grannynannycook

This week, I completed all the blogs and assignments up to Week Seven!  It feels good to be at the same place in the class as the others.  I met on Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday with the group.

Monday afternoon was my day to play the game.  Because we were banned from Minecraftedu, I played Minecraft PE (pocket edition) on the ipad, and loved it.  As a beginner, it seems much easier for me.  I did learn a lot from my four hours.  First, I built a dirt house complete with chest (where I stored everything!), crafting table, furnace, etc. and while out exploring for a mine, promptly lost the house AND all its contents.  During the exploring, I fell in a hole where I was stuck for about 45 minutes trying to learn how to get out.  Finally, I found a boxed in cave and started digging.  I wanted to dig straight down for fun (and hopefully die and stop the misery), but my dear ten year old teacher said I had to learn to mine the correct way.  The way to mine is to build steps in a somewhat horizontal direction.  Well, the mining proved to be incredibly prosperous and somewhat fun!  While stuck in the hole in the ground, I learned to mine coal.  I had lots of it and made lots of torches which came in handy for the real mining.  I managed to build another chest, furnace, and crafting table inside the entrance to the mine, and spent some time going up and down the stairs in the mine shaft making deposits in the chest.  I found lots of coal, iron, redstone, gold and diamonds which allowed me to make cool tools by smelting, etc.

On Tuesday, I posted a really rough draft of the handshake meeting and possible beginnings of a teacher packet, which need lots of input and feedback from the group.  I either helped or hindered the team by playing in the GiverCraft world on Wednesday.  The world is amazing and I learned a lot.  I also read this article, Gamification’ Is Dead, Long Live Games For Learning  which tampered with my acceptance of gamification.

Thursday, I did some editing on the handshake and teacher packet info, and met with the group.  Sadly, my partner dropped the class (this is an obstacle), so now have asked others for help.  Also, I got sidetracked while searching for #givercraft .  Don’t even remember the reason I was searching the hashtag, but found a couple interesting videos. Perhaps, they are what we can expect from students!!!!  Note, the language is French, and I heard no swearing.  However, some of the “talk” is displayed in which there is a considerable amount of swearing (in a variety of languages), FYI.

givercraft video 1

givercraft video 2

Today is Friday, and I have contacted four team members about advising on the pending posted documents, and am composing this blog.  As far as obstacles go, I think it is unfamiliarity with chats, hangouts, and how google docs, drive, and groups function.  Hopefully, I will eventually come to an understanding of how these tools work and how to get them to work!