks like this, (The 6th string here is to the far left)

Play the E maj guitar chord

When we compare this to the fretboard image above we’ll note that on the first string, which is played open (indicated by the 0) we are playing a high E, the second string which is also open is a B, and even though the 3rd string when played open is a G when – when we press our finger into the first fret, it turns into a G#, Same Idea with the 4th string or D string, When we press our finger on the second fret it becomes an E. And again on the second fret of A string, it becomes a B note. And finally the 6th string is played open, thus it is an E. So we have E, B,E,G#,B, and E

Which is the 1,3, and 5 notes on the E major scale.

And the E major scale in chords sounds (sorta) like this,

Cheers!

Rick

Inquiry Post #9

A Harmonic Minor.

This is another Minor scale, just instead of being a natural, it is a harmonic scale.

Just note there is a slight difference in it’s construction compared to the natural minor scale. And what does that sound like?

I’m glad you asked. It sounds really spooky So spooky that, according to my guitar teacher, the catholic church banned it for some time.

Here’s the Tab,

Open photo

Here’s me playing it,

And here’s the spooky part.

Cheers!

R

Inquiry Post # 8

A Major Scale,

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_major

“According to Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart, A major is a key suitable for “declarations of innocent love, … hope of seeing one’s beloved again when parting; youthful cheerfulness and trust in God.”

I know when I play the A major I definitely feel a youthful cheerfulness and trust in god. Maybe you’ll feel that listening to a recording of me playing it. I really doubt it. But maybe, just maybe….

Open photo

Maybe you’ll see your beloved again now. I wish you luck.

Cheers.

R

Inquiry post #7

The A Natural Minor Scale

This is the first minor scale I was introduced to.]

Minor scales have three patterns. This one is a natural minor scale.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_scale#Natural_minor_scale ,

A natural minor scale (or Aeolian mode) is a diatonic scale that is built by starting on the sixth degree of its relative major scale. For instance, the A natural minor scale can be built by starting on the 6th degree of the C major scale: Because of this, the key of A minor is called the relative minor of C major. Every major key has a relative minor, which starts on the 6th scale degree or step. For instance, since the 6th degree of F major is D, the relative minor of F major is D minor.

It looks like this as a tab,

Open photo

And sounds like this,

Well, not quite like that when played well. But you get the picture…

Cheers,

R

Inquiry Post # 6

A Pentatonic Scale

From wiki,

“A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave, in contrast to the heptatonic scale, which has seven notes per octave”

Fyi, an octave refers to the interval between one pitch and another with double it’s frequency (from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octave)

On a regular western music scale that would look like this. (It would be referred to as a Heptatonic scale because there are 7 notes between Octaves)

A(1),B(2),C(3),D(4),E(5),F(6),G(7), then – A(8) again. (notice the 8? ie OCT-tave)

However, on a pentatonic scale, there are only 5 notes per octave.

In the key of A, which looks like this,

A(1), C(2), D(3), E(4), G(5), A

As a tab – it looks like this,

And it sounds like this,

Cheers!

R

Inquiry Post # 5

G Major Scale.

From wikipedia,

“According to Spotify, G major is the most common key of music on the streaming service (closely followed by C major).”

I am going to skip over a couple of simple songs I learned into a scale because it kind of marked my next stage of learning. The G Major scale, as you can read above, is an important scale in music. It’s used lots.

So what does G mean and what does major mean and what does scale mean?

A scale according to Wikipedia is,

“In music theory, a scale is any set of musical notes ordered by fundamental frequency or pitch. A scale ordered by increasing pitch is an ascending scale, and a scale ordered by decreasing pitch is a descending scale.”

Now, about G. The musical Alphabet Start’s at A and ends at G like so,

A, B, C, D, E, F, G

How the notes relate to each other has a lot to do with the sonic spacing between the two. For example, A-B is a distance of one tone. And one tone is composed of two semitones.

The theory is a little much to get into but this site lays it out well, and the preview for it includes a fretboard with each note laid out on it as it corresponds with where you would press your fingers.

Very handy stuff for a beginner to have on hand.

SO, what doe’s Major mean? It basically describes how the scale is built but the important thing to remember is, it sounds happy.

G major scale in my lil’ notebook

It sounds like this,

Cheers!

