Education technology and game-based learning resources, tool tips, innovative pedagogical musings, and general "thinkalouds" of a Digital Learning Consultant. Follow my educational journey on Instagram, X , Threads and Bluesky @watsonedtech, my Facebook Page (facebook.com/edtechelixirs), and the blog hashtag #edtechelixirs. Note that opinions are mine alone, and reviews/mentions of edtech products do not qualify as an endorsement. Subscribe to the blog at bit.ly/signupedtechelixirs.
Back in late August 2022 -- in what seems just an eyeblink ago -- I joined the Ohio Valley Educational Cooperative (OVEC) as part of the grant-funded "Deeper Learning Team." It's been a journey full of opportunities for learning, partnerships on innovative projects, and celebrations of the innovative teaching in the Bluegrass. Alas, the grant ends on September 30, 2024, and with it, my Deeper Learning Design Specialist position.
But I am incredibly fortunate that our CEO Jason Adkins, along with OVEC's Board, saw the value of the work many of my grant-funded colleagues achieved, and found it in their budget to create several new positions. So I'm very pleased to share that on the first of October, I will become OVEC's Digital Learning Consultant!
I strongly believe in OVEC's mission of "empowering educators so students thrive," and have grown to know many amazing colleagues. To be able to work here is a joy and a privilege. Besides continuing to be a thought partner and facilitate professional development, I am also thankful to still share the stories of innovative educators of our area, through this blog and my social media.
I'll end the entry with a link to my newly launched OVEC Digital Learning Consultant website. (It's also reachable via its shortcut ovec.org/digitallearning.) If you're looking to schedule a conversation on how I can support you, or register for the latest PDs I'm leading, please give it a visit!
In the last month, I've been fortunate to attend two conferences, and from both I've gotten good ideas for digital and game-based learning. In today's blog entry, I'll share my reflections with you!
Play Make Learn 2024
Play Make Learn is an annual conference first started in 2017, and is held at the beautiful University of Wisconsin campus in Madison, Wisconsin. True to its name, it's a drawing together of teachers, librarians, crafters, and digital and analog game publishers for the students of Kindergarten through higher ed. You'll see sessions and displays on everything from makerspaces to video games to looming(!) to tabletop roleplaying games. I went with my colleagues Jen and Amy; it was the first time any of us had gone, and we constantly remarked on the palpable joy in the air from presenters and attendees throughout the two day conference.
Some of the conference highlights included:
The Madison Public Library system shared findings from the beta testing of The Observation Deck, an intriguing platform that captures multimedia evidence of how library experiences impact patrons. Separate from the platform itself, I appreciated the "Starter Frameworks" that were shared; these could be inspiration for analog observation and classroom walk-through tools for instructional coaches and admin.
Playful Learning Landscapes discussed their community-focused approach to creating urban spaces that center around the "PLL Model" of the 5 Principles of Learning (Actively Engaging, Joyful, Iterative, Socially Interactive, Meaningful), The 6 C's Learning Goals (Collaboration, Communication, Content, Critical Thinking,Creative Innovation, Confidence), and Community Engagement. I particularly liked their downloadable "Playbook" (available in English and Spanish) with steps on how to implement a Playful Learning Landscape of your own as well as dozens of examples from America and around the world.
In a "Library Learning Innovations" three person panel presentation, lots of valuable ground was covered. Sam Abramovich talked through a brief history of genAI, along with the challenges and power it can bring to libraries. (He also introduced me to the phrase HOMAGO for the first time.) Rebecca Teasdale shared a preliminary framework for evaluating makerspaces. Lastly, Chris Baker (Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction's Public Library Consultant, and the lead organizer of the conference) shared evidence on the power of gaming (video, board, tabletop) in a library; among other resources, he highlighted WISELearn.
The Wisconsin Historical Society recently published Wisconsin Adventures, in honor of the 50th Anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons (which was launched from Lake Geneva, about 80 miles southeast of Madison). Wisconsin Adventures uses the same ruleset as D&D (i.e. it is "5e compatible"), and it leads players through quests inspired by urban legends, famous locations, and historical personages of the state. Even more impressive is how they aligned it to academic Core Content standards. At the end of the WHS session, its historians led us in small groups through a mini-adventure from their module. And that was just the first time I played D&D at PML....
