Host Your Own Minecraft Server for Free on Amazon Web Services

For educators interested in improving their Minecraft skills, nothing beats having your own server that you can share with a few key experts (aka students). Those folks that have never used Amazon Web Services in the past can create a virtual server for free for a whole year. This will allow you to explore Minecraft on your own schedule from anywhere on the planet and with whom ever you wish. The following free eBook is a tutorial on how to get started. It is written from a Mac users point of view, but information is relative to Windows and Linux users too.

Creative Commons Licensed ePub  -DOWLOAD eBOOK HERE

(Open in iBooks or any ePub compatible eBook reader.)

Tony Wagner's Latest, Creating Innovators

I just finished Tony Wagner’s latest book, Creating Innovators - The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World. It supports many of the current ideas that are popular regarding the needs for changing our education system to better prepare our children for a globally competitive world.  Some of the concepts he expresses in the book include the importance of play, passion, and purpose in learning. He addresses these concepts through looking at our education institutions, K12 education, higher ed, parenting, and business among others. One of the “others” is the US Army and the changes they have planned in their education system for 2015.

General Martin Dempsey, commanding general of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, TRADOC created the Army Learning Concepts 2015 document that describes philosophy and recommended changes for the Army’s training programs. In a world where everybody has access to the same information, even adversaries, it does no good to just possess the knowledge. What creates the advantage is knowing what to do and how to use that knowledge to your advantage. That requires creativity and innovation.

The US Army Learning Concept 2015 report provides a plan for restructuring learning and education in the Army. The plan, which was created in 2010, began implementation that year and  provided some immediate guidance related to the practice of education in the Army.  Three concepts in the TRADOC plan are highlighted in the book by Mr. Wagner.

1. Convert most classroom experiences into collaborative problem solving events led by facilitators (versus instructors) who engage learners to think and understand the relevance and context of what they learned.

2. Taylor learning to the individual learners experience and competence level based on the result of a pretest and assessment.

3. Dramatically reduce or eliminate instructor led slide presentation lectures and begin using a blended learning approach that incorporates virtual and constructive simulations, gaming technology, or other technology delivered instruction.

These recommendations are similar to the ones many folks have been suggesting for improving our public schools for years.

Creating Innovators does a great job of looking at education and learning across the spectrum of parenting, k12, higher education, and business.

Transmedia Storytelling, ARIS Game Tool, and K12 Education

The act of storytelling has been around as long as people have been on earth, first as verbal exchanges and later as books and media. In schools we emphasize the fact that all students need to be able to communicate effectively. One mode of communication that we expect students to be proficient in, is the area of writing. In the past we have spent lots of time educating students on the proper use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

The skills of writing such as grammar, punctuation, spelling, are still very important skills for writing. Modern technology has helped us in these areas, but most people would agree it is still important for students to have good handle on these skills in order to be effective communicators.  However, just as important as the mechanical skills of writing, our current world needs students who are creative, inventive, understand procedural logic, can collaborate, evaluate, and contribute to one another to foster better outcomes. These skills in writing are just as important as the skills of grammar, punctuation, and spelling, some would argue maybe a little more important.

ARIS, and other tools like it,  allow students to practice their writing skills, but at the same time expose them to ideas of writing that the traditional tools have not as easily provided. The ARIS tool allows students to construct stories/games, that incorporate multiple elements. It requires students to think logically, be creative, and gives them an opportunity to try out each other’s work, becoming a part of the story, while at the same time providing critique and feedback to the authors.

In one example, middle school students working in a team of 4-5 students create multidimensional stories using the ARIS game engine. Students create stories (games) for an audience of their peers who then participate in the actual stories/games. Student players provide feedback to the development team authors via rubrics, and culminate in a shared assessment of each others completed games. These games are developed with the web based ARIS game development engine (OpenSource) created by the Instructional Technology Departments of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of New Mexico (http://www.arisgames.org).

This model requires tools beyond the traditional classroom materials. Computers are needed to run the free opensource ARIS development software and students are required to use an Apple iOS device, such as an iPod or iPhone. If iPods are utilized, students will need to use a GPS receivers on their iPod touches as the stories/games are geolocation based. In addition, students participating in this activity will need network access while out in the field, away from the classroom. If the student developed games take place around the school campus, available wifi might be able to support them. However, if they are out of range of wifi, personal hotspots, such as the T-Mobile Personal WiFi hotspot will solve these issues. Ultimately, for approximately $1,000 a teacher could create a class set of two iPod touches, two Emprum Ultimate GPS Receivers for iPod Touch, a T-Mobile Personal Hotspot WiFi Access Point, Pelican 1170 Carrying Case, and three T-Mobile G4 refills for monthly 1GB WiFi access.



