#etlead Week 12 Finalizing the presentation.

This was a week of online meetings and fine-tuning. Our group met online twice this week to work on our Prezi presentation. We were able to work on the Prezi simultaneously while we chatted which provided immediate feedback and allowed us to work very efficiently. At the end of each session, we all selected parts to work on. By the time we finished our last meeting, we had a reasonably complete presentation. At the end of the week, I was called out of town because of a family emergency. My group graciously took over. They made a couple of minor adjustments, added some background music, and posted our final product Sunday afternoon. One aspect of this project I enjoyed the most was working with the members of our group. I was impressed with their professionalism and their wonderful sense of humor. My hope is that I get the opportunity to meet these fine teachers face-to-face someday.

I was supposed to host this week’s Twitter session with Brandi. Unfortunately, I was heading out of Alaska when the class met. Brandi came to the rescue and kept the session rolling. I managed to email her a list of possible questions prior to leaving. I logged into Twitter Saturday afternoon to get a recap of Thursdays discussion and was pleased that she was able to use some of the questions during the discussion. It appeared the groups were all getting close to completing their presentations. As usual, the discussion was lively and diverse. I am looking forward to seeing the results of each group’s effort. It appears that our class is having fun with this project. The Minecraft group never ceased to amaze me. I’m wondering if we need to start a support group to help wean them off

#etlead Week 11 Finalizing the Game

Our group continues to finalize the details our game. We met twice this week to discuss ideas and to determine how we want the game played and how we can present it. We are leaning toward using Edmodo for playing the game. The benefits are that it’s education based and that teachers have control over who is allowed in. Most of us have little knowledge of Edmodo so we decided to do a little research. We discovered a couple of additional benefits that we didn’t know about. In Edmodo, the teacher can split classes into subgroups, which is ideal for our game concept. There is also the option to award badges, which also fits our game very well. We plan to present our game using a Prezi. Most of us have little or no knowledge about creating a Prezi presentation, which is forcing us to learn as we go. One of the things I like about Prezi is that it allows us to add images and video. The challenge I’ve found is trying to find relevant videos that are not copyright protected that we can use in the presentation. This may prove to be too difficult so we may end up having to use images exclusively. My goal this weekend is to do some intense searching online to see what I can find.

Overall, I am very pleased with our game idea. It focuses on realistic situations that are important to many people living in Alaska, which should make it appealing to people living here. Because Alaska and Alaska wildlife have such a broad appeal to people outside the state, it should also be interesting to people in different locales. The other aspect of the game I like is that the game will require cooperation between different groups to make it successful. Winning will not be an individual achievement. Individual groups can achieve different degrees of success but ultimately, all of the groups must come together in the end to achieve total victory.