Jen, Amy and I played a one-shot Dungeons & Dragons adventure designed to help introduce the game to new players. Jen and Amy may have never rolled the polyhedral dice before, but quickly caught on, and Amy even gave the killing blow to the end boss "Death Tyrant"!
While this was the second time I've attended Gen Con, it's the first time I have presented, alongside Shelby County Public School teacher Justin Gadd. The session was part of Trade Day, which occurs on the Wednesday before "The Best Four Days in Gaming" of the convention itself. The title of our presentation was "TTRPGs in Education: Cultivating Creativity and Critical Thinking in the Classroom." For his portion, Justin did wonderfully as he shared his classroom story of how tabletop role-playing games have positively impacted his students.
Justin Gadd, middle school teacher extraordinaire.
After Trade Day, I took off work for Thursday and Friday to enjoy some personal time wandering the halls, playing games, and seeing old friends like Dan Reem and Tom Gross from the podcast Teachers in the Dungeon!
I made several connections that could help a classroom:
In his session "No Apologies: Arguments and Examples of Analog Gaming as Effective Tools in Secondary Education," Shawn Thorgersen (a grade 7-12 English teacher and Assistant Principal in New York, as well as a PhD student at St. Johns University) discussed evidence-based research on the topic and some examples from his own classroom. Thorgersen's slides had a quote from S.S. Boocock that particularly lifted my heart:
Dr. Katie King, from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, led a session on "Using a TTRPG as a Professional Development Tool." She shared a project she is piloting, where grad students in a teacher prep program have their teacher "characters" engage in TTRPG scenarios as led by a "Classroom Master." As Dr. King pointed out, such role-playing is closest to the active form of student teaching and therefore more effective and authentic than the more passive learning of classroom observation or article reading. It definitely got my wheels turning on how a TTRPG could be the engagement model of a professional development session or series.
Limitless Adventures has a new solo adventure gamebook based on D&D 5e rules called Lost in the Dark. The book leads you through character creation, and from there, advances you through the story complete with dice rolls and monster encounters. Great for a classroom or school library for students to check out, or for enrichment time.
The Story Engine is a company that makes various card decks & expansion sets that can help build a narrative or world, with simple and intuitive rules. While originally made for TTRPG players or GMs, the decks can be excellent for brainstorming fiction, understanding geography, or collaboratively practicing what it's like to co-create a story. Additionally, they have free lesson plan resources! (While most of the lessons are aligned to middle and high school standards, others -- like the "9 Storytelling Activities" handout -- could be for any age group, depending on their literacy level and the supports given.)
I first met Tim Beach and his Start Here Roleplaying Gameback at the GAMA Expo in March. He had a presence at Gen Con too, where (as a Trade Day educator) I was able to get an early release of its box set gifted by Tim. The purpose of the game is to get people playing as quickly as possible, and from what I've seen of the game mechanics, this succeeds! The box set comes with both simple and expanded rules, along with several genre settings, from fantasy to "Wizards & Wranglers" (think Weird West) to "Zombiesaurus Rex" (think Jurassic Park mixed with The Walking Dead). The game should be available for ordering very soon. Until then, check out the Beach House RPG Facebook page for updates.
I've been a fan of 9th Level Games for a few years now, and I was excited to examine a new TTRPG they are about to publish aimed at elementary aged children: Venture Society. As their Kickstarter puts it, Venture Society is an "all ages, non-violent RPG focusing on building communication, social, & emotional skills" which utilizes 9th Level's "Polymorph" simple game system. It's available for pre-order and coming out this fall.
I will end with three words: Dice Petting Zoo. Well...perhaps that requires a bit more explanation. Tom Gross and I discovered a handcrafted wooden tray with dice at a booth advertising some D&D "stay and playcation" opportunities (Nat21 Adventures). The idea was so whimsical that I immediately began brainstorming how a Dice Petting Zoo could be a delightful addition to a classroom. It could provide an opportunity for calming and building culture. Imagine naming the various polyhedral "animals." Or having students whisper numbers to them as they try to solve a difficult math problem. Or for those that need to fiddle, taking them for a "walk" (roll!).
