First Week of School...and a Game Report

Logan Fontenelle Middle School began its 1617 school year on Thursday.  It was an awesome day filled with fire alarms and fun new faces.

I have so far introduced the notion of the game to my students.  I have also lassoed KT and forced her into our diabolical gaming plan (she is making the houses!).  I'm super excited to be working with both her and @JefferyBernadt this coming week to start the process of "bonding" with our new iPads. 

As far as the gamification with the proposed kickoff date of September 2nd, I'm chugging along.  In the weeks before school started I looked for a methodology so that I could develop the game with a little chaos as possible.  Without knowing it, I settled on @MiaMacMeekin's An Ethical Island blog.  In it I found that she had created an infographic outlining steps to gamification that mesh beautifully with instructional design.  Basically, she outlines six steps to gamification.  Here's my progress so far:

1. Learning Objectives--use verbs!! (We are very lucky that grammar has very clear learning objectives in place). 
2. Big Idea--this is idea that carries the course through until the end--Our "big idea" melds nicely with the already thriving "stamps" trade we have going on our team. Students are conditioned to be able to earn privileges through tasks completion.
   
3. Storyboard the game--I have done this several times now with varying degrees of success (see last blog post for pic!)
4. Learning Activities--These I am working on today.  I have set up a prototype lesson in Schoology to check the "flow" of things.  This part is the labor intensive grind teachers dread.  My goal is to work to "polish" the schoology system this afternoon, but I can tell now that this part will be the one keeping me busy this year.
5. Build the team--Thanks, KT!
6. Add game dynamics--this part is going to be mostly controlled by the kids and what they want the game to be able to do.  As I've read, I understand that game dynamics are really what "drive" a game.  They are the interactions and reasons people enjoy games. I think we will discover more and more about this topic as we move forward with the unit.  

So that's our news so far.  I really have enjoyed the first two days of school and although I am daunted by the prospect of our first full week, I am content knowing that things are coming together--even if they feel slightly unraveled and frizzy at the moment.  

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