I will always remember this class. At their best, the students were full of creativity; civility, not only with each other but with me; engagement, willingness to invest themselves; flexibility & responsivness to the requests from Globaloria Central Command. It has been a pleasure to work with these young people.
I have learned that Globaloria is so much more than using Flash to make a game. A few of the many skills I saw in action:
-collaborating with teammates
-being able to express personal ideas within a group: brainstorming, decision-making, task assignment, willingness to come to consensus
-expressing thoughts, concerns, fears, challenges in writing in their blogs
-multitasking, using time & computer resources well. Each class required several things to be completed which pushed everyone to think, write, work more efficiently.
-choosing aps for self-expression
-thoughtfully considering and reacting to others through writing
-generously encouraging others in their projects
-putting Flash issues into words & asking for help (admitting the need for help)
-taking ownership of the project & working to completion
What I learned about myself - self-improvements for next year:
-It will take effort for me to understand Flash - I am such a latecomer to the digital world. It seems the way for me to do it is creating a game myself, where I can experience the same: "How do I make this action happen?" that the students experience.
-Personally, I will need to work through the Globaloria tutorials several times to be proficient enough to help students in the class. Each student comes in with such different levels of experience. For some students, using the tutorials as presented was enough, for others they were hard to figure out. This will have to happen during the summer for me. During the school year, other than the snow days, it was hard to find the chunks of time I needed to concentrate on what I find to be very challenging.
-At the beginning of the year, I will spend more time helping students understand the whole Globaloria picture: what quality research is, how to use timelines as benchmarks (how to self-assess, make priorities & adjust timelines), why every minute needs to be focused. It is, of course, all there in the Globaloria wiki...and my students did fill in all the blanks ....next year's improvement will be moving beyond just filling in the blanks to creating useful work tools, doing lots of the hard thinking and research up-front. Fully understanding their topic will allow for more accurate and more fully developed concepts taught in their games. It is hard to add depth later when the game design takes priority.
- I will, from the beginning of the year, make additional time available for students with a weekly "Globaloria Game Studio". This after school opportunity will provide additional on-line & Flash time for students without home computer access. This could be a place for Globaloria alumni to come, or where Globaloria mentors could use their hours, yet not pull from their classtime. In a good world, I could be experienced enough to help with specific Flash issues...maybe I can schedule with current & past Globaloria instructors for guest appearances....hm...this could even serve to introduce other students to Globaloria through our pre-existing afterschool tutorial system???? TO BE EXPLORED.
In conclusion: Although this has been a great year and I am satisfied with how this year's class went given all the various aspects, Globaloria, for me, is a work in progress. I look forward to next year with new found confidence and understanding of how to fully benefit from the Globaloria platform, not only for my students but also for myself.
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