Of course, there was so many great experiences, tools, and products at Play Make Learn and Gen Con that this entry can only be considered a fly-by. For educators looking for inspiration on how game-based learning can work in a classroom, or need convincing about the power of play, I highly recommend checking out either or both conferences!
Welcome, and thank you for checking out my blog! I have been involved in education since 2005, but never seriously tried to blog before. My "About Me" profile sums up my educational background succinctly, but I will add that becoming the first District Technology Integration Coach of Shelby County is definitely the motivation to begin blogging now. Therefore, I am committed to making meaningful and ongoing posts, but most importantly, making my blog a useful resource for others.
That's how I started my first Edtech Elixirs blog entry exactly ten years ago, on August 1, 2014. It was a time of transition. I had thought I would be a classroom teacher forever, but an opportunity beckoned in another county and I began a district position that summer. I had the humblest of ambitions for the blog. It would be a place for me to collect resources for Shelby County Public Schools staff, perhaps opine here and there on education, and frankly, save time: when I thought a tool or strategy might help someone, I could simply drop a link to the appropriate blog entry in an email and click send.
But to my endless astonishment and appreciation, the audience for Edtech Elixirs kept growing and growing outside of Shelby, continuing into my newest job with OVEC that started in 2022. Along the way, I have blogged about some educational highs (like getting mentioned in Star Wars Insider!) and some lows (like when thousands of Kentucky educators got sent home in the middle of a conference to begin sheltering in place). It also has led to other writing opportunities. I've had my entries republished (thank you Aurora Institute's Laurie Gagnon and Eliot Levine!), but Edtech Elixirs has also opened doors to writing original articles (again, thanks to Laurie and Eliot, as well as Kristen Vogt from Next Generation Learning Challenges, and others).
Combined with my YouTube Channel, I crossed over a half million overall views in March 2024.
Lest anyone feel this entry is merely for vanity and bravado, I want to make my two purposes clear. I won't deny I'm proud (and surprised!) to still be writing Edtech Elixirs after a decade, and want to celebrate that fact, but capturing some of the numbers above is just a chance at statistical reflection; years ago, I was shocked when I hit a thousand views, and never thought writing even a hundred entries was possible. It's been an amazing, humbling journey! That leads to the second (and main) purpose of this entry, which is to give thanks. When I hit "Publish" for the first time ten years ago, I never could have dreamed this journey would still be continuing in 2024 -- and it is a journey only possible because of YOU. Every reader out there who ever took a few minutes to read my words, or shared/reposted a blog entry, I cannot express enough gratitude.
There are some announcements I'll be excited to share very soon on what's next on my horizon. For now, I'll simply repeat my thanks for all the edtech tools I've been able to play with, for all the learning partners I've made, for all the fascinating books I've read, for all the people I've had the good fortune to meet and be able to celebrate their stories, and once again, for all the readers. Here's to the next decade, in which I hope to remain "meaningful," "ongoing," and above all, "useful." Stay tuned!
As a former high school English teacher, I always felt pressured to provide useful, personalized feedback quickly. Digital tools like the Comment feature in Google Docs became popular just as I was leaving the classroom, and certainly shifted the paradigm when it came to giving "just in time" quality feedback.
Now, thanks to artificial intelligence, we are on the precipice of the next generation of digital feedback that can transform teaching. For some time now, genAI chatbots like ChatGPT already offer an augmented opportunity to comment on student writing -- if you are willing to engineer a prompt for what you are looking for, then copying and pasting each student essay into the tool, then copying and pasting any AI feedback you wished to share back with a student. (You can even include your rubric in your prompt, so you can get your feedback with a suggested assessment score.) This is free and helpful, albeit time consuming and clunky.
But now we enter what I am calling the "refurbished" phase of AI. In these newest AI tools, the programming is more hidden under the hood, while the interface is much more user friendly and less dependent on prompt engineering. And that leads us to the tool for today's entry: Snorkl. While its strength in providing feedback for solving math problems seems obvious, its potential for analyzing reflection and metacognition in multiple content areas is also apparent.
