The Daydreaming and Private Spaces
Theme:
“A day in the life of a teenage girl at School Now and Tomorrow” – Cloud Services Educational Technology Edition [Theme Described in detail in Phase 1 Individual Project].
Web URL for Final Project: http://em852project.wix.com/cloudmontage
Daydreaming Space:
The daydreaming space feeds the imagination and creativity of the student. In this space students can take part in engaging activities in the classroom or outside the classroom that will help them develop their creativity. While part of K-12 education is to learn different subject matters, another part to the education is allowing the students themselves to create and develop on their own. Unlike the discovery space where students discover the course material via gamified instruction or instructional simulations; the daydreaming space allow the student themselves to create their own games/simulations. Numerous studies have shown success in students working within a team based environment using their own imagination to build. For example, free software such as
Scratch and Storytelling Alice allow students to create their own games using their own ideas and creativity while learning computer programming and programming concepts. Minecraft is another game used in various different courses in K-12 schools – allowing students’ imagination to take over and teaching important topics during the process. Still other software exists that really hones in on students’ creativity and ability to design build and play to help students better understand certain subject matters.
Private Space:
The private space feeds the spirit and reflects our values. The private space for the K-12 student in the school setting would be their locker – this is the place where they keep their belongings. Similar to the locker, the private space in terms of computing would be any cloud services that provides storage. The private space for the student could be the space that they access to store their private pictures, their digital works, their assignments, private journals/diaries etc. This space should be secure and should only be accessible by the student and is password protected.
Why Cloud Computing for Daydreaming Space?
Johnson, Adams and Cummins (2012) list many organizations and games being applied through K-12 to spark the creativity and imagination of students. Organizations such as Creative Academies and EdGE are helping K-12 schools incorporate game-based learning (Johnson et al., 2012). Some games already incorporated include Legends of Alkhimia used to teach chemistry and Minecraft used to teach humanities (Johnson et al., 2012). Games that come in tablet or mobile format are: SimCity (to teach social studies), Catalysts for Change (to teach world poverty), and Newark Earthworks (to teach about the lunar observatory) (Johnson et al., 2012). Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has recently announced that they will create a massive multiplayer online game (MMOG) to teach math and biology to high school students. This project has a $3 million dollar budget (Smith, 2012). The MIT Education Arcade has already developed more than 15 educational games teaching STEM (Smith, 2012). All of these tools are spaces where students can experience and play – and also develop.
Many of the games or tools students can use to build on their imagination are either hosted on the web or support connectivity. All of this is not possible without cloud computing. MMOGs are hosted and provided using cloud architecture. Cloud computing allows for the expansion of these game worlds, easy access, connectivity and access from multiple devices.
Why Cloud Computing for Private Space?
Although storage is available for students via their own hard drive and flash drives, this is not optimal. Cloud storage allow for ease of access and better protection of the information. If a student’s hard drive crashes or they lose their flash drive, the private data they have saved on those devices are forever gone. These items could be anything from photographs, assignments and papers. Losing these items might mean losing the grade. If cloud storage is used, students can access their documents from any device, password protect the service and can’t lose their assignments. There are some issues with cloud storage being hacked into and the data being stolen; in which case students have to be educated on how to protect their data and how not to share their private username information.
References:
Johnson, L., Adams, S., & Cummins, M. (2012). NMC Horizon Report: 2012 K-12 Edition.
Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.
Smith, L. (2012). MIT to Develop an Educational MMO: Backed by $3 million bucks. Retrieved
from http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/4570/article/mit-to-develop-an-educational-mmo/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+gameranx+%28Gameranx%29