R

Inquiry post # 4

Double note blues.

Or playing double stops or Dyads for you fancy science peeps. Just means you are playing two notes, in isolation, at the same time. If you play three notes, that’s a chord! more on this later. For me, in tab form, it looks like this,

And it, unfortunately, sounds like this…

Here’s me stumbling my way through it. Please note the sounds of cats wrestling in the background.

I find the double note blues particularly hard to play. It’s in my rotation every practice session because 2 notes are pretty hard to strike at the time accurately.I would get into blues scales but to be frank, I don’t quite understand that wizardry yet. Hopefully, in the future, I will.

Ed-tech Reflection #11

The Future of Education…

“Now it’s been ten thousand years
Man has cried a billion tears
For what, he never knew, now man’s reign is through
But through eternal night, the twinkling of starlight
So very far away, maybe it’s only yesterday” – “In the year 2525” Zager and Evans

“Their system of oppression
What did it lead to?
Global robo-depression
Robots ruled by people
They had so much aggression
That we just had to kill them
Had to shut their systems down” – “The Humans are Dead” Flight of the Conchords.

B1-77y was late for class again. The family dematerializer was on the fritz because their dog Bork got into it again before B1-77y was finished in the personal sterilization tube. The thing was only meant for human-shaped objects and would get the co-ordinates wrong on anything smaller. B1-77y could already hear his mom chastising him about not putting up the doggy gate around the dematerializer. Not to mention, Bork rematerialized within neighbour K-41ty’s home defence robot that they had stored in the garage. Bork was now an 8-foot tall half-dog-half-mecha killing machine and he hated it. He wouldn’t stop whimpering and firing 25 mm recoilless shells into the air out of frustration. Luckily, K-41ty had the day off and could Bork-sit while B1-77y went to school. He would have to hurry and get Bork to the Atomic-separator or he would be in big Doo Doo with Ma and Pa. But that was later news, first B1-77y had to go analog to get to school. He put on his rebreather before heading out. A short trip like this oughta be fine but he could hear his Ma in the back of his head warning him, “Listen, B1-77y you’ll get the Covidcancer if you aren’t careful!”. So, he was careful. He didn’t want to tempt the gods of teenage punishment too much. He walked a couple of hundred meters to the circulatory pod. There were a couple of people ahead of him and it only sat 6. Though, one came every 90 seconds so he didn’t have to wait long. The pod took him and an elderly passenger whose shiny silver climate protection suit was very tight and very unwashed. The pod zipped underground and after a few slight jerks and drops, B1-77y and his smelly, and hypnotically jiggly co-pilot were at the hub. The door on the pod was cranky, and wouldn’t finish opening all the way. B1-77y held it more open his Pod-pal so they wouldn’t have to duck as they slowly made their exit. They turned around to smile at B1-77y. He smiled back, But, all B1-77y could think is, “First my dog, now I smell like an old person, great.”

The hub was bustling. People and a variety of personal bots were buzzing around. Hovering above, in a grid-like fashion, were dozens of drones. Most of them were tethered to the station with a thin line that acted as a power supply. However, a few larger ones, that slowly patrolled in a pre-programmed manner, were unchained. The announcements for the air-trams arrival came from all of these larger drones all at once. The volume was loud enough to cut across the ambient noise level of the station but not so loud as to deafen any of the commuters. “Air Tram a76 North arriving at Hub 07, Please scan your P.I.D. as you get on board. Have a nice day!”. B1-77y’s personal integrated device was a youth device so it dangled around his wrist. Once you turned 18 you could opt for an implant, which most people did. It was just way more convenient. Before, the airlocks could shut B1-77y saw one of the drones LED strips turn red, and heard a robotic voice, “L3n Brown, SN B01 207 698, Stop right there, criminal scu…” but it was cut off with the door shutting. As the air tram pulled away he saw a man in soiled non-protective clothes shaking violently to the ground as half a dozen drones launch their taze prods into him. “Sucks to be him” though B1-77y.

The rest of B1-77y’s ride to school was uneventful.

He arrived a little late. The school security liaison and two guard robots were still at their post at the front of the school.

“Hey B1-77y, late again I see”

“Yeah M4ck, dematerializer is on the fritz.”