How does it work?
You can sign up free with a Google or Microsoft account. Snorkl will ask you whether you are a teacher or a student -- I'm not sure how easy it is to change this if you answer wrongly, or are wanting to see what the other side is like before trying to return to your standard role, so choose wisely.
Your home page is intuitively organized with several options. A "Getting Started" box provides light tutorials for how Snorkl works. Some videos to watch are in "Resources." You can explore premium plans; although a free account gives you unlimited classes and co-teachers, you have "limited" activities -- an actual number is not specified. Last but not least, you can create a class where you can then make activities for students (a share link for your activities makes it easy to get students jumping in).
Your Home tab. Note the tabs across the top for Classes and Library (see below).
What does Snorkl feel like for a student? In the pre-made "Try as a student!" section, several prompts are given so you can experience Snorkl for yourself, and reveal its potential for a wide range of content. For example, there's one for "Trig Ratios," and another that asks you to "Identify the author's feelings about New Orleans in this 4th grade ELA assignment." I was intrigued by the "Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich" activity -- a classic writing prompt I used years ago with students to show the importance of details when describing "how to" instructions -- so that's the one I chose.
When I opened it up, I first encountered the "Response Whiteboard."
The activity's instructions are in the upper right, which can also be read aloud to the student.
As you can see from the toolbar at the top of the whiteboard, there are several buttons that allow you to insert text, pictures, and formulas for your response; while you can use the mouse/trackpad to draw, it's probably not as natural as using your finger or stylus on a touchscreen device. (This is the same whiteboard interface the teacher uses when creating the activity prompt for students.) However, "Record Screen + Voice" is where the real magic of Snorkl resides. While you can write or draw to your heart's delight before hitting this button, you really can't submit your response unless you make a recording. That's because Snorkl takes what you say and converts it to text for the next step of the process. Of course, like any screencast, you could draw and type as you talk. (The first time you do this, you'll be prompted to give permission for Snorkl to use your microphone.)
Once you submit your response, Snorkl uses AI to, in effect, analyze your thinking out loud and tell you how well you did. The first time I responded I didn't doodle and simply talked through how to make a PB&J. After several seconds, I got back this screen:
The comments on the right are timestamped; click on the time and you can go straight to that part of the recording.
I have to admit, this had me pretty slack-jawed. You can play back your recording, with a running transcript in the form of captions. Snorkl provided some simple overall feedback ("Correct," "3/4 Strong") followed by impressively detailed commentary. Even the tone seemed appropriate -- Snorkl celebrated my strengths ("Great job on giving a detailed explanation...I love how you even included the part about opening the bread bag") while also providing me ways to improve ("Have you tried using the same knife for both the peanut butter and jelly?").
If you like, you can do another response, with either a clean whiteboard or pick up where you left off. These additional responses become a history that you can revisit and review, to see your growth over time.
The Portfolio tab shows how Snorkl can be a place for artifacts for learning; for example, imagine a student pulling out a response during a student-led conference with their parents.
Of course, teachers can review and play the videos of these submitted responses. Once several responses have been submitted, Snorkl's website suggests that a teacher will be able to see some class-level insights, such as "top exemplars" and "common misconceptions," but it is also possible such insights are only fully available as a premium feature.
Snorkl calls itself "a versatile tool for all subjects, used from elementary through college." As an additional nod beyond the "try as a student" examples indicated above, the platform also provides some pre-made activities in several content areas and grade levels in its Library.
The library bank already covers many grade levels, with more "coming soon."
Finally, for a video on getting started with Snorkl, watch the following (3:24):
How could you use it?
Students could be assigned a Snorkl task:
as a more interactive type of "flipped learning" homework
during class as part of a blended learning station rotation
at the end of class as a formative assessment exit slip to determine if they understood today's content (and give the teacher data on what misconceptions to address for tomorrow's class)
Downsides?
Snorkl offers some powerful features for free, so it is hard to find faults with the tool itself beyond just how many activities you can create at no cost, or the possible limitation of the drawing features if you don't have a touchscreen device. From a teacher's perspective, it truly can become a powerful "instructional aide" (not teacher replacer!) in your classroom. A more likely negative is about the potential for a teacher to overuse the tool, or use it without also checking student work in person. As always with edtech -- especially with AI -- practice moderation, oversight (it's not always right), and balance.
