Discovering DC and The Boss Project

DC, for me, had its ups and downs like most things that are planned.  Some things went over pretty well while other things definitely did not.  However, the actual exhibit, in my opinion, was kind of disappointing.  I expected it to last an hour long like it stated but we moved through it pretty quickly.  One thing I did enjoy about it was the showcasing of old systems and the progression of graphics.  It was interesting to see how far games have actually come when you put them side by side.  Another thing I enjoyed were the quotes that were on the walls.  Although they weren't center of attention, they had a lot of good messages that pertained to our class particularly about discovering things yourself and immersing in to a new world.  To me it was as though the exhibit took the objective of our class and put it on the wall.  Yet, as I walked through the exhibit I couldn't help paralleling Video games to education.  If video games are evolving then why shouldn't education?  For instance, graphics for atarti were very popular and new back in the day when it was first released.  However, game designers found things that worked better and explored new ways to make games come to life.  I think that it the course that education needs to take.  The stuff being learned years ago are important because it got us where we are today, but I think we need to use the new knowledge we gained so that we can progress even further.  I feel like if we put lesson plans up side-by-side on wall from the past 20 years that they would be similar, unfortunately.  Some skills are neccessary for life that will never go away.  But just like technology is advancing so should the skills that we are teaching our students.  It is important for them to discover things and learn in a way that is effective for them.

Going along with education, Heather, Denny, Nicole, and I are working on our boss project that deals with education and how the framework for gaming can be used in schools.  I think we plan to create a curriculum and objectives that go along with the idea of discovery and gaining credit.  Once we have that shaped, each of us are going to create lessons or a syllabus that fit the curriculum we built, I, For example, plan to do Shakepeare.  I have been brainstorming ideas on what tasks I could have my students do including reading the graphic novel but I haven't had it all worked out yet.