Month: May 2021

Argument wars

A little background on this post. I have never been a strong advocate for educational games. It is difficult for me to separate my personal from my professional reaction to these games. I am not a game player. I am that family member who will not participate in family board or card games. In analyzing my own behavior, there are some forms of competition I find enjoyable (sports) and there are other forms of experience involving competition that I just find irritating. Professionally as an educator, I find learning from games inefficient and when I want to learn something I would prefer a more direct approach.

I do try to understand the interest others find in games and often engage with advocates regarding their support (this may be my competitive side). Usually, these folks agree with my position on learning efficiency, but have some other reason they think games are useful. Perhaps in response to a request for examples of games they would recommend, some resources from iCivics were provided. I have been exploring some of the iCivics resources which include games among what the organization provides. My experience has not changed my mind about efficiency, but I do see the content within the games. The example I suggest here – Argument Wars – happens to hit two topics that interest me professionally (classroom games and argumentation skills) and represents a combination of what I would describe as a simulation and a game. Argument Wars would make a good case for the educators I work with to analyze as either a game or a simulation. 

You can explore many of the iCivics resources at no cost. I would encourage you to play this game (simulation) yourself as a way to experience such activities and see what you think. The game (web-based or available as an app) will guide you through the experience and you can play against the machine or with an opponent. This would probably not be what I would recommend for classroom use, but it is a reasonable way to experience the activity.

Here are few images to give you the flavor of the game. As I have already explained, the game will guide you so you give it a try without having to read a tutorial.

Argument wars examines key cases considered by the Supreme Court. Most educators are probably familiar with Brown v. Board of Education so selecting this game would be an interesting way to familiarize yourself with the activity. In the image below, you will see some of the embedded content explaining the case.

Again, you can argue either side of the case and for those interested in the process of argumentation it probably makes sense to try arguing both positions. You select an avatar and in the following image you are asked to select the side you want to take.

This image shows the basis for the game play. You are dealt three argument cards. You then fill out your hand by selecting two more cards – more arguments, strategies, or actions. You make an argument, attempt to refute a position taken by your opponent, remove a weak argument if you are down to only one and know you need a more substantial position, and more. The actions you can take are based on the action cards you have available so you must do the best you can with the arguments and the actions you have available. You earn points based on how the court judges the strength of your decisions. There are four rounds to the competition.

After four rounds, a winner is declared. The game/simulation then explains the outcome of the actual trial.

iCivics was founded by Judge Sandra Day O’Connor in 2009 based on her concern that citizens lacked sufficient understanding of how democracy works. iCivics offers various games among other resources devoted to this goal. [ description from Digital History]

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The teaching garden

Like lots of other folks, I found new ways to occupy my time during the pandemic. One of the more unique things I tried was hydroponic gardening. This is not my first post on this activity, but I am declaring today the end of my initial experiment. Today marks 183 days since I first planted the garden.

The tomatoes (left) have been growing this entire time. I am on my third crop of lettuce and I started some new tomatoes (right) to replace those on the left. Indeterminate tomatoes just keep on growing, but I wanted to try a different variety that would bear fruit before my outside plants start to reach maturity.

The tomatoes I produce are cherry tomatoes and I wanted to try something a little larger. The issue inside is supporting the plants as they mature. The plants I have now have matted down into this thick layer and finding the ripe fruit can be a challenge. More pruning and rigging some type of trellis system would have made sense. I kept a spreadsheet to record my harvest – 309 to this point. I will take the original plants out this weekend and replace them with four new plants I have started.

I have had a long-term interest in school gardens and this most recent exploration was partly an effort to evaluate hydroponics as an option. One of the problems with outside school gardens in this area is most of the work and the reward in produce comes over the summer. Hydroponics would offer a version with unique learning opportunities and suited to an option for the winter months. We had intended to purchase a couple of comparable gardens to donate to local schools, but the pandemic pretty much meant the students would not be present to experience the process. Maybe next year.

Hydroponics (the approach I take) and aquaponics (a setting using waste from aquaculture to provide nutrients) are well established as science projects for classrooms. Online searches should generate plenty of background material. I encountered this detailed explanation of aquaponics that prompted another post focused on my own project. Search on the tag “garden” at the end of this post to find earlier content on this topic.

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Center for Digital Curricula

I have been exploring common interests for the last six months or so with Elliot Solloway from the University of Michigan’s Digital Curricula Project and I thought it about time I offer a post to describe what they are working on.