Have you used Snorkl, or a similar AI tool? Share your stories in the Comments below!
Recognizing that student energy is flagging in May, and that her U.S. History unit about the end of the Cold War and Reaganomics was a bit dry in the past, Lexie found an angle to gamify the learning. She took the element of "rolling up a character" in a TTRPG and had students create a person living in the 1980's. Lexie leaned into Canva for its presentation and video creation capabilities, alongside AI tools for image generation. Kicking off with an ElevenLabs-narrated video in full Valley Girl speak, Lexie made a slide deck to guide the students through a series of d20 rolls on random tables, starting with determining their socioeconomic status. Each random table roll brought a new financial crisis or opportunity that, in effect, shaped the life of their character. Students collected the narrative along the way on their character tracker sheet.
From a Bullitt County PD session led by Lexie, sharing her lesson.
At periodic moments, Lexie prompted the students to stop and have discussions. From the perspective of their characters (and those who felt comfortable doing so in first person), students considered and debated how their person would react to the latest event. The lesson took several days, and culminated in the students individually writing a reflective narrative/essay on the story of their character, making connections to the final days of the Cold War.
Today in US History! I’m trying something new and my rock star students are really showing up and out with their abilities! We are gamifying Reaganomics into a simulation (modified Elemental TTRPG) 🙌🏼 Day 1 has been GREAT! #DeeperLearning#ProductiveCollaborator#BCPSpic.twitter.com/KiQPiDokvs
— Lexie Bewley Gilley (@MrsGilleyUSHis) May 6, 2024
I have seen and shared the idea of using a character sheet from a popular published TTRPG for a deeper demonstration of learning (for example, filling out a sheet from the perspective of a historical person or literary character, then defending your stats and choices). However, Lexie's commitment of several academic days for this character generation lesson fostered an academically rich opportunity for students to really gain an empathetic POV of a person from another time period.
Lexie talked about expanding on TTRPG inclusion next year in U.S. History. Perhaps the students could roll up a time traveller at the start of the course, and several times throughout, the character plays through a scenario in a new historical period -- a little gaming, with a little "fish out of water" reflection! But for now, it's great to see teachers like Lexie try something new for her students. I can't wait to see what she'll do next!
It's another example of ChatGPT seemingly leapfrogging its competition. Since November 2022 when ChatGPT first broke through to the general public, other major generative AI platforms have come forward, but without as much fanfare. Microsoft's Copilot has an attractive user interface and, among other features, can generate accurate images inside of itself, allows voice-to-text input, and provides hyperlinks in responses, yet I hardly hear it as a person's first AI platform of choice. Google's AI went from Bard to the renamed branding of Gemini and was much like Copilot in its features. While Gemini and Copilot allows uploading of images, you can upload both text and image files to analyze or alter in ChatGPT. (A quick disclaimer: as you likely already know, AI is sometimes wrong and hallucinates. When it comes to inputs, I highly recommend trying prompts in multiple genAI platforms and comparing the results.)
But that was then, this is now. Gemini may have finally played its ace card with its latest upgrade, announced in a live webinar yesterday. (By registering, you can get access to the 45 minute archived recording.) Finally, Google seems poised to lean in on two of its major assets: its near-monopoly of education with its variously tiered domains, and having the world's most popular cloud-based productivity app suite.
Here are some of the highlights from the webinar. (Images are screenshots from the webinar unless otherwise noted.)
There is now a premium version of Gemini AI, one that can be incorporated across some of the core Google apps: Docs, Gmail, Slides, Sheets, and Meet. With the upgrade, AI help is just a button click away. This integration is likely a game-changer. Why pop open a new tab for another genAI when Gemini could be built right in?