So what skills does this type of “writing” activity address beyond the familiar? This idea addresses narrative writing, specifically transmedia story telling skills (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmedia_storytelling) . These skills include three main concepts. The first is procedural logic and include: interactive multi linear storytelling; the ability of students to plan and design requirements or story elements; debugging skills (problem solving); and systems thinking. The second is creativity and includes: independence of thought, exploration, and imagination. The third main concept is collaboration and include the concepts of: feedback and assessment; sharing of ideas; and making an effective contribution to one's peers. Obviously more traditional skills in writing will be addressed such as spelling, grammar, and punctuation. These too will be incorporated into the project and in the evaluation process. I don’t mean to say that this model is the only way students can explore these writing concepts. However the environment, in my opinion promotes the ability to look at writing in a different light, fostering these concepts and ideas a little easier in students and teachers.



Thinking about writing in this process is important because it address skills and concepts that are found in all areas of the curriculum: procedural logic, creativity, and collaboration. In this model, student writing becomes geo specific, students actually become a part of their peers stories. The process of them “playing” the “game” incorporates them into the story. Using the ARIS game engine students construct a story that takes place in time and space, utilizing GPS coordinates to discover story components including multimedia resources, dialog, characters, and other clues, culminating in a solution, or hypothesis, or ending.


With the explosion of mobile technology, research to support the strategies described above is becoming more frequent. James Mathews at the University of Wisconsin published a paper titled, Using a studio-based pedagogy to engage students in the design of mobile-based media, http://arisgames.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Mathews_ETCP_2010_05.pdf. In it he describes the central components of what it means to be literate in the 21st century. In addition, Henry Jenkins, Provost’s Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California writes and researches on the topics of transmedia storytelling and its place in education. One of his recent artilces, On Transmedia and Education: A Conversation With Robot Heart Stories’ Jen Begeal and Inanimate Alice’s Laura Fleming (Part One), can be found here: http://henryjenkins.org/2012/01/on_transmedia_and_education.html This method and strategy could be used to teach many different concepts in our schools. It teaches skills and ideas and at the same time addresses the necessary disciplines that our current world demands of future generations. Tools such as ARIS blur the line related to what school can be, where school can happen, and who leads the learning.

Online Schools - The Best Ones Have the Best Curriculum

 

I can remember about 13 years ago, sharing with my then current boss in the technology department, something that I had created using, probably Supercard at that time, that duplicated many of the same software instructional strategies found in an application the elementary schools were paying thousands of dollars to implement. I can remember my boss being impressed but then saying, why would teachers want to learn to create their own software when they could buy it from some a textbook publisher. The fact that I had created, what I’ll call a proof of concept, in little more than a week and incorporated aspects that I thought were more relative to the students in our schools was lost in the belief that most teachers didn’t have the skill, computer knowledge, or creativity to design and develop their own software. I may just caught her a little off guard with my impromptu presentation of what was capable. In either case, her comment bothered me, and 13 years later I’m hearing the same arguments when it comes to online learning. There are many reason why I think just purchasing tools from a large publisher is a bad idea and that as educational professionals, it just strikes me as ridiculous that we would even be thinking about purchasing online learning curriculum from some outside-our-community publisher.

