"MOTIVATION" by Bill Dorsey

When given the opportunity to brainstorm about student motivation, I had to ask what motivation meant to me and what I envision for my classes. I decided to take a step back from being the teacher and to take a simpler, yet creative approach that we use in education. I wrote an acrostic poem. This let me use the letters of the word "motivation" to inspire thoughts that would help create and encourage a drive in my students to succeed in their class and in their game design approach.

So look out literary world, here it comes...

Make sure to meet both the students' and the class's needs.
Ownership of the projects, rubrics, and expectations belongs to the students.
Take time to provide honest and constructive feedback to students.
Illustrate what can be done through modeling Globaloria as a teacher.
Voice - encourage each student to develop a digital point of view.
Allow students' creativity to guide their work.
Try new things as often as you can, the students will follow suit.
Individually address each student, their successes, strengths, and goals.
Own your struggles and successes, it will help the kids accept their own.
Notice even the student's smallest successes, the big ones will follow.

After I wrote the poem, I realized that all I had to do was think about what people have done to motivate me. I'm no different than any of my students when it comes to basic human needs. All I have to do is do for them what the great people in my past have done for me. If I can manage that, then who knows, my students just might inspire and motivate me to bigger and greater things.

After the Academy

Its the day after the August Globaloria Academy and I am so stoked! I am really looking forward to mentoring my fellow teachers, I have several ideas for my own class, and I think I have a good idea for revamping my own game. Thanks to all the members of Globaloria and the WWWF tea for reawakening that!

A VERY BRIGHT FUTURE

Hey Globaloria Gang! Just wanted to post how thrilled I was at all of our presentations today. I had expected the more experienced users to shine in their talents, skills, and presentations (and that definitely happened beyond my expectations) but the best was the presentations of the self-titled "newbies." Looking and listening to their presentations was amazing and uplifting. I can remember the first year of Globaloria and the presentation we made. These guys blew us out of the water. It is great to see such wonderfully devoted and talented people joining in on Globaloria. How can this project do anything but succeed with such an assemblage of educators. WE ROCK!!

The Insights Provided by Blogging

A piece of sad news this morning provided a reminder of the great opportunity blogs give us to see inside each other's minds. George Sodini, the man who entered an aerobics class in an LA Fitness center and shot and/or killed several members of the class before killing himself, had apparently kept a blog. According to the new reports, the Mr. Sordini's blog mentioned his own date of death (the same as the shooting) and even mentioned loaded guns as early as January , 2009. As teachers, blogs give us an opportunity to see life through our students eyes. Even if it is through the construct of a class like Globaloria, we should take the time to read our kids posts sincerely. Apparently no one was reading Mr. Sodini's blog. Hopefully, all the blogs that we read will be of a much lighter note but even so, just reading and commenting on our students' blogs is one way of showing our support on their sense and feeling of importance in a world that presents some of them with more than their fair share of pain, shame, and loneliness.

Be the Turtle!

PBS' Nature has another game that I really thought was a good match for Globaloria. Its the Turtle Voyager Game. It has great yet simple graphics, good user controls, goals that reflect a strong social statement, and multiple levels. Not quite sure if its Flash but it has a great and strong Flash feel. Give it a try.

Some inspiration to kick off the new school year...

Hey guys, just thought I would post some information about a game that falls right along with Globaloria and science. It is dear to my heart as I have recently been made very aware of the plight of the genetically-challenged cheetah population. The name of the game is Toki's Survival Challenge. This is a great illustration of a game with key control of a character, challenges per level, and a social issue. I can see something like this being created by our students. Enjoy!

Arrays and Randomization

Had a lot of practice with arrays latey. I was even trying to make a nested array with movie clips to be attached in a random order, but, that was taxing my mind just a little bit to start off with. Though I am enjoying the control that arrays give you with just a bit of code. If anyone has good information on using arrays to randomly project movie clips, it would be appreciated. Check out Our Lunch Tray. It is a work in progress but needed to test the coding out.