However, for educational domain customers, Google recognizes there are special needs. Gemini will now offer, free of charge, several assurances: the data inputted from students and teachers will not be human reviewed, not be used to train AI models, and not be shared outside of their domain. (These three highly sought features are coming "soon," a phrase used several times in the webinar and in its various promotional material graphics.) For educators with privacy concerns, this alone might be a compelling reason for a school district to recommend Gemini over other genAI tools. Vivek Chachcha, Product Manager of Gemini Education, promises that the AI tool will help "save time," "make learning more personal," "inspire creativity," and help students "learn confidently" (by "empower[ing] students with guided support").
The webinar included several video examples of Gemini at work in various Google apps, and some shorter excepts of these videos are available separately on its Google for Education YouTube channel.
In this clip, an instructional coach uses Gemini to draft a professional development session agenda in Sheets (35 seconds):
In this last clip, a teacher inside of a Doc creates a first draft of feedback on a student's poem (47 seconds):
In a related tool revealed earlier this week, Google also has a "side panel" feature that will incorporate Gemini. This will basically allow the AI to look across your various apps and files in Google Drive in order to complete the task. (Currently, access to this side panel requires being enrolled in Google Workspace Labs, which will likely need the approval of your domain's admin.)
An example of Gemini's side panel, inside of my personal Google Drive.
Yes, yes, you may be saying, but what about the price?
First, it may be helpful to compare the current free Gemini chat AI (accessible in a separate tab, at its own URL) versus the new paid Gemini for Workspace:
Next, note that these paid licenses come at two different tiers of pricing. (The upper "Premium" license includes Gemini being able to have "advanced meetings" in Google Meet, a potential nod to the ChatGPT meeting summary/interaction feature mentioned at the start of this blog entry.) The good news: there is no minimum number of licenses you can purchase for users, and there is a discount if you order with a yearlong commitment before August 23, 2024. The bad news: these premium features do not come automatically with any current upgraded Education domain tier, although Education Plus customers can qualify for a bit more of a discount, again if ordered before August 23.
While the integration of Gemini across your Google apps does cost, it is easy to see how powerful the AI could be for Google Suite learners. If nothing else, it certainly gives Gemini an opportunity to jump to the front of the genAI competition line!
I'll end this blog entry with some Gemini resources:
For tech and IT friends, read this blog entry from "Workspace Updates" (5/23/24) for an official Google breakdown of Gemini for Google Workspace for Education's coming upgrades.
If you're interested in more of a general audience narrative of what's happening with Gemini in education, here's an entry from Google's blog on 5/16/24.
Looking for even more ways to use Gemini for Google Workspace in education, from Google itself? Check out these Slides from April 2024. The resources and tips include advice on writing better prompts, multiple visual examples of how to use Gemini in various apps, and help for domain admin.
Google offers some free online courses. Here's one I just completed myself, and I highly recommend for a low-stress walkthrough: "Get Started with Gemini for Google Workspace." (It requires logging in and allowing ExceedLMS to access your Google account, but again, it's free!)
One last thing: have a great summer and enjoy some time off!
As I previewed in a previous entry, I attended and presented at two conferences in March, but I've been busy since then and haven't taken the time to write a reflection on what I saw and encountered! So in today's entry, I'll share some highlights.
GAMA Expo
The international GAMA Expo was at the recently renovated Kentucky International Convention Center, the first of its three scheduled years in Louisville. I attended the day of my own presentation and the following day. Not surprisingly as it is mainly a closed-to-the-public industry trade show, the majority of sessions involved game publisher announcements, or ways for gameshop owners to improve their sales, marketing, community partnerships, and so on. In terms of help for education, it was mainly found on the exhibition floor where I walked the booths of various vendors and game publishers and discovered resources such as the following:
Academy Games have several historic board games, such as the 878 Vikings: Conquest of England and One Small Step (a "Space Race" simulation). From a classroom perspective, I was heartened to see many of them advertised as requiring "15+" number of players. Some of their games also offer a companion teacher's guide for sale, such as the Colonial Trilogy (first, second, and third) and Freedom: The Underground Railroad. It was this last game in particular that compelled me to initiate a long talk with Uwe Eickert, Freedom's designer. Players are abolitionists helping enslaved people escape to the North (meaning it avoids the problematic issues of players enacting the role of an oppressor or the oppressed), and as Uwe walked through the game's mechanics, "Freedom" seemed conscientiously honest in how it approaches, as Academy's catalog describes it, the "horrors and heroism" of the topic.
