CEP812 : Wicked Problem Project: Part A - Description of Need or Opportunity

After watching the movie, Waiting for Superman, one thing that I gathered is that there is a demand for people to give back to the education system however best they can. This helped form my Wicked Problem, and i feel that an important educational need is that students should have constant  motivation and understanding of the importance to obtain a college degree. 

I will use Internet mentoring to address this problem,  through the access to college students of different backgrounds and paths. Those that are currently successfully navigating through college and those that have came across some trials and tribulations that may have effected their college success. I personally can give a personal testimony of how horrible I did as an undergrad compared to the dramatic changes that were necessary to maneuver through graduate school. And if anything that can be enhanced through technology can definitely be mentoring. 

This approach will be reasonable due to the use of free internet video messaging tools, such as skype, oovoo, and possibly google video chat, and possible help aids will be used such as vyew, jing, ppt, and other resources.  These Internet Mentors will be implemented in high schools, with adult supervision.  The idea is to run for one school year, and depending on the need, longer. High school students will use it, and make contact with college students. The start off test sample would be high school juniors, to follow their progress overall until they graduate.

Some of the results that I came across involve Internet Mentoring or Telementoring. I found a couple of articles on Proquest that greatly helped, one in-particular was about Virtual mentors: Mentoring on the Internet. This broke down, what a virtual mentor is, some advantages, disadvantages, and directions for implementation. Aside from Proquest, I search on Google Scholar, and later will just do a general Internet search.

My plan for this course is to be able to conduct a survey of the college mentors. This will be a type of screening to ensure, we are gathering qualified mentors based on the qualifications set forth by the myself.  After this this there will be background checks to make sure that the mentors have no current criminal and sexual history. After that, a sample of students and schools will be selected to partake in the plot program. 

Success will be measured comparing the preliminary and post focus groups and survey responses of the students, as well as focus groups, progress reports, and surveys from the teachers of the students. this way we will have identified any changes in the students academic, social, emotional, willing and readiness to matriculate to the collegiate level.

 

 

CEP 812: 1 min bio and funny story about technology

Cep812bio

View more webinars from MrCovington

CEP 810 : Personal Learning Reflection

Some of the things that I have learned about effective teaching is that you need understand the students understanding of technology and their possible limits if there are some.  Interating the internet has helped by learning of the technologies that require the use of the internet like Wordle and a Webquest. Because it is the internet that means that it will be helpful to find other technologies, stay up to date, or even be aware of the changes of older technologies.  Even at the end of the this course, I still feel that the Visual PLN is the assignment exemplifies good teaching with technology. I say this because it exemplifies creativity and made easy for students to identify with but still gives the broadness to be simple or as intricate as the student’s desire.  

Hmmm, how I have met my goals, well, from doing the SIG presentation and being in the course period, I have increased my understanding of new technologies that can be used. I do plan to implement the use of Wordle in all my teachings, as a introduction to getting to know the students.  Technologies like Jing and Camtasia that will allow advanced creativity with projects. My new goals, well the never-ending goal is to always obtain more knowledge about technology that can be used for educational purposes.  As I continue to play with my Xbox Kinect system, I am realizing that overwhelming potential to create interactive games for education and enhanced learning. So with that said, the goal is to write a paper and have it published about potentialities of this commercial system having a major educational influence.

USC retains top spot among video game design programs: Finally Answers!!

Saw this today on one of the ppl I follow @USATODAYTECH

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2011/02/usc-retains-top-spot-among-video-game-design-programs/1


For the second straight year, the University of Southern California is home to the top video game design program in the country.
USC boasts the top graduate and undergraduate programs, according to The Princeton Review's list of "Top Schools for Video Game Design Study for 2011."
"We're just very excited about where the program is going," said Elizabeth Daley, the dean of USC's School of Cinematic Arts.
The schools were selected based on a survey of administrators at 150 schools offering video game design programs or degrees.
The survey focuses on four key categories: academic, faculty, infrastructure and career opportunities.
The University of Utah and the DigiPen Institute of Technology in Redmond, Wash., round out the top three undergraduate programs. The full top 10, including honorable mentions:

1. University of Southern California (Los Angeles)
2. University of Utah (Salt Lake City)
3. DigiPen Institute of Technology (Redmond, Wash.)
4. The Art Institute of Vancouver (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)
5. Michigan State University (East Lansing, Mich.)
6. Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Worcester, Mass.)
7. Drexel University (Philadelphia)
8. Champlain College (Burlington, Vt.)
9. Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, N.Y.)
10. Becker College (Worcester, Mass.)
Honorable mentions: Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta), North Carolina State University (Raleigh), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, N.Y.), Savannah College of Art and Design (Savannah, Ga.) and Shawnee State University (Portsmouth, Ohio).