First, teachers have been developing curriculum for their students as long as I can remember. Curriculum is not just a textbook the State has blessed for use in the classroom. Curriculum is not a program that streams over the Internet to some indiscriminate student in front of a LCD screen. Curriculum is the collections of tools that addresses a specific learning concept or goal that we have deemed important for identified unique students. It is a collection of content, strategies, practices, mistakes, and innovations on the part of the teacher and learner to construct meaning in the head of the student, and many times in the head of the teacher.  You will find no better curriculum developers, that are in touch with your community, know your students, and understand what is most important for your students to learn, than the hard working men and women in your local classrooms. These individuals have been doing this work from day one.  We should be taking advantage of these resources to develop curriculum, maximizing the new technology tools, and in the process providing avenues for looking at how school can be done better for our children. So much of what is currently available for sale by large publishers today in the online education arena is the same old classroom content that we have been creating and  using for years just snatched up, repackaged in a shiny new box, and stamped with the words “Online Learning Curriculum.” The worse we could do by developing the online curriculum ourselves is to duplicate what is currently available through the big publishers. Even then, our curriculum would be more targeted to our students and community as opposed to being created to address the widest audience possible. One other point is the fact that when commercial publishers talk about their online learning curriculum, try to pin point what percentage of the instruction is using technology and is online? How much of what they provide is actually different from a traditional face to face classroom and capitalizes and strengths of technology (communication/collaboration/creativity/development/voice/perspective/action) and how much of it is the same thing just viewed through a few thousand pixels.

 
It should not be surprising that creating curriculum for an online learning environment is not something a school district would do without cost. However, any school district that is seriously thinking about shelling out 75% or more of their ADA to commercial content provider should not be dissuaded from moving in this direction. For schools and districts that go down this road, there will be a learning curve and an initial investment of resources. It would be expected. However, successfully implementing a curriculum development process would provide the institution with advantages leaps beyond those that implement online learning programs with generic curriculum.  The best online schools will be those with the best curriculum, and those that are the most successful will have created their own curriculum.

Innovative Schools Committee - Summary

A group of teachers, administrators, and parents met over the period of a year, every three weeks, to discuss topics related to meeting the needs of the students in the Sylvan Union School District now and well into the future and provide the school board with recommendations. We brainstormed needs, and we looked at the projected trajectory of where the future is taking us, and how those needs can be addressed in light of the directions we are heading.

Initially, the needs shared numbered well over a 100 and discussions continued to define, combine, and describe them as succinctly as possible. At times, the information shared regarding our changing hyper-connected world and our steadfast educational system seemed disjoint. We struggled as a team to discover models and solutions that others have successfully implemented and may hold promise in our own. Our school district’s background has been rooted in success and achievement for students. The past models of instruction have served us and our students well to this point, and looking at some of the models left us questioning whether continuing with our current model might not be such a bad idea. However, we realize the world is changing and the demands that our world put on us are changing too. In order to server our students needs in the current world, we need to change along with it.

Our current students will be entering a world where the opportunities provided by the older system are becoming extinct. Our economy is suffering and our unemployment percentage is at about 18%. When things do improve, the jobs and needs of our world will no longer consist of those that have for so many years, been the staple of our young, educated population. In the place of those old jobs will be those that place a premium on creativity and imagination. It goes without saying that in order for our students to be successful in these core skills, they must possess a basic understanding simple principles of communication, computation, and critical thinking. We must instill in our students a desire of continual questioning and a seeking of answers, a desire for life long learning. We should never instill in our students the idea that there is a point when learning is not needed or complete. Learning is never complete and there is no end to learning.

The Innovative Schools Committee ultimately came up with 5 key recommendations. Each one was presented to the school board in subsequent board meetings this summer. They are:

1. Digital Revolution - Direct staff to create a timeline identifying strategic components and requirements necessary to provide students and schools with resources to support online instruction in blended format, alternative ed format, and accelerated instruction model.

2. Meaningful Assessments - Direct staff to keep in mind the following principles when designing and evaluating assessments:

• Know who’s learning;
• Attempt to build fun, pleasure, and satisfaction into core assessment loop;
• Change the learner assessment experience over time; a good learning experience takes the learner on a journey;
• Build assessments that reward what is learned and provide goals for improvement;
• Create assessments that clearly define paths to future goals;
• Design assessments that increase challenge and complexity: create conditions for flow;
• Provide assessments that incorporate intrinsic motivators like power, autonomy, and belonging.

3. Home/School Communication - Direct staff to create guidelines for home/school communication that account for new technologies and modern communication practices.

4. Changing Roll of Teacher - The committee asks the board to direct leadership to invest an equivalent amount of resources in the development of passionate, curious, enthusiastic, and creative staff equal to professional development in the area of academic student achievement.

*(Translation - As with students, the success of our teachers with the challenges of educating a modern population will require creativity and imagination. Without fostering those skills in ourselves, we will be at a loss of fostering those skills in our students.)