Beach House RPGs has Tim Beach as a Director, who wrote second edition D&D modules and expansion materials in the 1990's. Tim wanted to design a TTRPG ruleset that has a much easier entry point for a beginning player, and the result is Start Here. While the starter set has a default fantasy setting, other books include resources for sci-fi and other genres. Start Here could offer teachers a great opportunity to adapt a simple, flexible game mechanic for their classrooms! Materials will begin shipping in June 2024. For more information on acquiring the game, click here.
Liftoff 2.0: The Epic Space Race Simulation is a well-reviewed board game that has been around for over three decades (the first edition came out in 1989). It is grounded in real science content and historical accuracy, and offers enough roles for several teams of students to simulate the American and Soviet Union's race to the moon. According to its designer Fritz Bronner, Liftoff has been used in many classrooms. However, be warned: perhaps fittingly for its realistic take on managing a space program, the game seemed complicated with lots of token pieces, tables of outcomes, and rules.
I talked with Andy Hand and Mike Johnson from Limitless Adventures. They are huge fans of educators, and their "Limitless Encounters" card sets based on D&D fifth edition rules (such as The Blood Queen's Defiance, which Hand and Johnson were kind enough to gift me to review) offer an opportunity for students of an extracurricular club to "self-DM" a Dungeons & Dragons adventure. Teachers might also use these card sets as inspiration on how to automate their own classroom academic TTRPG modules.
I briefly spoke with Matthew Orr from Wet Ink Games. Wet Ink is a local Kentucky game publisher, and it's exciting to know the Bluegrass has such designers in its own backyard!
KySTE 2024
After missing the conference in 2023, I was excited to make it back to KySTE, as it returned to the Kentucky International Convention Center after years at the Galt House. Ironically, I presented in the same lower level room as I had at GAMA the week prior!
The attendees for my KySTE 2024 session.
Like GAMA, I attended KySTE on the day of my own session as well as the following day. While there were several standout sessions, I'll spotlight three.
In my last entry, I wrote about Chad Collins and his digitally infused, game-based design of the Spencer County Middle School "Academy Team" elective. Chad and Michelle Gross offered an expansive and detailed explanation of that course with their session "Play to Learn: Building a Class with Game-Based Design." Plus, they gave away what was easily the best swag I encountered at KySTE: bags with a d20 die and example "treasure cards" they use in their classes!
Keith Barnes, a Bullitt County digital learning coach, gave a thought-provoking presentation imploring us to "Go Beyond Using AI like a Magic 8 Ball." He reminded us that the students should do the thinking even as the AI may do the "work." In particular, the session centered on an intriguing perspective from a white paper by Drs. Ethan and Lilach Mollick that posited seven approaches for using artificial intelligence with students, with AI as Mentor, Tutor, Coach, Teammate, Student, Simulator, and/or Tool.
William King (Director of Technology) and Megan Marcum (Digital Learning Coach) from Bowling Green Independent district used the running metaphor of space missions to describe their PD facilitation of a digital learning teacher cohort in their session "Teach2Transform, a Field Guide to Building Better PD." Initially, William and Megan shared that only 47% of BGI staff thought the relevance of their PD was "very good" or "good," with relevance and continuity cited as the biggest barriers to BGI PD being effective. With these survey results in mind, William and Megan found success by creating a cohort meeting six half-days throughout the year during the school day, with the focus being succinctly summarized as giving teachers "time, resources, space, and help." Stipends were given for teachers to spend on resources for their classroom, although interestingly, they found stipends were not a primary motivational driver for the cohort. The participants' own personal goals were paramount, as well as William and Megan using high quality frameworks for contextualizing the digital learning (in this example, it was the McLeod/Graber "4 Shifts" and Hebern/Corippo's EduProtocols).
I'll end my highlights of KySTE 2024 with a great overview video, shot and edited (as always!) by STLP student engineers who also were the "IT help desk" throughout the conference:
Again, while these nearly back-to-back conferences made for a very busy March, I was glad for the opportunity to learn from so many people from so many places.