This marks the first year The Princeton Review ranked the top graduate programs for video game design. The top 10, with honorable mentions:

1. University of Southern California (Los Angeles)
2. University of Central Florida (Orlando)
3. Southern Methodist University (Plano, Texas)
4. Rochester Institute of Technology (Rochester, N.Y.)
5. Drexel University (Philadelphia)
6. University of Utah (Salt Lake City)
7. University of California-Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, Calif.)
8. Savannah College of Art and Design (Savannah)
9. Parsons The New School for Design (New York)
10. University of Texas-Dallas (Dallas)
Honorable mentions: Academy of Art University (San Francisco), DePaul University (Chicago), DigiPen Institute of Technology (Redmond, Wash.), Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Mass.)

Daley credits the success of USC's programs to their teaching philosophy. "What we really try to do is to look constantly at the user experience with games -- how do you design games so that, like films and like television, people want to engage with them," Daley says.
The Princeton Review -- in conjunction with GamePro magazine -- started ranking video game design programs last year after recognizing a surge in the number of options available at schools.
"As there is more notoriety around the list and the idea that game design is a viable option for going to school -- not as a major but as a career afterwards -- it's adding a lot of credibility to the field," says David Soto of The Princeton Review.

The list will be featured in the April issue of GamePro.

CEP 810: Learning Activity

My two categories are:
Creativity and Innovation 
Communication and Collaboration  

The activity I would give my students would be called “Next Top Game Model”, and what this activity would do is force creativity to go beyond what is already known or seen. This would make the students, not be able to call upon, previous games, game models, or stories with a twist, but create some original. In the final product, students would have to create a digital storyboard pitch. The way this will work is by the students being placed into teams or “mini companies” to come up with this new idea and pitch. After they come up with the idea, they teams will create a visual presentation by their choice of technology, and present to the class. The two categories that this activity falls under is Creativity and Innovation, and Communication and Collaboration. Under the Creativity and Innovation category, this activity focuses on students demonstrating creative thinking to develop an innovative product. Under Communication and Collaboration, this lets the students work collaboratively, to better their communication skills. It lets individuals think on their and explore on their own, to be able to come back to the team, and fit their ideas for the betterment of the product.

CEP 810: Creative Commons

Photo Attribution:
Eiffel Tower + Big Ben 
http://www.freakingnews.com/Eiffel-Tower-Big-Ben-Pics-43328.asp


By: ERJR of the Independents


Released under an attributed license:
http://search.creativecommons.org/?q=Effiel+tower&sourceid=Mozilla-search 


When I taught a Digital Imaging class in video game production, having the students understand techniques were the most important part of the class. You can do some do and create so many awesome and interesting works in Photoshop. How I would use this particular image is in a lesson of using a magic wand tool, mixed with blending and cloning. Students would learn how to express themselves and creativity through the use of other countries and cultures. The underlying importance is for students to learn how to give credit where credit is due. So that their works can be considered their own, and understand that when they get famous to know what the procedures are for when they get famous.This will also fit into the curriculum when discussing copyrights, and to make sure students understand what to do when using others images to and how changes images to avoid image plagiarism.




Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cacts1st/4524047160/

CEP 810: Personal Learning Reflection

While integrating technology, I have learned that you have to make sure you understand the level of your student’s knowledge of technology, to make sure they have access to the appropriate technology, and when working with technology make sure that whatever you doing with technology can be done without having the most up to date technology.  Coming from my background of learning, I see teaching with technology as building or constructing something, so I would have to say that the PLN Visualization is what exemplifies good teaching with technology. I say this because, it transforms an  assignment into visual finish product, and because that is part of my learning style it help me understand how to make sure my students be able to express themselves visually. So far I have increased my knowledge in different areas and especially in the copyrighting. Being in graphic design and multimedia field, it’s important to make sure my students understand what they can, cannot, and must do when creating media masterpieces.  As this course goes on, I continue to enhance my knowledge, which I guess I can say that I am meeting my goals. At this point I am not sure if I have any new goals, as it pertains to the class, but in general getting better doing and working with online classes.