5. Global Relevance - The committee asks the board to direct staff to incorporate the five concepts shared by the Innovative Schools Committee into the work of the PLC and its charge of designing strategies that address improving student learning and our schools.

*(Translation - Global Relevance in today’s world translates into working collaboratively with your peers, whether they are in the classroom next to you or across an ocean. The initial steps to being globally relevant start very small and close to home. The PLC, Professional Learning Communities, system is the beginning of this process and fosters habits and strategies that eventually promote global relevance.)

The work of the Innovative Schools Committee and the 5 recommendations presented are by no means the end of the work. This is only the beginning of a process that will continue to evolve with the continued effort of dedicated community, educators, staff, parents and students. 

*(Image courtesy of leedsyorkshire, CreativeCommons Licensed  http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisrobertshaw/2571742452/  )

Floating Cities & K12 Learning - Instructional Game Theory Model

Imaging using a tool to create instruction that incorporates both synchronous and asynchronous student participation, requires students to work together, does not limit students by age, grade level or location, has very few rules requiring students to create and learn the rules as they progress, incorporates skills students will use in “work” world, promotes creativity, writing, questioning, fact gathering, uses intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, provides ample feedback (from teacher, “peers,” and self), addresses content standards, incorporates the students’ physical environment, provides a model for ethical and responsible engagement, social networking skills, multiple solutions, “highly” engaging, game play, writing for multiple purposes, digital and physical components, and the tool could be reused over and over again for different instructional goals.

Imagine that this tool could be used to teach a specific concept in a particular grade, used to teach an entire class, or even used as a tool to develop an entire school.

What might that tool look like? It may sound like I’m describing the “Holy Grail” of instructional tools. I don’t think I have discovered that particular tool, but I do think I have an idea of one that seems to point in a direction that leads to more possibilities in the “Holy Grail” tool direction.





A few weeks ago I caught wind of a site called The Floating City. It was created by Thomas Dolby, the musician - “She Blinded Me With Science” fame, and a small crew of creative individuals not numbering probably more then ten, from what I have read. The site is named after his next album, The Floating City and takes place on a fictitious world, in an era which seems to be around the time of the Second World War and loosely imaged as what the planet may have looked like if things turned out a little differently. To get a visual, think of the Kevin Costner movie, Waterworld, but taking place during the 40s with a strong SteamPunk theme. The site is designed as a multi-user game, with teams of players searching for clues as to the reason for the (fictitious) Floating City. Along the way, players of the game read the Gazette, the only remaining news paper, gather clues floating in the water, trade objects (named after some of the lyrics in a Dolby song) back and fourth to create complete sets which then can result in codes to download complete mp3s of the particular Dolby songs. Everything in the game from the objects, the Gazette, the names of locations on the world map, to the clues that are provided through game play, are provided to give players a chance at forming their ideas related to how the Floating City came about. Is there a correct answer? Will one be fleshed out? Either way, it’s a great strategy to promote creativity. If you’re interested, I highly suggest you take your browser over there and get yourself an account and check it out.

What I really enjoy about the Floating City site is how it was constructed and the learning model it promoted. As I mentioned earlier, the Floating City was constructed with a small, creative, team of developers. They took advantage of OpenSource and free tools, such as Google Maps API, and mashed up their entire game using a little of this tool, and a little of that tool, to eventually get to the environment that is the Floating City. Not having to develop a ton of code to create a discussion board, or a messaging system, or a graphic user interface, such as the game map, freed them up to develop the look, feel, and more importantly, the narrative (instruction) of the game. Looking at how they developed this got me thinking as to why couldn’t we do the same thing in our schools or classrooms. There really is no reason, aside from the prerequisite knowledge of basic installation requirements that some of these tools require, skills most of our school IT departments readily have, why could we not allow teachers to create instruction modeled on a similar tool? I think most teachers are very creative and would jump at the opportunity to create instruction that was more game like, promoted creative thinking, writing, sharing and collaborating while at the same time addressed standards, digital citizenship, and technology.

So this last week I decided to see what it would take to develop the “bones” of a similar model based on the Floating City. As a Director of Technology, I know a little about a lot of technology. I have a very liberal education as it comes to instructional technology. I’m not an expert C+ coder, or a PHP web site developer, or a database design guru. I do know a little though…just enough to be dangerous.

