Starting Monday, March 11th, I will be live-streaming my Technical Reading Through Games course (a high school English course for 17-18 years old students) every day and it terrifies me. I decided to head down this road because I received so many questions from teachers and students about what we do in this class that I thought, “Why not show them?” So, I am. I will be live-streaming through YouTube and you can access the stream here: https://youtu.be/_LB9-BO0FRs every day from 8:40am-approximately 9:15am, depending on the bell schedule for the day. Each stream will also be cataloged on my YouTube channel.
This will be a “warts and all” (to steal a phrase from Stephen Elford and Simon Baddeley) type of experience…nothing canned, nothing staged…all real and all live. I am scared of this because it makes me vulnerable. As a teacher, one of the comforts was closing my door and having the freedom to conduct class as I like. Now, I am opening the door…for everyone to see what we do. I have asked myself so many questions:
- What if no one watches?
- What if no one cares?
- What if I am not a good teacher?
- What if the content is not rigorous enough? Too rigorous?
- What if the class is not taken seriously because it uses video games as texts?
I could go on all day. Instead of letting my own fears get the best of me, I decided to approach this two ways:
- This will make me a better teacher because I will, hopefully, get feedback from many sources.
- Hopefully, this will change the way other teachers approach both game-based learning and their own classrooms. If I open my classroom doors wide, then others may be willing to do the same.
Technical Reading Through Games was designed and created by me for students that needed an alternative to the traditional English course for a number of reasons. I spent a year and a half researching game-based learning and speaking with experts to design the syllabus for this course (which can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BfOAMuh9pc7pQMtJAuIYRRNhhSGYg8GvnM2kSgavjVY/edit?usp=sharing). In this course, we use video games as texts to explore technical reading.
The general outline of the live-stream will be:
- Direct Instruction
- Game play
- Question students about the topic as they play
Some days we may be reading through articles, having class discussions, or working through their online portfolios. One common theme will be present…transparency. I want people to see the entire course structure, from beginning to end. So, join me every day from 8:40am-approximately 9:15am, and we can explore Technical Reading Through Games together: https://youtu.be/_LB9-BO0FRs
Innovate. Create. Connect. 