The Center has created both tools and curricula for the K12 environment and I am certain they would welcome your interest. I will include a recent pdf they have generated to explain the resources they offer.

I first became interested in a specific tool the Center had created. This tool was developed as a simplified writing tool I thought was perfect for a strategy for digital argumentation I have written about previously.

This writing tool is based on a “block” approach I now see in several different authoring environments (e.g., this WordPress blog platform). In a block approach, you add blocks that serve a specific function and build something more complex from these blocks.

In the Collabrify Writer, you add one of a simple set of blocks (second image), add content to a block, and then combine blocks if the combination of blocks would produce a more desirable product. The application of this approach to argumentation (based on a texting strategy developed by Kuhn) would involve teams (usually two-person debate teams) connecting to the same Writer page and then taking turns to enter the elements of their argument as alternating blocks.

The Michigan Center has created multiple tools serving the functions of popular productivity suites (Google, MicroSoft 365), but is focused on how educators can tie content the application of these tools together in instructional activities they describe as RoadMaps. The teacher creates a sequence of instructions, content, and activities presented to students as one of these Maps.

The following images show the full complement of tools, my simple map to launch the Collabrify Writer task, and a more typical map.

The Center has been working with K12 teachers to create curricula based on this online environment and is not ready to offer these tools and the curricula content to other schools. The following pdf explains their program.

UMich.CDC-Deeply-Digital-K-5-Curricula-The-Next-GenerationDownload

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Collaborative writing is a thing

The concept of collaborative writing as a method both for developing writing skills and for accomplishing professional writing tasks is not new (e.g., see citations below). Those advocated for this approach suggest both strategies for composition and for working collaboratively to accomplish a common task. The approach ends up resembling a combination of the writing process approach and some of the skills we describe in our description of cooperative learning (Projects for learning: Authoring and tutoring to learn). For example, suggestions from the Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin suggest the writing process be conceptualized as the stages of planning, drafting, and editing and the Center offers ideas for how individual and small teams might function to accomplish each stage. An individual approach to the editing stage is described as person A writes a section, the team meets to offer suggestions for improvements, and person B uses these suggestions to improve the draft. The same source suggests multiple interpersonal strategies for working collaboratively. For example, arguments are suggested to be useful because they bring strong beliefs into the open. When you believe strongly about a point, offer it respectfully and encourage others to share in a similar manner. 

I have become interested in the role of collaboration in professional writing after discussions with our friend Stanley Trollip who writes crime novels set in southern Africa with a partner (see Michael Stanley). The way they have organized their collaboration improves the quality of their writing, but also the creativity they generate by the way they work together.

Like several educational strategies that have been developed and not really caught on, collaborative writing seems much more practical when reconsidered as based in an online writing environment. Online writing tools allow simultaneous construction or storage for asynchronous comment and editing.

Lunsford, A. A., & Ede, L. S. (2012). Writing together: Collaboration in theory and practice, a critical sourcebook. Bedford/St. Martins.

Dale, H. (1996). The influence of coauthoring on the writing process. Journal of Teaching Writing, 15(1), 65-80. (work with 9th graders)


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Catch podcasts with Google

Listening to podcasts has grown in popularity and there are podcasts for every taste. To subscribe to a podcast most of us use a “pod catcher”, this is software that allows users to subscribe to the RSS for a podcast and keeps a designated number of episodes until we can get to them.

This post describes an app that I don’t use on a regular basis, but I discovered it has one advantage over other pod listening apps. Because it is provided by Google, it takes advantage of Google search to locate podcasts you might miss on your own. You can search for the name of a podcast or you can search by topic and see what you can find.

The Google podcast service can be used from a desktop computer or from an app. The following description is based on the use of the iOS app.

You populate your app with the feeds from the podcasts you want to follow. The Google app offers multiple ways to do this. The explore option (bottom of image) provides multiple opportunities – a search box, popular categories, and popular podcasts and episodes.

However you want to follow, you go through the same sequence to subscribe and then play. In the following image, I have used the search box to find a podcast called “Check this out.” The Google app has located this podcast and I then use the subscribe button.

Once subscribed, episodes begin to appear. I can either play a specific episode or add an episode to my cue.

The capability of the Google pod listening app I find most powerful is the opportunity to search for phrases I generate rather than relying on the system provided by the app. In this case, I searched for the phrase “educational technology” and located several podcasts I could explore.

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