A multi-user (game) environment requires sharing of information between the players. In order to do this you need to store the player information. So right from the start, you need to use a network based database. My database of choice was mySQL. Looking at the other “instructional components” of the Floating City such as the discussion board and messaging system, these tools are also OpenSource (free) and work within the mySQL database. I looked at the Google Maps API, and in the short time I evaluated the API, everything made sense to me with the exception of the custom map tiles. With a little more time I probably would have figured it out, but when I went back and looked at the Floating City map, having a custom map this based on true latitude and longitude coordinates is probably not necessary. The Floating City map is used primarily to access the profile and inventories of other player and could have well been either a random representation of players on a image of a map or even player determined locations on an image of a map. So I scrapped the idea, at least for now, for using the Google Maps API for an interface component.

The Floating City is all web based and that makes it compatible with almost all devices and all operating systems. However, on the iPhone the layout is a bit cumbersome due to the layout just being reduced to fit the screen and requiring the user to pinch to zoom in on links. They probably could solve that with a custom App. I thought about doing my model just using php and MySQL. But that would also require time spent on developing CSS, php and lots of html code. It could be done, but I decided that I did not have the time. Plus, if this model is to be used over and over, I wanted a development tool that would provide me a little more flexibility. The tool that I chose was RunRev’s LiveCode. I should point out that LiveCode is not OpenSource. It is a commercial application with a variety of licensing options. However they do give a discount to educators. LiveCode stands on the shoulders of other rapid development tools such as Apple’s old HyperCard software. It allows for the development of applications very quickly and uses a scripting language that is very easy to understand. One difference between doing the development in LiveCode as opposed to doing it all in html/CSS/PHP is that in LiveCode you actually compile a standalone application. That being said, you can provide your users access to your LiveCode programs via the web and using a web plugin. The plugin can be installed by your users for free and then your application will play in the user’s web browser window, similar to how Adobe’s Flash works. The other benefit of using LiveCode is that they make tools to port your LiveCode application to MacOS X, Windows, Linux, Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android, and Windows Mobile. So with a little tweaking on the design layout, you can compile for mobile devices.

In about a week’s time, working on it when I had the time, I was able to create my own model. The model is just the bones, there is no narrative or design yet, but the logic is all in place. The model consists of the following components:

• User Login and Authentication
• Location of Player on Map
• Ability of player to relocate themselves on map and save coordinates
• Ability to click on other players map icon and get player profile and current inventory
• Ability for player to review their profile and inventory
• Ability for player to initiate a trade
• Ability for player to accept or decline a trade
• Ability to generate an automatic message when trade is initiated
• Ability to send a reply to received message
• Ability to delete messages
• Ability to send a new message to different player
• Ability to enter code or phrase to unlock mission
• Ability to enter mission code to receive “badge” or recognition

Though many of the missions are hard coded, based on entering the correct data by the player, because the data is stored in a database, it does provide the teacher the ability to change things on the fly such as rewards, badges, and inventory. In addition, the missions can be as varied as the teacher’s imagination. They could be as simple as a code the player types in, a website that the students is directed to and research, an audio sample or video file, or even a QRCode. As long as it can provide some type of definitive code that a player can enter into the game and that the game can verify as correct, it can be used within the game.

The following is a screen cast of the LiveCode project:





The wheels are turning, and I have some ideas for narratives that may fit well within this model. Stay tuned for both student and adult examples!

When Databases Ruled the Earth

When people think of computers and technology taking over civilization, they often think about armed robots, or robots with super human power such as in the Will Smith movie “I, Robot.” If technology and robots due take over it will be much more subtle than that. In a similar plot line, many people feel that education, and teachers in general, will be replaced by technology and computers. We do not have to worry so much with the threat of super human robots taking over, but what we should be cognitive of is the degree to which computers can store data, analyze data, compare vast amounts of data, and synthesize new information in just a blink of an eye.

In education we have evidence of tools like this in place right now. They are still rather crude, but they do provide a simple model of how this technology may work. Many of you have probably heard of Vantage Learning and their product, MyAccess. MyAccess is a web based writing tool for students. Students write to a specific prompt using the web based application and when they are completed with their writing the web application will fire back suggestions for how they can improve their work. This web based application is able to make recommendations to students based on the thousands and thousands of other writing assignments written to this same particular writing prompt. It has stored what qualities a good essay possesses for this prompt, and the qualities of a poorly written essay. It is then able to compare the student’s writing to this huge database of writing samples, and can then provide the student with recommendations based on what is missing from their work.

