Edu-(Tech)niques
Educational Technology in Practice in The Field!
The Old Gmail+1 Trick
054 days
by colingally
in About Me
I was asked recently what I meant by the “old Gmail+1″ trick in my post “Minecraft: The Techy Bits”
Well, let me explain for those unaware of this very handy trick.
Say you have a bunch of students (whether they are in earlier grades and they don’t have school email addresses yet or your school doesn’t do email addresses period) and there is a website you really need to register your class of students on. Who wants to spend an hour or more creating email addresses just for using to register on a website and never be used again?!
Here’s where Gmail comes in. Take for example you have a personal or throwaway Gmail account; blah@gmail.com. When it comes to registering multiple email addresses on a website you can use blah+1@gmail.com, blah+2@gmail.com, and so on. You can literally add anything after your username (blah+bananas@gmail.com) and all emails sent to those accounts will go into your blah@gmail.com inbox.
Cool, huh? And very handy, I have used it many times when working with younger grades.
Using Google Docs in PYP G5 Exhibition
058 days
by colingally
in Integration
As a planning platform I couldn’t think of anything more accessible or flexible than our Google Docs platform here at school.
We started off the PYP Exhibition Unit with a whole grade instruction session on how and what we were going to be doing in Google Docs. Each group had one person stay behind with me and set up the group collection and share it appropriately with their group members, mentor, homeroom teacher and myself.
Once created each group member was responsible for sharing each of their documents and resources they gathered in the first few weeks of the exhibition.
Students were reminded to consistently name their documents so they could be easily retrievable. Untitled documents were not appropriate titles!
Teachers and mentors could monitor and facilitate a number of different ways using Google Docs. Firstly, they could email all the students easily by clicking on the collection and choosing “Email Collaborators”.
Secondly, they could add comments to the actual documents themselves. Students were constantly reminded to check back into the documents they created to look for feedback.
There was a lot of accountability with a very visible interpretation of which group members were doing what and in the one instance where it happened we were able to roll back in the revision history and see who deleted a whole bunch of text. Discussions could then be had within the group about how to tackle this sort of incident again and how to improve communications between the group members
One of the teachers, when creating a checklist for students to assess their participation in the unit, used a number of Google Doc (and Gmail) criteria which I was very happy about.
As it was the Grade 5 teacher’s first foray into Google Docs in this manner (actually first foray ever) we learned a lot of things to improve on for next school year; more emphasis on Google Docs etiquette and creating an overall timeline throughout the unit of what Google Docs should be used for and when.
Minecraft: The Techy Bits
060 days
by colingally
in Integration
Previous posts on Minecraft:
Minecraft: A Journey
How do you go about setting up Minecraft in your school? This is how I did it.
Thanks to @RobinThailand for paving the way and being forward enough to ask hosting companies would they host a Minecraft server for free for schools! Redstonehost.com answered his call and provides free hosting for schools! All you need to do is register an account on their website and post a ticket stating your intentions. I had to scan my teacher ID and within a day or so I had my login details. I think the server you end up using is based in France somewhere so yes sometimes it’s laggy but nothing to bothersome. I know a lot of schools are setting up their own servers but my school doesn’t have that luxury.
For the Minecraft class I bought 25 education accounts from http://www.minecraftedu.com which ends up reducing the price of an account by over a half than purchasing from the main Minecraft website. Good service. Although their Paypal was not working (I’m sure it is now) and transferring money to Finland cost me some fees from my bank they gave me an extra account for free and said they would set me up with their MCEdu account for testing purposes (still waiting on that).
What they end up giving you is a list of 25 codes to use on the main Minecraft website. I made up some mythical usernames, used the old Gmail+1 email address trick to register multiple account on one Gmail account, and we were on our way.
Setting up your initial server is a breeze using McMyAdmin dashboard.
Creative mode is the way to go in elementary school. A lot of students who play Minecraft a lot are used to Survival mode which involves mining and crafting (funnily enough!) to build things, killing animals to eat and craft things and so on. Creative is a sandbox; everything is available to use and you can fly around! It really is up to you how you set up your world but this is what I went with.