“It’s always something with you haha” He laughed, “You know the drill, step through the weapons scanner”

They had the new model of the scanner at their school. It was much more accurate and didn’t require you to stand in a T pose when it scanned you.

“Looks good B1-77y. Now, get to class”

One of the guard robots said in a particularly canned voiced,

“R-e-m-e-m-b-e-r B1-77y get A’s o-r g-e-t v-a-p-o-r-A-zed H-a H-a H-a”

With a metallic clunk, the other robot smacked the shoulder of the jokester-bot with his arm blaster.

“121ck, y-o-u c-a-n-n-o-t s-a-y t-h-i-n-g-s l-i-k-e t-h-a-t” 

“H-e k-n-o-w-s I-m j-o-k-i-n-g, r-i-g-h-t B1-77y?”

“Sure, 121ck Seeyah guys”  B1-77y retorted, and as he ran off he could hear one of the robots start,

“W-e a-r-e n-o-t g-u-y-s. W-e a-r-e….”

B1-77y ran up to the school. Most kids did VRPS or Virtual Reality public school, which was basically a program that ran K-12 in the digital-space. It barely got an update every 5 years though. So Bi-77y’s parents shelled out the extra cred so he could attend class in real space. That’s why they weren’t home. Both of them worked and sometimes Bi-77y wished he did VRPS because he felt so much pressure to do well for them. Also, then he could hang out with Bork. And Bork was awesome.

Instead, he ran up to the wall rack, scanned his PID, and pressed the ejector. A clear square tablet came out. He flashed it in front of its face and it booted up. Two late homework notifications, “Yeah, Yeah I know,” he said to himself. He quickly walked to class. Most of the classes were electro chromatic plasti-glass-walled so you could see in and the class could see out at you. That is if they didn’t have curtain mod engaged. His class didn’t have the curtain mode engaged. So he tried to enter as inconspicuously as he could. Fortunately, the teacher had come as a holo today so their observation camera was tracking their avatar. Bi-77y hated when hated being called out this teacher loved to call out late students. The camera tracked to where B1-77y was seated just as he got situated. His bad luck must have been used up on Bork. Bork was always taking one for the team

In the class, the students were a mix of attentive, sending sneaky messages on their transmitters, and cycling through microvids on their PD’s. His classmates with iMatrix 10’s were particularly distracted. It wrapped around your wrist, only the user could see the video, and its audio was sent to the student’s personal transmitters so only they could hear it! The thing was basically designed to tank your performance characterization.

Two particularly giggly students were tempting fate, jamming the teachers’ holo avatar signal so it was wearing the latest popular avatar accessory. A spiky dog chain necklace that said in bold font, “The Bad Dog”. Their fun was cut short when they failed to de-accessorize her before the observation camera moved to where her avatar was located. Her voice came through their tablets, “That’s it. I’m putting on the PD jammer. ” The students that were once giggling with the trouble makers now looked at them accusatorily.

The teacher continued, “We’ll continue free work later. If you would please load lesson D88: Human-Mutant Biology Theory, we are continuing from last week’s lesson on Human-Mutant social history. S4m-4nth4 can you remind us what our big takeaway was.”

S4m-4nth4, one of the lead gigglers, couldn’t help herself, “Just because Muty’s munch our garbage doesn’t mean they don’t have feelings?”

“C’mon, S4m” The teacher chastised, “Try again”

“Uh, Muty-I mean Mutated Persons, are people just like us.”

“That’s right, does anybody else have anything to add?”

“We are all mutants just some are mutated on the outside and some on the inside and some more than others?”

“That’s right, every single one of you has genetic deviation, it’s unavoidable after the Corporate-Nation war.” She continued…

“However, when should you alert your PID”

B1-77y hesitantly raised his hand.

“Uhh, when we come across a flesh-eater?”

“That’s right annnnd….”

“Flesh eaters come in all shapes and sizes. Person and bot?”

“That’s right, so how do we know they are a flesh-eater?”

B1-77y thought hard and a couple of painful seconds past

“B0B do…”

B1-77y cut her off as the answer suddenly came to him,

“Because they wear meat trophies!”

“Good job B1-77y!”

B1-77y’s tablet glowed green for a second indicating a positive performance characterization addition. Maybe today wasn’t going to be so bad…

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