So let’s take this up a notch. We have had the ability to map the human genome now for what seems like an eternity. The genome is essentially a map that describes all of our individual genes. Each individuals genome is unique. However, there are also many similarities in genome maps. Currently we have been using these similarities to identify things that we have found common among individuals, whether that is health related similarities or physical similarities. When we ge to the point of having databases consisting of thousands and thousands, say millions, of individual human genomes and the technology to compare, analyze them; we then have the ability to synthesize new information from these comparisons. This information can then be provided to individuals with likely scenarios for their futures based on their genomes.

Now take this genome information and compare it to data stored in other databases. What other data you ask, essentially everything about us that is not related to our genome? We are the culmination of our experiences. These experiences are all stored in databases. The key word being “databases,” plural. Everything you purchase is stored in a database. Evey thing you eat, whether it’s purchased at the grocery store (think of your grocery receipt) or at a restaurant (think of your credit card receipt) is stored (potentially) in a database. Every television show you watch, every movie you download, every trip to the doctor is all stored in a database some where. The people you talk to on your mobile, the people you text, the people you “follow,” are all stored in a database.

Your children’s information is also stored in databases. Their grades, their assignments, their awards, the books they check out from the library; it’s all stored in a database. The friends that they hang out with and communicate with, and the places they hang out can all potentially be stored in a database.

If we begin comparing an individual student’s databases with thousands of other student databases, could we not provide recommendations to the student, or the parent, for improving their well being (learning, health, etc.) in the same way a web based writing application makes suggestions for improving a student’s writing skills?

If you then throw in the advances in technology as it relates to I/O (input and output) of “computers,” you can begin to see a time when this synthesized data can be delivered to the individual at anytime and on any device. For example, Google last week introduced a technology on their upcoming Android platform that will allow the camera on a hardware device to track a persons iris and provide information to the individual based on the location of their iris. Imagine eating dinner with your child at a Chinese food restaurant surrounded by beautiful Chinese paintings. Each one of those paintings is actually a “computer” and the canvas is actually a digital display device. The “picture” could recognize you (based on data stored in a database) and your child as you eat dinner; and then almost simultaneously compare the databases for each of you, your friends, your child’s grades, and within a split second provide you with information along the lines of things to discuss at the dinner table to help your child’s slumping ancient civilizations history grade. This information would be provided to you confidentially on your mobile you have resting on the table by your plate. Or it could be displayed on the digital canvas of the Chinese print on the wall behind your son’s head, held private by the constant measurement of your iris as you look at the framed picture, angling of the message’s pixels so that they are only visible to your eyes. What kind of information? How about talking points based on your child’s teacher’s current and upcoming lesson plans in his history class. Or, maybe you have a business associate in another state that you converse with regularly through social media who is going to be taking a trip to Mexico and will be staying near ancient Mayan ruins.

The true power of technology is the data that is stored within it. Someone will come up with the algorithms to take advantage of disparate databases combining what makes us who we are and to our experiences, providing us with a map of possible “learning” suggestions that are constantly updated and modified. This technology will change how we learn, and how we think of school, and who we consider our teachers.

Re-Evaluating Assessment; Recognizing Achievement and Skills

My daughter is a daisy. A daisy is the entry level status of a Girl Scout. Like the Boys Scouts of America, the Girl Scouts are an organization of people that support local causes, learn about their world, and share experiences. Their accomplishments and experiences are recognized by the earning of badges that gets fastened to their uniform. This sash of badges provides a visual record of their experiences and accomplishments and are treasured by the girls that earn them.

There are many assessment systems that we use, outside of our schools, that are based on the similar principles. One obvious example is the assessment systems that are built into digital games. An elaborate example is the assessment system built into the game World of Warcraft (WOW). This assessment system has players earning honors, levels, and capabilities through their game play and are represented in an elaborate profile system within the game. The honors, levels, and capabilities are achieved through experiences and activities the players complete during game play.

Another example of an assessment system that you may be familiar with is the one found within the NikePlus running system. In this tool runners have the ability to log all their runs, sign up for challenges, track their progress, communicate with other runners, and get tips from one another on improving their running skills. Accomplishments are measured through earning awards (badges) for challenges met, and tracking progress through graphs and charts. These accomplishments and recognitions can be shared with friends on the site and to the rest of the world through social media tools.