Plugins
Using FTP access you can put various plugins into your Minecraft world and then activate or deactivate them from within McMyAdmin.
Some plugins you may consider are NoWeather (keeps daytime on, keeps everything sunny). NoSpawnEggs so stop users spawning a million creepers, believe me I had to deal with that in our first class! Behaviour monitoring ones I installed after incidents of griefing, once students know they are there it seems to reduce the number of incidents. Chatlogging keeps a dated folder of chat sessions and LogBlock can keep track of who made and who destroyed blocks by right clicking the area. Now setting up LogBlock is confusing! You first have to set up an SQL database (which involves emailing Redstonehost.com) and then configure it. It took me a while to do it and then…..version 1.2 of Minecraft came out and it doesn’t work for me anymore! Such is life! I’m also having issues with NoWeather but I will have time over the next week or two to see if there any updates or solutions.
Additional Extra
Again recommended by @RobinThailand I bought the iPhone app McMyAdmin so I could keep track of what was being said in chat and I can turn on and off the server whenever and wherever I am! Money well spent.
That’s basically it in a nutshell, I think! It’s a pretty steep learning curve at the start but then it becomes second nature. Learning all the commands with each plugin (and even just the syntax for teleporting users) is challenging and I had to keep a list of them close to hand until I memorized them. It helps if you have played Minecraft before (I have been playing it since Alpha release, I still remember sitting in a darkened cave with Zombies outside; truly terrifying!) but is not totally necessary. I would recommend playing it a few times, though, before you start out with a room full of students.
Minecraft: A Link To Learning
064 days
by colingally
in Integration
When I started the Minecraft class in my school I never set out to drill into students to try and think about using Minecraft in their learning. I knew that is my end goal but for now it was finding the ground work, ironing out creases, and creating the environment.
One of the seeds of a project in my head for the students was to create a model of the school during the latter stages of the class. Within the first few weeks a grade 5 student, Anton, beat me to it and he built a model of our elementary school within a couple of days!
Was it exactly to scale? No.
Was it planned meticulously? No
Did I care? Not a bit!
Was it awesome? Yes!
You can see the school in this video I recently included in a post.
Minecraft Walkabout: Week 4 from Colin Gallagher on Vimeo.
Running in conjunction to our class the grade 5s started their PYP Exhibition on Human Migration (Where We Are In Time And Place unit of inquiry). Anton’s group was tackling the migrant community in our school; who they were, where they come from, and what they bring to our community. One day Anton came to me and said he wanted to use the school model he built in Minecraft for his exhibition. He would write a script and direct some students (and me!) in various scenes around the school. I basically facilitated the use of Jing on my laptop during one break time and he did the rest. Another student got us all appropriate skins!
I must say when the group of students came in to me one day I didn’t hold out much hope. We had twenty minutes to get the scenes but Anton quickly directed us in what to do, where to do it, and when. He did a fantastic job.
Anton’s PYP Exhibition Video from Colin Gallagher on Vimeo.
Students from other schools visiting Anton’s booth at the exhibition were astounded he was “allowed” to use Minecraft in his project. I hope those students left with some inspiration and ideas for their own exhibition!
The scope for using Minecraft is mind-boggling. I hope to use it in Grade 3 next year for their PYP unit “How We Organize Ourselves” in which students look at systems and how they operate in their daily lives. The broad outline of my plan is that each class will create a town/city on our Minecraft world and each class will have groups responsible for different “systems” in their city eg. education, sanitation, public safety. Their summative assessment will be the culmination of their city planning and what systems they have in place and which they deem necessary….I hope!
Minecraft: A Journey
664 days
by colingally
in Integration
I’ve had more discussions with students in the last few weeks about behavior and ethical dilemmas than I’ve had in the last two years put together. Working with 20 Grade 3 to 5 students has brought up many interesting situations of communal living and societal issues and I’ve had more opportunities to create a democratic environment with Minecraft than any other school activity. It has also opened up discussions with students who may not have opened up to each other and their teachers before. I have two boys in grade 4 creating a birthday cake in Minecraft for their teacher! The students who are not in the Minecraft class regularly come up to me and chat about the game and along with being a joy to talk about gaming with students it is an opportunity for teachers to relate and to find some common ground with a wide array of their students that may not have arisen without Minecraft.
