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.

Folders, frames, and clips OH MY

A real quick blog today, but I learned more about using folders to organize everything you are creating in Flash. I have just been building the skeleton of our redo on The Ultimate Lunch Tray game and have used Folders to organize different sections of the game and already I feel more comfortable in the programming aspect.

If you haven't used them before, try out some Folders in your games.

Recovered and Renergized

It's saturday morning, cartoons are playing (yes, still a kid at heart), and I feel very rested. After the third day of our June 2009 Globaloria training session, I sat down very tired friday evening. That was when I realized just how much we had done and learned. We didn't do physical labor, break a sweat, or lift a finer for much more than typing and eating the incredible meals over the past three days but we had really worked our brains, imaginations, and our mental limits.

This morning, like I said, I woke up very rested and refreshed. Not that it was over but in the way that I felt ready to take on the digital world again with even more gusto. I woke up thinking about what I needed to do for our virtual team assignment and not with dread but excitement.

Thanks to everyone on the Globaloria team for helping make that feeling possible.

A Memorable Learning Experience...

When I found out our home blogging assignment was to write about a meaningful learning experience in our past, my first thought had nothing to do with school. Don't get me wrong. I learned a lot in school, but it alwasy came easily to me. The most meaningful learning experience I had came as an adult and was very much performance based.

As a member of the Boy Scouts of America, I was very active and was eventually honored with membership in an elite group. Part of the ceremony surrounding that elite status was tending a fire all through the night. I had been working as a waiter and trainer for Chi Chi's Restaurant at the time and had to go to camp the next morning after only 3 hours of sleep. Needless to say, I was dragging all that day prior to the ceremonies. It was so bad I even drank coffee, yes that foul and bitter concoction that everyone else in the world seems to thrive on but forsome reason remains an anethema to me.

The learning experience involved NOT having everything come easy. Try as I might I had the most difficult time in maintaining my campfire. It had rained earlier so everything was soaked. My placement was at the base of an old camping road with wind nearly constantly whipping down the hillside. No matter what I did, I could not keep a steady fire. I would try time and time again with what kindling I could deem dry enough. Even when I got the fire to a point where I thought it would continue to grow, the wind would race with greater force down that old road and snuff it out.

What I learned was hard, it was that success is not always in the result but in the effort. I had the misfortune of never having to learn that as a child, but am glad I learned it as an adult. That has replaced my expectation of success with one where I can truly learn from all my experiences, without any fear of failure.

These are a few of my favorite blogs...

As part of my homework assignment, I have added a few blogs to my blog roll. The first is the Invasive Species Weblog. I added this as a way to show how organisms interact with their environment, especially when they don't belong there. We too often see animals that we take for granted and don't realize they don't belong. Pigeons, starlings, and house sparrows we see everyday. The most we ever think is that pigeons are nasty. We don't always see that they were brought here by wealthy colonists who missed them and now they all run amok, taking over niches of wonderful creatures who don't know how to cope with these new neighbors.

The second is the Bird Treatment and Learning Center. I want students to see this blog as a way of understanding how humans can interact with a wild species in a positive and healthy way. We all too often see animals, especially in our youth, as cute, cuddly, and forever. This is a good site about stewardship.

The last blog I want to talk about is Global Biology. In the process of transitioning from an afterschool HSTA program to an onschool time Biology class, I have decided to create a fresh blog. Please make sure to add that as my new Globaloria blog to your own rolls. I have already added several sites to Global Biology's blog roll, including those mentioned above.

As you can see, the blogs listed reflect pieces of who I am. I am a zoologist by training, an educator by vocation, and an ecologist by heart.

GLOBALORIA TRAINING Part III

Hey guys,

Its been a while since I posted. Been a really busy semester with these new classes. Well, just finished our third Globaloria session this weekend and as always I had a blast with everyone. These always help to remotivate and energize me. I really appreciated the trouble shooting and suggestion sessions as well as the tutorials that we were given. I can't wait to show some of these to the students and it makes me feel even more that I will be able to incorporate into a classroom next year.

Thanks again,
Bill