These two assessments systems, though very different in the content areas that they assess, nevertheless have some very strong similarities. First, these assessment systems cater to the individual. They address the individual’s interest from within the confines of the total activity. For example, in WOW players can choose to work collaboratively to achieve honors and levels, or they can choose to work independently to achieve honors and levels. In the NikePlus assessment system, the individual can choose to focus on challenges such as burning calories, losing weight, increasing speed and a whole host of other specific challenges. The challenges and the area of assessment are under the control of the individuals. They are not predetermined or created by some higher organization. A second important similarity is that these systems foster a model of intrinsic motivation. The individual’s desire to to achieve and improve is based on what the individual wants to do, not on what some other person thinks they should do. Intrinsic motivation is a very powerful tool in learning and education and forms the foundation for all types of learning. One last similarity of these assessments tools is their reliance on a visual representation of the individual’s achievements. People have always seemed to gravitate to displaying their achievements and status through visual representations. I can think of many examples: beaded jewelry, military uniforms, letterman sports jackets, medals and trophies, letter abbreviations before and after names, i.e. , Dr, PhD, EdD, coat of arms, flags and banners, seals, etc. etc. Visual representations of our achievements and skills have been around a very long time.

My thoughts on these types of assessment systems, and how we assess students in our schools, was actually launched in relationship to our district’s Innovative Schools Committee work. In looking at what we would like to share with the school board, in terms of where we should be heading as a learning organization, the ideas of how we assess our students kept creeping back into my head. How useful is the current assessment system? Who is the systems useful for? Are there alternatives to the current system? Are there more relevant tools that are more current for our current environment?

It just so happened at about the same time I started formulating and idea for an alternative assessment system, the following items were shared by some of the people and groups I follow online. “Why Badges Work Better Than Grades” by Cathy Davidson, and available here: http://www.hastac.org/blogs/cathy-davidson/why-badges-work-better-grades and “Badges in the real world - How badges lead to jobs, career advancement and new learning opportunities” by OpenMatt and available here: http://openmatt.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/badges-in-the-real-world/ These two posts only reinforced my thinking in terms of looking at alternatives for how we assess children in our schools.

As you have probably deduced from above, the alternative assessment system I am dreaming up is based on a type of badging system. The following chart compares what a badging system has to offer as compared to our current assessment system in our schools, specifically the school report card.

Badging Assessment System	Report Card Assessment System
Graphic, pictorial representation, strong desire to display and share badges.	Letter grades, A,B,C,D, F or O, S, N, U
No ceiling on achievements.	A+ is the highest you can go.
No ceiling on what can be measured.	Established by standards and governing organization.
Any person with a stake in the success of the learner can contribute assessments, including the learner themselves.	Teacher is the assessment contributor.
Higher degree of assessment relevance for learner.	Assessment record is limited in its relevance ability.
Assessment System can be deployed in multiple formats: specific content area, specific projects, theme/game based, etc.	Assessment system is standardized and predefined.
Assessment System lends itself to development of a culture, or foundation that can capitalize on human characteristics such as emotion, beauty, desire, creativity, etc.	Assessment system is limited in building culture or capitalizing on human characteristics
Fosters intrinsic motivation.	Foster extrinsic motivation.
Fosters greater degree of buy-in from learner.	Fosters limited buy-in from learner.
Assessment does not expire or is limited by a specific time period.	Assessment tool is limited by predetermined amount of time, grade level, or age.
Assessments can be tied to real-world experiences.	Assessment is tied to generalized content areas.

There are probably many more differences and a few similarities between the two types of assessment systems described above. Please feel free to share your ideas in the comments below.

I am a geek. So you should probably realize that another big component to my ideas on an alternative assessment system would involve a technology component. The technology component focuses on the deployment and management of an assessment system based on badges. To be honest, the technology component interested me just as much as the alternative assessment system idea. This idea provided me with an opportunity to take something from an idea to an actual “application,” putting my teaching methods courses in the area of mySQL, PHP, and application development to good use … yes, I’m half-way joking, but truly believe if teachers came out of teaching programs with the ability to program and create tools for their students, I can only imagine how powerful that would be in our schools.

Stay tuned for part II ...