It’s these aspects of Minecraft that endure it to teachers all around the world right now. It has its fingers in a lot of different learning pies(!) Group work, collaborative projects, art, design, architecture, history, and geography to name but a few. Along with these learning opportunities students may experience for the first time “living” with others, a sense of independence and responsibilities that they may not have faced in the real world yet.
This trialing of Minecraft in my school has been a great success so far and it paves the way for my plans to include it into one of our Units Of Inquiry and get really get it embedded into our curriculum.
I’m very happy to see the progress of our group of grade 3 to 5 students in our Minecraft class. Here’s how it broke down.
Week 1
Introduction to Minecraft and a video of cool creations in Youtube. Explanation that this was a creative server. Ninety percent of our students were very familiar with Minecraft! Students came up with rules and laws to abide by: http://mcatiss.weebly.com/rules-and-laws.html
The first class was spent mostly on discussing our expectations and what we would like to have made by the end of the school year. Our server (which was provided free by redstonehost.com), we figured, did not like multiple logons so from this week on we staggered the logins in twos and threes and that works just fine.
Week 2
We had major issues with TnT and lava. One students was warned and blocked from the server until the next class. we had discussions about space and appropriate ways of constructing things. A number of students had started some big projects like an airport and made a call for collaborators. We also conducted our first videos and guided tours.
Minecraft ECA Lesson: Week 2 from Colin Gallagher on Vimeo.
Anton’s (G5) Guided Tour: Week 2 from Colin Gallagher on Vimeo.
Week 3
Our first vote on whether TnT and lava should be banned. An overwhelming vote for the “frowning upon” of using lava. I stated that lava and TnT would not be removed but every student knows the consequences of using it.
Week 4
More guided tours. More discussions about the world and how it’s progressing. I noticed, with cautious optimism, that issues were small and problems were being solved quicker. Where we on our way to building a utopian society!?
A model of our school popped up, the brainchild of one student, Anton, who wanted to use it somehow for his PYP exhibition. A number of students helped him.
Minecraft Walkabout: Week 4 from Colin Gallagher on Vimeo.
Minecraft Walkabout 2: Week 4 from Colin Gallagher on Vimeo.
Week 5
Week 5 coincided with the update from Minecraft 1.1 to 1.2 so during the week a number of students could not get on as they updated immediately and Minecraft server was one or two days behind. It was a good learning experience for us all! Considerably less time spent discussing at the start of class. We had another guided tour by Kai. Kai had created one of the first megastructures in our world in the first week; the “stairway to heaven”. I loved the fact that he had created the little things like a 7-11 and a cloak room!
Minecraft Week 5 Flyabout: 1 from Colin Gallagher on Vimeo.
Minecraft Week 5 Flyabout: 2 from Colin Gallagher on Vimeo.
Kai’s Guided Tour: Week 5 from Colin Gallagher on Vimeo.
Week 6
Our class is running very smoothly. I’m running a little on the seat of my pants as since the Minecraft update my plugin to keep track of griefing has not worked! A motion was put forward that mobs should be removed but the class voted against it. The mob issue is a result of another plugin that has stopped working as it used to keep it as daytime all the time. Our server was a little difficult this week but students have learned to wait and login only with our permission. Until we do give them the nod to login they happily experiment in single player until its their time. Two guided tours!
Minecraft Week 6: Gabriel’s Guided Tour from Colin Gallagher on Vimeo.
Minecraft Week 6: Mason’s Guided Tour from Colin Gallagher on Vimeo.
That leads us up to today! We have about a month left so I’m very much looking forward to what appears in our world. Things that have not happened that I thought would; students moving away from the main hub to build on their own, more griefing and more technical issues (as the Macs we’re running Minecraft on have only 1Gb RAM!)
I will have a small follow-up post on the student who used Minecraft in their Grade 5 PYP exhibition.